You knew medicine would be demanding.
You knew there would be long hours, call nights, exams, and pressure.
But you probably didn’t know what it would feel like when your partner disappeared into a 14-hour shift… again. Or what it would be like to stand at a holiday barbecue or church alone while people ask, “Where’s your husband?” for the fifth time this month.
You might have expected exhaustion.
Maybe even stress.
You might not have expected the quiet grief of watching your own dreams get squeezed to the edges while everyone tells you, “It’ll be better when training is over.”
This article is adapted from Episode 1 of the Supporting Physician Spouses podcast. In this first part of a three-part series, we’re sharing who we are, why we started the show, and the support we assumed would be there, but wasn’t.
Two Perspectives, Same Storm
We (Kendra and Katie) live in very different seasons of this physician spouse life, but the feelings underneath are surprisingly similar.
Katie: In the Thick of Training
Katie lives in Washington state. Her husband is a family medicine resident in his final year. Their kids are all young, two in elementary school and a preschooler.
With every move for medical school and residency, she’s restarted jobs she loved and then had to leave them. She’s had babies during school and training. She’s spent holidays and milestones solo while he studied or worked.
On paper, she knew:
- It would be hard.
- There would be long hours.
- It was “like a marathon.”
But the internal experience, the narrative in her head when she’s alone at yet another family event, or when he needs four more hours of study time after the kids go to bed, that’s what surprised her. The isolation. The mental ping-pong between “I chose this” and “I didn’t choose this.”
Kendra: Eleven Years Out… and Still Learning
Kendra is on the other side of training. Her husband is a practicing neurosurgeon. They have five kids ranging from young adult down to elementary school. On paper, they have the life that so many physician families are told is “the finish line.”
And yet, even 11 years out, time is still one of the biggest stressors.
He leaves before she wakes up and rolls home late in the evenings. During training, all their energy was focused on “just get to the finish line”: six years of residency, then a year of fellowship. They never learned how to build time into their relationship.
After training, they realized they’d built survival habits, not thriving habits. Those habits didn’t disappear just because the paycheck got bigger. And that became one of the reasons this podcast, and this space, exists: to talk honestly about what life in medicine actually feels like for the people at home.
The Support That Should Exist—But Often Doesn’t
One of the biggest shocks for Kendra was how little institutional support existed for physician families.
Her family includes people in the military and in law enforcement. Those worlds are far from perfect, but there are systems:
- Family readiness groups
- Counseling resources
- Structured support for spouses
- Built-in recognition that the job impacts the whole family
So she assumed medicine, another high-demand, high-stakes profession, would have something similar.
Instead, she found almost nothing.
- No default place to go as a spouse
- No clear recognition that you’re also carrying a heavy load
- No roadmap for navigating the unique combination of long training, high stress, and emotional fallout
You might feel:
- Like everything is built around the physician, and you’re supposed to “just handle it”
- Unsure where to go with your questions or your anger
- Guilty for even wanting support because “you’re not the one in the hospital”
If that’s you, nothing is wrong with you. The system was simply not built with you in mind.
That gap between the weight you carry and the support you receive, is one of the core reasons the Supporting Physician Spouses podcast exists. We can’t fix the system overnight. But we can make sure you don’t have to figure it all out alone.
How to Put This Into Practice (For This Season You’re In)
You might not be able to change your circumstances right now, but you can shift how supported and resourced you feel inside them.
Here are a few small, concrete ways to start.
1. Name Your Reality Without Sugarcoating It
Write down one sentence that describes your current season, as honestly as possible:
- “We’re in intern year with two toddlers and no family nearby.”
- “We’re 10 years out of training, and work still dominates our life.”
- “We’re in fellowship in a new city and I’m starting over again.”
Let yourself see, in black and white, why this feels heavy. You’re not “too sensitive”, your life is objectively demanding.
2. Map Your Actual Support (Not Just What Should Exist)
Grab a piece of paper and create three columns:
- People – anyone you can text, call, or lean on
- Places – physical or digital spaces that feel grounding (a park, a group chat, a faith community, an online group)
- Practices – things you do that help you exhale (a walk, journaling, reading, prayer, coffee in the car alone)
Your list might be short. That’s okay. The point isn’t to judge it—it’s to get clear on what’s real, so you can see:
- Where you do have more support than you realized
- Where you might want to intentionally add one small thing
3. Have One Honest Conversation With Your Spouse
When the timing is as good as it’s going to get (not in the middle of a meltdown or post-night shift), try something like:
“I know your job is intense and you carry a lot. I also want to tell you what this is like on my side, not because I blame you, but because I want us to feel like a team.”
Then share:
- One thing that feels particularly heavy
- One thing you appreciate about them
- One small request that would help you feel more supported (even if they can’t fix everything)
This isn’t about them swooping in with a solution. It’s about you being known in your own life.
4. Lower the Bar for Connection
Support doesn’t have to look like big, structured events or perfectly coordinated date nights.
It might look like:
- A 10-minute debrief while you fold laundry together
- A weekly check-in text with another physician spouse
- Saying yes when someone offers help, instead of automatically saying, “We’re fine”
Small, steady touches of connection are often more realistic in medical life than grand gestures, and they count.
You Deserve Support, Too
If you’ve ever thought:
- “I shouldn’t be struggling; I’m not the one in residency.”
- “Other people have it harder; I should just be grateful.”
- “I guess this is just what I signed up for.”
…we want you to hear this clearly:
You are not “extra” or “dramatic” for wanting support.
You are a human living inside a system that expects a lot from you and offers very little back.
This is exactly why we started the Supporting Physician Spouses podcast, to carve out a space where your experience is taken seriously and where you can feel less alone in all the complexity.
Ready for More?
🎧 Listen to Episode 1: Getting to Know Katie and Kendra: What Surprised Us and What We Weren’t Prepared For
In the episode, we go deeper into our stories and the heart behind this project.
👉 And in Part 2 of this blog series, we’ll talk about the loneliness no one prepares you for, why medical life is more like an ultra-marathon than a marathon, and how to slowly rebuild a life that includes you again.
