This guest post is by Hannah Pye, a fellow medical wife.
We have moved a lot in our 10 years of marriage. Seven physical moves and five moves into new communities. I have become very proficient at packing, unpacking, and cataloguing belongings. I have also learned a lot about building community in a temporary season of life.
It is tempting during the medical training journey to fall into the “temporary life” mindset. This city is only our home for a few years — I don’t need to make friends. Or perhaps, I don’t want to make friends because I know I will have to leave them behind when we move to the next stage of our life.
I implore you not to give in to this way of thinking!
The medical journey is inherently isolating for the non-physician spouse. Your physician partner will be spending lots of time at work with people who, at the very least, have their job in common. She or he will have a ready-made community at every stage of the medical training process.
How will you build your community? Here are three simple ways to build community during a temporary season of life.
If you would like to contribute or do a guest post, please reach out to me! You can contact me here or shoot me a message on Instagram or Facebook. I’d love to hear from you and your view as a medical school wife.
Be Intentional
In order to build a strong community in a temporary season of life, you have to be intentional. You cannot always depend on things to just fall into place — you must seek out people with whom you would like to be friends. Be brave and make the first move with potential new companions. Ask them to coffee or out for drinks. Spark up a conversation with the fellow mom at the playground or the person next to you at the gym. Be willing to put yourself out there in order to meet new people.
Put Forth Effort
You also have to put forth effort into your new connections. Initiate get-togethers, group dinners, playdates with the kids. Host at your house. Invite people over for dinner.
Be Vulnerable
After you have made an initial connection, you must then be vulnerable. Small talk will only get you so far toward making meaningful friendships. Be the one who asks the hard questions of others. In turn, ask them to keep you accountable in your marriage, parenting, career, or other goals.
This can be scary, but it will be so rewarding. You don’t get community by closing your heart. What holds you back from seeking community in your current stage of life?
About Hannah Pye
Hannah is the wife of an Army physician and the mother to two energetic little girls. They lived in Hawaii for the three years of residency and now reside in Georgia. She is passionate about building and maintaining strong and healthy medical marriages that she literally wrote a course about it! If you want to strengthen your medical marriage, click the link to sign up for the Residency-Proof Your Marriage course.
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