A doctor does have the virtues of being a good listener, applying his skill and taking responsibility but I feel that comparing a life partner to a doctor assumes that the other partner is in some way "sick" and needs to be corrected / cured,taken care of or just plain inferior in some way than the one who is donning the hat of the so called doctor.This vanity, This pride,This egotism plays a very prominent role in making a relationship suffer.It is not very uncommon to see families in which a partner (one or both) takes it upon themselves to play saviour and tries to "fix" the other and change them to fit/match their expectations,only to result in further alienation and painful conflict.This being so, I want to highlight some fundamental differences between a doctor and a life partner.
A doctor listens to understand and cure the PROBLEM, while a partner listens to understand and honour the PERSON.A doctor cares, while a partner "LOVES".A doctor cures,A partner nurtures.A doctor gives due consideration , a partner provides acceptance.A doctor sympathises, A partner empathises.
In a doctor patient relationship,people communicate to the point.With a life partner, people commune the depths of their being.just in case I forget, speaking of responsilbility, in a doctor patient relationship, the doctor might well assume responsibility for the result of the treatment but never for the pathology (cause of the problem) of the patient.In a life partner relationship, the problem is not individual, responsibility for the cause as well as the solution is shared.The absolute infallibility of one parner who fixes the other is a (egotistic)delusion and it exists and perpetuates itself only in the mind of the fixer-partner in question.
In a doctor/patient relationship, there are two people with a situation.In a Life Partner relationship there is ONE FAMILY with a situation.As an underscore, I want to stress that a doctor is above the patient whereas the life partners are equals.
Interestingly, to quote a parrallel, A good teacher teaches his students "efficiently" but Great teachers always allow themselves to learn from thier students.They know that children are not vessels to filled (with knowledge) but lamps to be lit.The great teacher approaches the child with humility because they know that when the lamp is lit, more often than not, it is the teacher himself who benifits by the light it sheds.Similarly a good doctor cures the patient of any sickness,but a great doctor humbly leads the patient to discover the sacred place of healing deep within the patients themselves.A great life partner knows that his life partner is divine.When he listens, he does not do it with doctor-like-pride over his superiority.He listens with the humility-of-a-devotee and ASSISTS her in manifesting her hearts desires, and SERVES her in her evolution of becoming an authentic human being ,which by the way , is the only reason for any human relationship(father,mother,child,-friend,wife,husband etc) to exist in the first place.
PS : PHYSICIAN !!! HEAL THYSELF.