By Susan Lake 

One of the most frequent questions I get from people when they hear that I, an Optometrist, am married to an Optometrist, is: “How does that work?” I’m never sure exactly where the question is coming from, but I assume it usually falls into one of the following categories:

1. “Do you talk about eyes all the time?” which is a cryptic way of asking, “Are you the most boring couple in the universe?”
2. “Do you practice together?” which is decoded to, “Do you have to be together ALL THE TIME?”
3. “Did you meet in school?”
4. “Is there a weird dating site for Optometrists? com?”

I try to blanket answer the question, “Well, we met in Optometry school, rarely discuss eyes, but do frequently discuss our practices and we’re never in the same practice on the same day.  It actually works well.  Not seamlessly by any stretch of the imagination, but a sort of chaotic perfection.”

OD/OD marriages seems the norm to me.  Living in the Optometry school bubble for four years led to many marriages and the majority of our friends from school are also married to Optometrists.  For this reason, I’m always surprised at the novelty of our situation for other people who are interested in the dynamics of how we “work”.

In fact, it seems that health care in general is prime for this as 40% of physicians are married to other physicians.  Optometry marriages are a pretty safe bet as the divorce rate for Optometrists is only 4%.  To put this in perspective, clergy are at a 5.6% divorce rate.   Optometrists, let’s celebrate in this—we’re ahead of those who started their working careers with GOD as their daily boss.  I call that winning.

I’m actually more surprised when I ask a new friend what their spouse really does at work and they think for a moment and then reply, “well, honestly…I’m not really sure.”  I don’t know that getting what the other person does for a living has any connection to a happy, lifelong union.  After 16 years though, I just can’t fathom it any other way.  I suppose I’m lucky because I don’t think eyemforyou.com exists yet.

Dr. Susan Lake is a native of Nebraska and a graduate of the University of Nebraska. She completed her Doctorate of Optometry from Southern College in Memphis. She is Board Certified in Vision Development and Vision Therapy and has a strong pediatric emphasis to her practice. She speaks frequently to parent and professional groups, sharing with them the importance of early recognition of vision problems. In her spare time she reads and contributes to her own blog discussing being a working Optometrist and Mom at Babyfocals.com. She and her husband share three Optometry practices and three daughters and they can all usually be found on a lake, in a boat and waterskiing.

This weekend is a great time to view a recorded webinar to learn more about protecting the vision of those you most love!