When Nicki and I got married, more than a few of our friends voiced concerns about the fact that we would be working together, living together, basically together all of the time. We were a little worried about that as well. When you work in a high stress environment like the Emergency Department, as we do, there are bound to be days when you get irritated with even the closest of friends, not to mention your spouse.
But, after over two years of marriage, and working together almost every night that we worked, we've become professionals at "leaving it at work". We've become closer, and learned that we can relay on each other in a pinch. I love working with my wife, because she is an amazing Nurse, and when the chips are down at work and I'm feeling stressed, she's the first one there to help. I know I can trust her, and she knows I have her back as well. It's working out, believe it or not.
We recently started travel Nursing. IF you aren't familiar with that, it's basically taking a 13 week assignment at another hospital somewhere away from home. You live and work away from home 13 weeks at a time. Right now, we're in South Dakota working on an Indian Reservation. Soon, we'll be packing it up here, and heading to southern Arizona for our next 13 weeks. It's a nomadic, wandering kind of life, and we love it.
Getting to experience new places, and to see this country one assignment at a time, is a great experience for someone who loves to travel. Seeing it with someone you love is even better. It's the best. Turns out, that when I thought we would be searching for ways to do things separately, we've become the best of friends as well as a married couple. There's nothing I love more than spending a day off exploring with her, and I have yet to feel the need to hide in order to get some solitude. It helps that we're comfortable just sitting quietly together some times. She reads her books, I dabble on the computer or play golf clash on my phone (not very well I might add). We can be together, without feeling the need to entertain each other in those quiet times between shifts.
We've learned how to be together. Where once we thought it was going to be our biggest weakness, now it's one of our greatest strengths.
Life truly is a journey, and we're making it about the trip now, not the destination. So to all those doubters out there, the ones who said "I could never be with my husband all the time" or "I could never be with my wife all the time." , I say this. You can, if you really love being with that person more than anything else, you most certainly can. It takes a little patience, and you have to know when they need a little quiet space. But if you are sensitive to them, and you celebrate your time together instead of seeing it as an obstacle, you might just find out that it makes your life even better.
