TLDR: I'm going to be a doctor and my boyfriend doesn't trust modern medicine. He asks me my opinion, and when I share a medical fact, he opposes it with a fallacy presented by a podcast bro. I get sad because he doesn't believe or trust me, and I am wondering if this relationship could continue long term.
I have been struggling with this lately because I am studying to be a doctor and my boyfriend does not trust science. We agree on almost everything and love each other very much, but whenever medical conversations come up, I leave them feeling dismissed and dejected. I only ever offer my input when asked, but now I do not like even engaging in these conversations because no matter what I say, he disagrees. This has been difficult because I am presenting objective facts that have been studied and tested for sometimes over 100 years, and he will disagree and talk about something a podcaster said who is sponsored by untested supplements that are not FDA approved. He says that doctors can't be trusted because they want people to be sick and get surgeries to pad their pockets, which to me is incredulous because he would rather listen to people who are directly getting paid by being a salesperson through podcasts and social media to market products people don't actually need, posing them as major health incentives. When he disses the medical field and doctors, it feels like he is also dissing me because I am going to be a doctor. I think this all boils down to my personal feelings being hurt because he thinks that people like me are going to school for 10+ years and going half a million dollars into debt to try to trick people into paying me money (which mostly goes to insurance and pharmaceutical companies and not the doctors- but that is a whole extra conversation). We have discussed my feelings being hurt before, but this has been happening more recently again, and I want to know if people think that two people who have pretty differing views can successfully have a relationship and how to go about continuing conversations with him about how he is making me feel. We talk about marriage, and I think he is the person I would want to be with forever, but this issue is something so close to the core of who I am as a person, that I have really been struggling with this.
EDIT: He is vaccinated and does regularly go to the doctor. He is just very cynical and does not trust the government which he thinks has a large influence on the US health care system
19 comments
Date more intelligent people.
**Please report these shitposts.**
No one who is a doctor would date someone who doesn’t believe in medicine.
What happens if you have kids and can’t agree on medical decisions? What if something happens to a kid when you’re a work and he doesn’t want to go to the hospital?
This sounds like fundamental incompatibility.
Idk but he sounds like he’d be an anti-vaxxer
No, you will not be able to have a successful relationship. Just think dispassionately about the issues you will face if you end up together. He would be your health care delegate if something tragic happens. If you end up with a serious disease, he will refuse to support standards of care. If you have children you will fight about not only vaccines, but what about illness treatments?
There are differences that can be managed and those that will create daily issues.
You need to cut your losses on this. I am sorry.
This isn’t just a matter of him not believing in western medicine. This is him not respecting you. He knows when he asks that you’re going to give him an answer rooted in what you’re studying and he asks anyway. He didn’t ask to learn what you think. He asks so he can denigrate the thing you’re investing your life in. And that means your relationship isn’t sustainable.
This will NEVER work. These aren’t just feelings, they are a fundamental belief system.
You are going to grow very tired of someone so ignorant with whom you can’t hold intelligent conversations with about your work life.
I think you are incompatible over the long run. Just get out now. You are headed toward some very serious and hard work ahead with medical school and residency in your future. He will not be a supportive partner with his beliefs.
Why be with an unintelligent man who is easily manipulated into ridiculous beliefs, especially when you’ve dedicated your life’s work to medical science? You two are not compatible and the fact that he’d believe a con-man podcaster over your highly educated expertise shows how much he really respects you.
This is not an agree to disagree situation, this is a major values mismatch. Do you want him making medical decisions for you and possibly your kids in a case where you’re unable to do so yourself? Find an intellectual peer who respects you and leave this one behind.
Girl, you’re going to be a doctor. Why the fuck are you wasting time with this man?
He doesn’t respect your profession, and therefore you for choosing that profession. How can you ever have a successful relationship? Again, you’re going to be a doctor. Lots of men out there would respect you and be awed by what you have achieved. Why be with a guy who thinks you are essentially a scammer?
Dump this man, and going forward realize that sometimes (oftentimes) life is better for women if we’re single.
Ask yourself if you want to raise children with someone who doesn’t believe in modern medicine (and therefore probably won’t support vaccination). Ask yourself if you want to marry someone who doesn’t trust hospitals or doctors, since marriage will make him your legal next of kin, able to make life or death decisions for you. Ask yourself if you want to continue to be involved with someone that disdains the profession that you will be dedicating your life to.
Break up.
Love is not the only ingredient of a successful relationship. You need the same values.
If you have kids it will be one constant battle. Plus you don’t say if you live together but I would not be surprised if he also does not believe in men doing chores.
Medicine is backed by science. Supplements can help, but they aren’t a cure-all
The amount of disrespect he has for a core part of you will feed your resentment until you’re 40 and tossing his ignorant ass out of the house having to pay him alimony.
Do NOT marry a man who thinks you’re a fraud and a moron.
Will he still feel that way when you are making a good income from something he thinks is BS?
Your boyfriend is belittling your choice of career in order to make himself appear smarter than you. Do you want to be with such an insecure person?
He doesn’t respect your field.
He’s going to think he knows more than you despite your studies.
Ew.
You might have belter luck with him by partially agreeing with him.
I mean you can acknowledge that PCPs have always been under pressure to prescribe medicines that maybe haven’t been adequately tested or been outrageously mis-sold like Oxycontin which was sold as being non-addictive when it was anything but or medicines that are only marginal improvements on drugs that are already available and don’t justify the cost.
That’s the problem with capitalist economies. Greed drives progress and it’s arguable that progress can’t be made without it and that is why it needs to be managed. But Trump has radically reduced spending on drug safety research and decimated the FDA.
The US system is possibly the most extreme example of corporate greed amongst Western medical systems and it is extremely inefficient, compared to Canada, Europe and Australasia. I’m maybe not surprised by his attitude but it is extreme ie it goes to the other end of the spectrum. It’s like mental over-correction. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
The emphasis in the US over product safety is to determine whether a product causes harm. In Europe and elsewhere the emphasis is on proving that a product can’t cause harm. Europe will accept that a product may be harmful, even if there is no examples of it doing so. That is NOT the practice in the US, where safety is assumed if no practical evidence exists. The difference is subtle and usually doesn’t make much difference but there are exceptions. There are, for example, food additives that are used in the US which have long been banned in Europe.
If I were you I would box clever and come up with simple examples of issues that will challenge his logical thinking processes. Be Devil’s Advocate. If he doesn’t react positively to that you may have to reconsider the wisdom of the relationship.
As an aside, what is his area of specialism? What is he studying or working at? It’s not just medicine that faces these controversies.
He disrespects what is a core part of who you are.
Do you want to live with that?
You “get sad”? Feel “dismissed and rejected”??
How about you feel absolutely embarrassed to be in a relationship with someone so monumentally stupid?
Your partner is a moron. Deliberately and stubbornly ignorant people are draining to be around. They also tend to rub their stupidity onto their partners eventually.
What’s worse is that his very obvious insecurities and the even more obvious chip on his shoulder will never allow him to change his opinion. Nor to be proud of you. Don’t you want a partner who actually respects you and your vocation? And all the hard work and ambition it took to get you there?
I don’t know *how* you can continue to have any respect for this man, let alone still believe that this is the person you would “want to be with forever.” Your values and beliefs are fundamentally different. He is effectively rejecting who and what you are.