Your significant other is just beginning to start their first year of med school. While you are probably very proud of them and are currently supporting them through their first year jitters, you are probably thinking in the back of your mind: how is this going to affect our relationship? There are a lot of changes and challenges that can arise through a relationship with someone in med school, but this article focuses on one thing that can be most detrimental to a relationship: doubt.
Your relationship has now become a long distance one, which is hard enough, but now you’ve added med school into the equation. This can make the relationship even harder. Your significant other will notice many fellow classmates who will have entered the year in a relationship much like your own. As the first year progresses, the number of these relationships will drop fairly quickly as the stress and time commitment of med school takes its toll.
This may scare you and your significant other as you may begin to wonder if this will happen to your own relationship. You may even begin to wonder if the relationship is even worth it or if it would be better to put the relationship on hold until after med school. Med school will eat away at your significant other’s time and patience. The lack of time you get with your significant other, along with them being stressed or on edge, will only seem to confirm your worries. As a result, you may even question if your significant other still cares about you, if they still love you, or even if they have been cheating on you. These are all doubts about the relationship. Being apart from one another increases the odds and variety of doubt.
This does not mean that the lack of distance is the answer to a successful relationship. This actually means the answer to a successful relationship is communication; as well as trust. Why? Because communication and trust extinguish doubt in a relationship. Those in a traditional relationship are physically together more and as a result are more likely to communicate more often without even thinking about it. Communication in long distance relationships takes effort and commitment. This is why long distance relationships do not seem to work as well as traditional ones. This also why med school can be so hard on a relationship as there is less time to communicate than normal.
Having doubts does not mean your relationship is doomed. It’s perfectly natural to doubt, to fear, and to wonder. Doubt only becomes a problem when we ignore it; when we push it aside. This is because if your doubt isn’t addressed, it will never go away. After time that doubt will grow and eventually become something you fully believe. It will not happen overnight, it may take a while, but it will happen.
Our mind can play tricks on us and the fear that results from doubt can be enough to create emotions within us; such as, feeling defensive, angry, or distrusting. These emotions can then cause us to do stupid things. Next thing you know, you and your significant other are constantly fighting and you don’t know why. The reason can be traced back to that doubt you never got rid of. So the question then becomes: how does communication and trust extinguish doubt? Communication is first when it comes to the two most important things in a relationship. Good communication allows two people to stay on the same page. Communication also allows two people to get back on the same page if there is a mishap. Being on the same page means there isn’t room for doubt. You know what your significant other is thinking and how they feel.
Trust is second on the list. You might think this should go first, but without consistently good communication there can be no trust. Trust fights away that doubt in the back of your mind. When your significant other isn’t available to remind you they love you, trust reminds you for them until they can. Communication errors will happen no matter the level of communication between a couple. Trust helps a couple get back on the same page quicker and with less problems. Remember, doubt about your relationship is nothing to worry about. It’s natural. If you are experiencing doubt now, then that’s great, because you’ve recognized the doubt. Now you are able to deal with it. Talk with your significant other about your doubt. Allow them to work it out with you. The two of you are the only people who can drive that doubt away for good.
Though it can be hard in med school, keep the communication constant and work on developing the strength of your communication within your relationship. It is important to constantly remind each other that you love each other and how important the relationship is to you. There won’t be as much time to talk as there was before med school started. You need to be understanding of that. That potentially could be the hardest thing to get used to. Also realize that sometimes your significant other might want catch up on sleep or go hang out with friends rather than talk on the phone or video chat with you. That’s okay. Don’t take it personally. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to spend time with you. It just means they need an outlet; a way to unwind after the stresses of med school. As long as you two still find time to communicate throughout the week, your significant other taking a break from spending time with you to do other things isn’t an issue.
From an individual stand point, patience and being understanding are the keys for your relationship to survive with someone who is trying to survive med school. Remember that. Also remember the two keys for two people to survive a long distance relationship: communication and trust. Those two keys are the only thing that will allow the two of you to extinguish doubt and to keep from becoming a failed long distance statistic. Stay on the same page with communication, trust each other, and your relationship will have no problem surviving long distance and med school; there’s no doubt about that.
From the significant other
Long-distance