Resident spouse doesn't want to do couple therapy with current medical student

[hepato_majalis]

Hey there,

My husband and I have been married since he got in medical school. I went straight to the workforce while he continued medical school right out of college. I've been supporting him in any way I can during his med school and residency years but honestly I can't say the same to him. It is good that he's prioritizing his career but during those years, I felt more like a maid doing his chores and taking care of the family than his partner. He never showed up to any of my work's parties (study excuses), never wanted to hang out with my friends or my coworkers. He is the perfect med student who puts in 12 hours a day every day for 4 years with perfect STEP scores and clerkship grades. Then, I made a career change and decided to go to medical school. Took me a long time to get in since I was a bad test taker. During this time, he never helped with studying or even encouraged med school. He even said that he did not think I had what it took to become doctor due to my bad test taking skills, and other qualities. He frequently said mean things to me, I wouldn't say it was verbal abuse but I definitely was crying a lot at night. I thought about divorce every other months. I asked him to do couple therapy the 2nd year we got married. I went there alone.

Then I got to med school 2 years ago. Suddenly, I did not have to do anyone's chores anymore. He started to respect me more but again, still thought that I was so lucky to get in. I had my first panic attack during my 1st OSCE in MS1 because he told me that "not being able to differentiate heart murmurs is unacceptable". That was me 2 months into med school. I called the crisis help line after talking to him, thinking that I failed that OSCE. I scheduled appointments with my PCP and an audiologist to find out if my hearing was impaired. And guess what? My hearing is better than normal ppl of my age and heart murmurs are freaking hard to tell for any 2- month -in med students...Whenever I need help with any concepts, he talks like I'm his med student on the rotations. I had to google 80% of what he said to understand what he was trying to teach me. In the end, I figured out that it's best to ask tutors or classmates than him because of time wasting on google search.

Then Covid hit us. He's one of the front line healthcare professionals and I stay at home doing preclinical studies. The situation at home starts to reverse back to those years. He started to say mean things again, asked me to help with his laundry, cooking, etc. I am definitely jealous of classmates who have parents supporting them at this time and here I am, washing someone else's dishes. I asked him to do couple therapy. He kept pushing it. He acknowledged that he has not been treating me right but he needs time to get over this pandemic. I started talking divorce and can't focus on my studying. Is it inappropriate for me to behave this way? Should I just forget everything to focus on my schooling?

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[Mad Jack]

No one here can tell you how to live your life. Your relationship sounds quite unhealthy though, like, I wouldn't talk to any medical student that way let alone my own spouse. If a student doesn't know something, you teach them, you don't tell them their performance is unacceptable and provide no guidance. Life in the hospital is tough right now but it's not acceptable to take that stress out on a spouse. It's a lot of red flags.

 

[deleted480308]

You can’t control others actions, you can only control your own. You do however get to set standards for continuing in certain relationships with you.

handle your own mental health, get a LOA from school if you can’t handle your mental health

separate from that, decide on the expectations you will demand from a husband

 

[that redhead]

So in a nutshell, your husband is treating you poorly (and acknowledges this himself) and refuses to even attempt to make things right through therapy. Perhaps the stress of the pandemic is driving this, but there are plenty of people who are remaining civil and respectful to their spouses despite it. The fact that you’ve considered divorce so often is enough of an indicator of what you really want to have happen here; there is no shame in ending a relationship with a person who is treating you as less-than (for any reason).

 

[J ROD]

He sounds like a self-absorbed dingus. You know what you need to do. Divorce him and move on and focus on your career.

 

[calivianya]

I don’t know if you’re still checking here but I just thought I’d offer my perspective in case you are. I got divorced last year - the summer between OMS-1 and OMS-2. It wasn’t my choice - he cheated and didn’t want to work it out.

It takes a bigger emotional toll than you might realize up front. If you do decide to divorce, I would strongly advise considering a leave of absence for a year if you think you want a competitive specialty and need your record to be as shiny as possible. I know it sounds nuts, you literally couldn’t have told me this last year because I would have laughed at you. There’s no way I would take a year off or even need to! I was going to be absolutely fine and was actually going to be even better off than before without 250 pounds of “baggage” dragging me down!

However, now that I’m in my dedicated study period for step 1/level 1, I realize I was so depressed over everything that I just pumped and dumped information all of M2 year because I couldn’t focus worth crap, and I’m having to essentially re-learn everything. It’s not a good feeling. Consider taking the year off, because you only get to do this once.

 

[Laradd]

That is hard situation of yours, but if he treats you poorly then let him go, you deserve someone better!