Marrying a future doctor?

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perez639

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I am a cradle catholic and so is he. In our twenties.

We love each other, and are planning a small wedding in the coming year, but I am still struggling with his decision to become a surgeon. I support him but at the same time fear about how devoted he can be to our family when children come along and me, his wife. Am I self-centered for these concerns? Is faith in the Lord enough to get through this? Do I need to discern more before recieving the sacrament of marriage? He just finished a degree and has since decided to go to med school and so forth. So, he is currently doing pre reqs. We have a long way to go to say the least and quite frankly I am afraid.

I will be a nurse, registered soon and see a side of doctors that brings me great doubt when I think about family and personal life. They have to be there for their patients even if that means 80 hrs a week. Is this a small price to pay?

Prayers or advice would be greatly appreciated because I am suddenly unsure after 3 years of dating and making this relationship a healthy Catholic one. Or so I thought.
 
Being a doctor is a noble vocation and they deserve to get married also. I imagine a doctor’s wife is a little bit like the wife of a priest. Sometimes, the patients have to come first.

The other consideration for a marriage is that being a surgeon will take him about 12 years from the start of med school before he begins to make good income (and then the income will be VERY good). But in the meantime, it will be tough financially.

If you are meant to be married God will find a way to make it work.
 
Sure said:
I imagine a doctor’s wife is a little bit like the wife of a priest. Sometimes, the patients have to come first.
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I love this line of yours and do agree. I will try and work on patience. I hope that prayer and time will get me through this rut of doubt and negative thinking. I see the amazing and wonderful things both doctors and surgeons do but many times they appear obsessed or consumed with their career. I hope I am wrong here.
 
You are doing the work you need to do. You are honestly evaluating what his chosen career path means for your family life. More people should think about that stuff, long, hard, and in depth.

I can’t tell you what you should do. You have to decide what you can handle, what you are willing to put up with, how much deviation from your desired family concept you can take.

Personally, I would not want to marry a doctor. I want a man who will be around to father his children, not be away, constantly answering demands from everyone else. I imagine their wives feel like single mothers a lot of the time. That is not something I would choose.
 
duskyjewel said:
You have to decide what you can handle, what you are willing to put up with, how much deviation from your desired family concept you can take. QUOTE]

This is what I am worried about. The vision I have for family life. He was an English major and now believes his vocation is to become a surgeon. He wishes to marry me before he enters med school. How can anything I say interfere with his fervent desire?
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I am the daughter of a physician and the wife of an attorney/investment manager. Demanding jobs and demanding clients are present in every field. I am grateful to have been raised by a man and then married to a man who as a result of their ambitions and drive provide considerable security and comfort to their families. The best example I had growing up was a very strong and independent mother who was fully capable of standing on her own two feet during long hours of my father’s call schedule and managing the family, traveling, etc. on her own when necessary.

I have inherited a similar role and have probably spent the equivalent of years apart from my spouse due to education, work and travel demands. I have no regrets and we make a good team. It’s not for everyone, and if you are a gal who needs your husband in the door every night at 5:30 for dinner…good luck…because frankly there aren’t many of those careers out there anymore.
 
Very well said island oak. My DH spent tghe first ten years of our marriage building a succesful business. I have felt like a single mother many times.The harder he works the harder I work! We have learned to adjust and consider ourselves a team also. I also realize after 11 years of marriage we still love each other very much, and I think we are happier than many of our neihgbors and kids friends.(Just dropped DD#2 off at a friends house and the mom was a bit negative about her hubby)
I have noticed many moms make negative jokes about thier husbands, I just dont relate. So to answer your question. there could be benifits to this scenario- like being proud of your husbands accomplishments.
 
It is wonderful to read about the different opinions and life stories. Keep them coming!

That is something that I can already see that my fiance is trying to do that I am definitely overlooking. He wants to build a very stable future for his family and be satisfied with what he is doing. In the mean time it WILL be very difficult and I know that it is possible to stick it out with my humble degree of nursing. I am just a worrisome gal and inexperienced in life and how to make things work as well as possible.
 
Many women with less financially successful husbands are also very proud of their husband’s accomplishments and do not make spiteful comments or negative jokes.

My DH does not make a lot of money, but he has fun chasing the baby up the stairs and making her belly-laugh when he does. He has light saber battles with our sons. He helps the oldest draw the rivers of the U.S. on her geography homework. He is deeply and intimately involved in their lives. He loves and values them, and they concretely know it every day. He can’t buy them Abercromie or Adidas, but he enriches their lives with his care and his hands-on parenting. That is an accomplishment to be proud of. Our men are more than paychecks.

This is why I would rather my DH be home in time for dinner… not because I can’t stand on my own. Though if he gets deployed, I will have to.
 
Believe me I am not in it for the money. 😉 I want a husband who takes pride in being home sometimes. I realize it is too much to expect all the time. I was content with his English degree and am only afraid of the path he has now chosen. I do respect it but it does change what I had mind. I am 22 and dont want to get married and be home alone all the time.
 
perez639 said:
I am a cradle catholic and so is he. In our twenties.

We love each other, and are planning a small wedding in the coming year, but I am still struggling with his decision to become a surgeon. I support him but at the same time fear about how devoted he can be to our family when children come along and me, his wife. Am I self-centered for these concerns?
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Maybe you are self-centered. Maybe not. The fact that you are worried would seem to be a good reason to do some self-evaluation. None of us knows exactly what the future may hold but some of us find difficult what others take for granted or even enjoy.
perez639 said:
Is faith in the Lord enough to get through this? Do I need to discern more before recieving the sacrament of marriage? He just finished a degree and has since decided to go to med school and so forth. So, he is currently doing pre reqs. We have a long way to go to say the least and quite frankly I am afraid.
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As a previous poster mentioned, being married to a surgeon does come with it’s own special set of challenges.
perez639 said:
I will be a nurse, registered soon and see a side of doctors that brings me great doubt when I think about family and personal life. They have to be there for their patients even if that means 80 hrs a week. Is this a small price to pay?
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I don’t think it’s a small price. I think it’s a very big price. The question is whether or not you are able and/or willing to pay it.

If you want to marry this man you need to marry into the whole package. That means that you give up the luxury of complaining about his career.

If you are not willing to do so then you really do need to figure out whether or not you are being selfish or if you are really not called to marry this man. So now is a time to pray for guidance. And before you are married you can and should be a bit ‘selfish’ about assessing your strengths and needs. While it would be very difficult to break off a three year old relationship (and I’m not saying you should), it is much better to break a relationship now then to divorce later.
 
Sounds like you need some more discernment. You are not sure you want to be married to a man who is a surgeon, and he has just decided he wants to be one. He probably doesn’t even know what that entails. He was an English major? Good grief, he’ll be in college for EVER before he gets his medical degree.

So, the first question is do you want to support a husband who will be in school for the next 8 years before he’s able to support you? What are *your *priorities for having a family, career/job goals, work/life balance, money, etc.?

It isn’t the career field, it’s whether or not you and he match on the priority you give family, the ideas you have about work/family balance, and whether both his words and actions match. What do you and he think about these things? Are they the same? Do you share a vision?

He sounds like he is still “finding himself” to some extent.
 
1ke said:
It isn’t the career field, it’s whether or not you and he match on the priority you give family, the ideas you have about work/family balance, and whether both his words and actions match. What do you and he think about these things? Are they the same? Do you share a vision?
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This is what I dont know anymore. I cannot expect much from him these next 8 years. I can deal with that, but after that time frame it won’t end there it would be his life. Our words and intentions match but I dont know how it will all play out in the end. That is why I dont know if my faith and patience would be enough. I am afraid of placing all of my trust in that because no it does not match what I envisioned.
 
I know you don’t want to hear this… but you are only 22. There is no rush to get married. You have time for discernment.

Take that with a grain of salt, if you wish, as I was married at 22 and had my first baby before 23! 😛
 
My best friend’s sister married about three years ago - she has two children from a previous invalid “marriage”. She and her husband now have two children together (4 total), the most recent one being only a few months old.

After they married he decided that he wanted to go to medical school and become a doctor. I won’t lie to you and say that this is not putting a major amount of strain on their marriage. She is a SAHM and is happy to be only that - but it is very stressful and something to consider before hand.

Another thing to think of - what if you were married and a couple years down the road he decided that he wanted to take something on like this? What would you do if you were already married? How would it change things for you? Because you never can tell what another person is going to be called to later in life.

My own husband has considered becoming a permanent deacon. I know that commitment would require a tremendous amount of sacrifice from me. We don’t have children, so I can be very selfish when it comes to him, and with where we are right now at this moment in our marriage, I’m not so sure I would be ready to make that sacrifice myself - we would have to talk about it a lot to be sure.

Sorry there are no answers here for you in my post - only to say that you are very young and have a huge amount of time to figure this out. There is nothing that says you have to marry any time soon. Safer to wait and see how you feel about this after some time has passed and you have an opportunity to really consider your relationship and how much sacrifice is too much, and how much you are willing to make to be with him for the rest of your life.

~Liza
 
lizaanne said:
Another thing to think of - what if you were married and a couple years down the road he decided that he wanted to take something on like this? What would you do if you were already married? How would it change things for you? Because you never can tell what another person is going to be called to later in life.

~Liza
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A part of me believes that I would handle it all better because leaving would not be an option if I wasn’t 100% sure of his decision. I would stick it out. Since we are not married yet I am inclined to think about the what ifs, how will it work, or even question if we are completely right for each other.
 
Sounds like you need some more discernment. You are not sure you want to be married to a man who is a surgeon, and he has just decided he wants to be one. He probably doesn’t even know what that entails. He was an English major? Good grief, he’ll be in college for EVER before he gets his medical degree.
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Let’s give the guy some credit here! He may well know what medical school entails. There are lots of folks who enter medical school with English, or Theatre, or History degrees. He may have taken all of the required coursework for med school along with the English major- it’s not that hard to do- or he may only have a few classes to go. We just don’t know.
So, the first question is do you want to support a husband who will be in school for the next 8 years before he’s able to support you? What are *your *priorities for having a family, career/job goals, work/life balance, money, etc.?
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Actually, the *four *years of med school are the only ones you pay for. After that, you’re in residency and while the pay is slim (especially if you calculate it per hour!), you are paid enough to live on (and support a small family on, no less). I agree: focus on what your priorities are, and if they match with his. The 10 years of med school plus residency might be endurable if this is truly his calling – you know these years are finite. My question would be what his thoughts are on practice after training. You *can *find positions, even as a surgeon, with reasonable work hours. The trade off? Money. You won’t get paid nearly as much, you probably won’t have status and publications, you won’t be the star of the hospital. Do those things matter to your boyfriend?

Also, it is much easier to find work-life balance within some areas of surgery than others. Is he interested in transplant or pediatric neurosurgery? That’s a heck of a lot harder to mesh with attending all of your son’s little league games than being a general surgeon who can trade call with a large group of physicians. Again, the trade off? Money and status.
 
Perez asked in the OP when talking about marrying a guy that wants to be a doctor-
Is faith in the Lord enough to get through this?
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YES.
 
smallcat said:
Let’s give the guy some credit here! He may well know what medical school entails. There are lots of folks who enter medical school with English, or Theatre, or History degrees. He may have taken all of the required coursework for med school along with the English major- it’s not that hard to do- or he may only have a few classes to go. We just don’t know.
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Yes, we do know. She stated he **just **decided he wanted to go to med school and he is currently starting to take prerequisites. So, he wasn’t an English major taking med school coursework with a plan to go to med school.

This will be a very long haul for them as a married couple.

I’m not saying “do it” and I’m not saying “don’t”. I’m saying that she doesn’t sound convinced this is the life she wants and she needs to think hard about it b/c it is forever.
 
perez639 said:
I am a cradle catholic and so is he. In our twenties.

We love each other, and are planning a small wedding in the coming year, but I am still struggling with his decision to become a surgeon. I support him but at the same time fear about how devoted he can be to our family when children come along and me, his wife. Am I self-centered for these concerns? Is faith in the Lord enough to get through this? Do I need to discern more before recieving the sacrament of marriage? He just finished a degree and has since decided to go to med school and so forth. So, he is currently doing pre reqs. We have a long way to go to say the least and quite frankly I am afraid.

I will be a nurse, registered soon and see a side of doctors that brings me great doubt when I think about family and personal life. They have to be there for their patients even if that means 80 hrs a week. Is this a small price to pay?

Prayers or advice would be greatly appreciated because I am suddenly unsure after 3 years of dating and making this relationship a healthy Catholic one. Or so I thought.
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Hi,
Communicate with him and let him know about your concerns. Ask about how he will deal with this in case his job becomes inevitably demanding. Three years is a long time and if you’ve been doing everything according to the will of God then his response to your questions will be sweet words of love coming from a potential husband.

But hey, being a nurse can be demanding too. Night shifts might make you unavailable for when the kids demand bedtime stories. 😛

Again, if in the whole three years, you and your boyfriend were under the same page, that is building a Catholic family in the future, then there’s nothing to worry about.

May God bless your relationship.

😃
 
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