I recently celebrated my 6th anniversary with my husband, Nicholas.  I can’t believe we’ve been married for six years!  We got married when we were both 22 years old, which to most people, seems very young.  We dated for 10 months before we got engaged, and we got married exactly one year later, which to most people, seems very fast.  But marrying Nicholas was undoubtedly the best decision I’ve ever made.

We started dating in college.  The first time we discussed marriage, I told Nick that I wanted to wait until I was finished with medical school before getting married.  That quickly changed as I realized that Nick was the one for me.  We weren’t even finished with college by the time we got married!  But Nick knew from Day 1 that I wanted to be a doctor.  He never questioned it.  He never asked me to reconsider.  When I got my first rejection letter, he was the one who encouraged me to try again.  He was there for me during interviews and when I finally got accepted.  He moved to the middle of nowhere Missouri with me for the first two years of medical school, and then he drove halfway across the country in a moving truck with me for my last two years.  And now that I’m in the most difficult year of my training yet, he watches our daughter when I work nights or weekends.  He cancels flights and rearranges schedules to pick her up from daycare when I have to work late.  And the only thing he has ever complained about is that he just wishes he could spend more time with me.

The life of a doctor is not a simple one.  It’s not an easy one.  And it’s not one that many people understand.  Being a doctor is one thing, but being married to a doctor is a different thing entirely.  I’m not sure if Nick knew what he was getting himself into when he married me.  Sometimes I question whether or not he did.  How could he know our life would be this crazy and chaotic?  Would he still marry me if he did?

I’m so proud of my accomplishments in life.  I worked very hard for years and years to become a doctor, and every day is a struggle.  But being a doctor is nothing compared to being a wife.  Being a wife is probably the toughest role I have.  It takes the most work and the most effort.  And it usually falls lowest on my list of priorities.  I have patients to take care of at work.  I have a daughter to take care of when I get home.  I have a house to clean and bills that need to be paid.  And at some point I just need some “me” time.  It’s so easy to forget to make my husband a priority.

I don’t know how I got so lucky to find such a supportive man to marry me.  Our marriage has endured more than most in these past six years.  It seems impossible that a pilot and a doctor could ever make it work, but I wouldn’t trade my husband for anyone else in the world.  I think someday when we are old and grey we will look back on our marriage together and wonder how we ever did it.