Be a Marty: Mindful Love for Women Physicians

Relationships are playgrounds for thoughts and belief systems.

So many of us struggle in relationships not because love is absent but because our minds are busy running old programs about potential scarcity, the need to fix and finish things, and the importance of hypervigilance and performance.

A few years ago a popular article came out about Marty and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s relationship - May Every Woman Find Her Marty

It was a reminder of what’s possible when friendship and mutual support are at the center of a marriage.

My twist on this article was that we don’t all just need a Marty. We need to be a Marty ourselves.

Letting people be who they are is a relationship strategy.

Marty and Ruth let each other be who they were. Marty let Ruth be Ruth. Ruth let Marty be Marty.

In relationship coaching, I share the idea that when you let your partner (and your kids, parents, colleagues, friends…) show up as 100% authentically themselves, that is often when the “amazingness” in relationships becomes possible.

Not because you ignore problems.

But because you stop fighting reality as your default posture.

You stop managing and you start relating.

All of us carry a quiet manual for how other people should be.

How they should show love.

How they should communicate.

How they should handle stress.

How they should parent.

How they should help.

How they should think.

When they don’t follow the manual, we feel frustrated, disappointed, lonely, and resentful.

Women physicians are especially prone to this—not because we’re difficult but because we’re trained to notice what’s not working and fix it.

Medical training is essentially a high-level apprenticeship in pattern recognition.

We scan for risk, anticipate problems, improve systems, and prevent worst-case scenarios.

These skill save lives at work but at home they get in the way of deep connection.

These skills lead us to miss that Marty’s in our midst.

I missed loving offerings because they didn’t always look like I thought they “should.”

Your partner’s love may not arrive as eloquent words - especially if they are neurodiverse.

Love can look like coffee, loyalty, showing up, taking out the trash, fixing things, driving kids, making calls, or practical support

If you’re trained to focus on what’s missing, you focus on that. You miss what’s right in front of you.

Most of us chose to marry good partners.

We struggle because we stop seeing abundance and start focusing on scarcity.

We can shift out of scarcity and into abundance in love if we practice.

What if your relationship is already “Marty and Ruth” in its own way?

What’s needed might not be a new partner but an up-leveling of how you see and receive your current partner.

What happens if you pause and are present and notice what your partner actually does to show love and support and let it land.

Even if it isn’t on your list of what a partner “should” do.

This kind of work brings joy and connection back into relationships because it creates space.

In that space, everyone’s energy shifts. Not by force. But through attention.

This blog is an invitation to be Marty

To be the change you want to see. To notice and appreciate. To accept and allow. To practice friendship inside love.

That’s where the magic often begins.

If it doesn’t, you can then make decisions from a place of clarity—not panic, not resentment, or depletion.

How is your partner actually a Marty—at least in some ways? And where could you be more of a Marty?

More steady. More supportive. More generous in interpretation. And more willing to let love look different than your manual.

If you want to work on this, coaching is an excellent way to do so.