Who We Are

Life as a medical wife can sometimes be difficult. Many women struggle with resentment, exhaustion, loneliness and isolation. They've often been uprooted from their families and moved away from home, in order for their husband to build his career. For those who have children, they often feel like a single mom with almost all the childrearing responsibility falling on them.

That's where Side by Side steps in. We believe there is something unique about the support other medical wives can offer each other. We offer women a place where people understand what they are going through, where they find friends and surrogate family members, where they find help and companionship.

Side by Side is a national outreach ministry to medical wives, including all wives of medical and dental students, residents, fellows, as well as the wives of practicing physicians and dentists. It is non-denominational and evangelical in nature. Founded in Rochester, MN, it is now a branch of Christian Medical/Dental Association.

Marriage Moment: Handling Disagreements in a Mature Way

Sarah Groves describes it well in her song, It's Me, "Weather came and caught us off guard/ we were just laughing and feelin' alright/ had such a great time just last night/ we walked into a minefield undetected/ you took a tone and I took offense/ anger replacing all common sense/ oh run for your life/ all tenderness is gone/ in the blink of an eye/ all good will has withdrawn/..."

It's so true! It happens so quickly. You took a tone and I took offense. How many times has that happened in your marriage? The next thing you know, you are pulling back. You want to protect your heart so you move away from the hurt. I've done it, have you?

Gary Thomas writes in his book, Sacred Marriage. The chapter is called, "Falling Forward".
"Many years ago, I and a few close friends celebrated our high school graduation by hiking on Mount Rainier. Before I attempted to jump a fast-moving creek, one of my friends advised me, "Just make sure you fall forward." The advise was well heeded. Even if I didn't make the jump, as long as I kept my momentum going forward, I wouldn't be swept into the stream.
The advice has stayed with me down through the years, as I believe that Christian marriage is also about learning to fall forward. Obstacles arise, anger flares up, and weariness dulls our feelings and our senses. When this happens the spiritually immature respond by pulling back, becoming more distant from their spouse, or even seeking to start over with somebody "more exciting" Yet maturity is reached by continuing to move forward past the pain and apathy. 'Falls are inevitable. We can't control that, but we can control the direction in which we fall--toward or away from our spouse.
When disagreements arise, the natural tendency is to flee. Rather than work through the misunderstanding, (or sin), we typically take a much more economical path--we search for another church, another job, friend, spouse, etc. Mature adults realize that every relationship involves conflict, confession and forgiveness. ...The absence of conflict demonstrates that either the relationship isn't important enough to fight over or that both individuals are too insecure to risk disagreement.
Conflict provides an avenue for spiritual growth. To resolve conflict, by definition we must become more engaged, not less. Just when we want to "tell the other person off, " we are forced to be quiet and listen to their complaint. Just when we are most eager to make ourselves understood, we must strive to understand. Just when we seek to air our grievances, we must labor to comprehend another's hurt. Just when we want to point out the fallacies and abusive behaviour to someone else, we must ruthlessly evaluate our own offensive attitudes and behaviors.
It's this self-emptying act of understanding that explains how successfully negotiated conflict creates an even stronger bond in the end. " (Again, the above was taken from Gary Thomas's book, Sacred Marriage)

I recently heard one of our new Side by Side medical student's spouse, Kristen Gonzelas describe this very thing when she and her husband, Vince, were newly married. This is her story:

"My husband and I moved to Boston just 2 weeks after getting married in our pursuit of medical school. We did not have any family or friends out there but felt it would be a fresh new start into our marriage. We moved into a 600 sq. foot apartment and quickly learned that privacy did not exist in our new home. When we would argue or have a fight, we soon realized that neither one of us had a place to retreat. Sitting down, listening and discussing our difference of opinions was the only way to resolve our problems. Living there for 2 years and establishing this direct approach of working out of problems, brought us closer than we could have imagined. We are not only each others spouses but we became each others best friends. I wouldn't trade those tight quarters for anything as they brought my husband and I to be an even stronger couple."

Next time conflict arises and you are tempted to flee or become defensive, move toward your spouse and talk through your differences instead.

Beth

Point of Grace - Love and Laundry

Since we are discussing Intimate Issues in our meetings, I found this song to be very applicable to our topics of discussion! This is Point of Grace's video for their song - listen to the words. It's a fun and upbeat way to describe how crazy our lives as moms can often get. Enjoy!

~Julie

Marriage Moment: Growing in Intimacy





I'll never forget the anniversary Steve and I celebrated a few years ago. Steve and I had so much fun over lunch talking and laughing. His eyes showed so much excitement when he looked into mine. It should have been my first clue that he was up to something. We got back into the car and headed on the highway only he got on the highway in the wrong direction from where home was. When I asked him about it he replied, "Surprise, you're not going home. I made reservations at a hotel tonight." I was so excited and scared to find out where and what clothes he had brought for me. He had made reservations at our favorite hotel, "The Inn at Honey Run". When I asked him about clothing he replied. "Well remember the big box I put in the car." Then I remembered getting into the car before lunch and hearing him say, "Just a minute, I need to get somethings to take back to the hospital." He was so intent on making sure this would be a surprise that in the few minutes I waited int he car, he told me that he ran to the basement, grabbed a box marked "gauze", dropped it on our closet floor and proceeded to grab some things from my dresser drawer and closet for me in 30 seconds. I laughed until I cried when I realized what he had grabbed. I had just washed all my underwear and they were not back in the drawer as yet so I knew he didn't have any of those, but he had thrown in 4 bras and a bunch of tights. He grabbed my little black dress but no shoes to match and my new sweater but nothing else to wear it with. Make-up but not all of it. While I waited in our hotel room for him to go out to the car and bring in "our box" of clothing, I reflected on how loved I was to have a husband who went through all this trouble to express his love for me by making sure our kids were cared for, getting reservations, ordering flowers to be delivered to our room along with our favorite drink, purchasing small thoughtful gifts (along with a new teddy) for me during our stay and making sure I was kept surprised about the whole thing.

I was blown away. Our marriage had not always been this fun, intimate, spontaneous. In fact, there were years that our marriage was a source of stress and pain for us, we both felt very unloved, there were serious red flags that concerned me, and because of all this we both felt very lonely although we were living together. In fact, I asked Steve once, "How did you feel during the time I either tolerated or rejected your need for sex?" He slowly and thoughtfully responded, "I felt lonely, used, rejected, hurt." I was in shock for two reasons. First because I had no idea he felt that way and second because I would have used the same adjectives to describe how I was feeling. Why is it that we live lives of lonely desperation? I think it's because we fear risking our hearts to the other person. This is how my daughter, Summer put it, "When we shut ourselves down, control, close our hearts to risk, we close our hearts to the joy. We flat line."

A Focus on the Family newsletter sent September 2002 reported the following: "Using data fromt he National Survey of Family and Households (a nationally representative survey with a wide-ranging data set looking at all kinds of family outcomes, including happiness) the reserach team studied 5,232 married adults who were interviewed in the late 1980s. Of these individuals, 645 reported being unhappily married. Five years later, these same adults--some of whom had divorced or separated and some of whom had stayed married-were interviewed again.
The results of these interviews were astounding. They revealed that a full two-thirds of the unhappily married spouses who stayed married were actually happier five yers later! Among those who initially rated their marriages as "very unhappy," but remained together, nearly 80 percent considered themselves "happily married" and "much happier" five years later.

Surprisingly, the opposite is found to be true for those who divorced. The Institute for American Values study confirmed that divorce frequently fails to make people happy because, while it might provide a respite fromt he pain associated with a bad marriage, it also introduces a host of complex new emotional and psychological difficulties over which the parties involved have little control. They include child-custody battles, emotionally scarred children, economic hardships, loneliness, future romantic disappointments and so on. this helps explain why of all the unhappy spouses in the initial survey, only 19 percent of those who got divorced or separated were happy five years later."

No one wakes up in the morning and says, "Today I think I will get a divorse." No it happens one thought at a time, one action at a time, one choice at a time. Remember, people say that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. You say that while you are looking at the marriage a friend has or how wonderful you think her husband is. I say, the grass is greener where you water it. As you water and care for your own marriage, you too will experience greener grass. Dennis Rainey writes in his book Lonely Husbands, Lonely Wives, "Every day each partner in the marriage makes choices that result in oneness or isolation. Make the right choices and you will know love, warmth, acceptance, and the freedom of true intimacy and genuine oneness as man and wife. Make the wrong choices and you will know the quiet desperation of living together but never really touching one another deeply." Make a choice today to communicate love to your spouse.

"When we are embracing and fully engaged in the joy and pleasure God has given us in marriage, it gives us joy. Pray and ask God to make you fully alive to the abundant full life he intended in your oneness. Express to God your needs. He is your source. As you offer it up to him, do your part in working on your marriage, God is responsibile for the rest.