It Takes Two

Any married couple will tell you that it takes a lot of work to keep a marriage going strong. Sure, it's a little easier when you know you married the love of your life and your soulmate, but a lot more than just love goes into making the relationship stand the test of time. My husband and I haven't been married that long, but with both of us going through grad school, moving constantly, getting new jobs, having a child... we're certainly not free of stressors on our relationship.

The hubby and I at the top of Blarney castle in Ireland.

The most important factor in maintaining a healthy marriage and being able to communicate when things aren't going well. My husband and I got to a point at the end of my last rotation where we both admitted to each other that we weren't happy with how little time we had for each other. I find it takes a lot of courage to really admit when there's a problem and I'm proud that we were both able to verbalize this and discuss what we needed to do to fix it. But then again, I'm not really surprised because we've always been open and honest about things from day one.

So after identifying that our lack of actual alone time together was our primary issue, we needed to figure out a way to remedy the situation. I keep having to remind each other that with a child and demanding careers, we're certainly not going to find any extra hours in a day and it's a matter of taking advantage of what little time we do get. So we threw the parental guilt aside and arranged for the little bug to go have a playdate with his slightly older girlfriend (by older, I mean three months), while we spent our day off together.

Now it always amazed me to have a "day off". I mean, what do people do when they're not working? Or better yet, what do people who don't work do? Well, for a couple like us, who didn't want to spend much money or go very far, we opted to simply go out to lunch. Then we were going to see a movie, but nothing really good was playing. So we had an even better idea of buying a movie, blowing up our air mattress in our living room, and getting comfy while enjoying our new flick. It sounds so simple, like something we could have easily done any day, but really it was some much needed relaxation (without a toddler screaming in our ears or jumping all over us).

Not to say that quality couple time always requires us to drop the little guy off with a sitter. Today for instance, I'm lucky enough to have the afternoon off. So we're going as a family to our local museum. The point is, just to make sure you take advantage of the times you are together and not just sit in front of the TV or on your computers. I know it's going to be a struggle entering residency and working a lot more hours, but keeping a happy marriage is an important part of being healthy and also being a good example to my child.