30 Jun DATING AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE

My fiance and I have been engaged for about a 6 months now and have been together for about 2 years total. I work as an accountant and he is currently in dental school.
He recently took his first board exam in med school and failed it. Based on our understanding, that is pretty damaging to his career, especially because he was interested in
a competitive surgical residency. Leading up to his exam, all the practice exams he took indicated that he would pass, so the failing was a really big blow to him. He’s been
having a really hard time with it and I’m not really sure what to do. He also sort of resents me currently. The month of his board exam, I was also studying for my next exam
and recently took it and did well. During that time, I also wasn’t really able to be there for him and support him. On top of that, in the days leading up to his exam, we got
into a pretty significant argument (the months leading up to his exam I felt like he didn’t really care about our relationship and was cold and distant. In hindsight, he was just
stretched too thin mentally/emotionally and needed to study and I shouldn’t have brought it up then). After finding out that he failed, he really started distancing himself from
me. I brought it up this week because I wanted the dust to settle a little first, and he pretty much said that the fight and my emotional behavior messed with him and that he felt like he could have
done better had he not had to deal with that. On top of that, he did admit that, though he was happy for me, he was a little resentful that I did well on my exam while he spent so much time studying
for his exam, failed, and now has to deal with the career implications of it. I don’t think he will want to retake the exam for another 5 or so months because he will want to make sure that there is no
way he could fail again, because then he would probably be kicked out of his program. With all of that backstory, I guess what I’m trying to ask is, what can I do to make this all better? I’m trying
to give him space to heal and start studying to retake it, but how do I make things better in our relationship? How do I help us move past the hurt and resentment? I just feel kind of stuck right now
because I feel like we won’t be able to move forward until he takes and hopefully passes the exam. We put wedding planning on hold for now for he wouldn’t have to think about that either. Thank
you so much for reading this and taking the time to reply. ~Overwhelmed on the West Side

Dear Overwhelmed,
Sorry to hear about this tough situation. It’s really hard when
there is a mixture of pressures, both internal and external, as
well as some jealousy and anxiety mixed in.
Your relationship is being tested in a major way.
Regarding your chassan’s choice of career, feeling like his
goals are slipping out of reach and dreams are disappearing.
Meanwhile, you have been successful, and he feels you weren’t
around for him during this stressful time. At the same time,
you are worried about your future as well, and feel like you don’t
need to be dumped on for his failure, and he begrudges you
your successes.
We’d recommend moving forward by simply moving forward.
Take a collective deep breath, and engage positively in your
relationship. It sounds like you’ve discussed all of this together
already, and there isn’t much more that you can do with it. In

their research, the Gottmans have found that it takes 5 positive
interactions to balance out one negative interaction. So go
engage in positive interactions! Go on dates, do something fun,
and interact in a positive manner. What are things that make
him feel heard, seen and appreciated? Make sure to do them.
(Hopefully he’ll reciprocate) Let him also know you appreciate
him even if his planned choice of career falls through, life will
continuously throw curveballs at the two of you, and people
do not escape unscathed. The one thing you both will have is
each other as a resource. So it’s really important to develop that
resource.
Furthermore, when bringing up something emotionally “hot”
it’s worthwhile to keep in mind. The Gottmans’ soft start
method. Remember to 1) Make sure you are complaining
without blame. Blaming puts people on the defensive, try to
problem-solve with them. Therefore, make the “I” statements,
not “you” statements. This also gets people trying to disprove

or explain. 2) Describe what’s happening but don’t evaluate or
judge. 3) Don’t keep things stored up till they explode. This
helps us be able to speak about things when we are in more of
a relaxed place, rather than pressured-I-can’t-take-it-any-more
feelings. 4) Be appreciative and polite.
If your chasan is having a problem moving through what his
next options are, or his stress is affecting his ability to engage
in his normal activities, he should speak to both an academic
advisor from his program as well as a therapist. We wish you
much hatzlacha, and please reach out again if we can be of any
further assistance.
Rabbi Reuven and Shira Boshnack