I Got Married. Then I Went Back to Work

Why Bali Had to Wait—and What Happened When I Stopped Making Every Change of Plan Mean Something Was Wrong

I got married, had an almost month-long honeymoon planned in Bali—and then went back to work.

Not because something was wrong, but because my business needed me in that season.

What I didn't expect was how much that decision would teach me about marriage, priorities, anxiety, expectations, and letting go of the need for life to happen exactly as planned.

In this personal episode, I share what happened, what I learned, and why I no longer see every change of plan as a problem that needs to be fixed.

Because sometimes the plan isn't ruined.
It's simply waiting for another season.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Health, Life and What's Next. with Dr. Jennifer Ginty. This is the podcast where we explore what it really means to live well through honest conversations about health, life, business, and everything in between. Because remember, healing is about more than medicine. I'm so glad you are here. Let's get into today's conversation I'm gonna be very raw and honest with you, and I'm gonna ask that you listen to until the end of this episode, because I'm sure you might learn something from this one, a life lesson. As you know, I got married July 11th, 2026, and people kept asking me the same question after I got married. "So where are you guys going for your honeymoon?" And I would say, "We are not going right now." And then there would be this look. You know the look. The confusion look, little concerned look, like maybe something happened look, like maybe the marriage lasted 11 days look. And then they would say, "Wait, you're not going on a honeymoon?" And my answer was no, not then. And here's the part that made everybody even more confused. We had planned one, a real honeymoon, Bali for almost a month. I had waited a long time to get married, so trust me, when I imagined the honeymoon, I wasn't imagining three nights somewhere an hour away with continental breakfast. I was imagining Bali, turn off the phone, beautiful resort, five stars, my husband, me, a month, the whole thing. Instead, I got married and went back to work. And I know exactly how that sounds, like, "Okay, Dr. Jente, you choose your business over your honeymoon?" Yeah. Let's talk about it, because that isn't actually what happened. And the difference taught me something about marriage, business, anxiety, and priorities, and the strange freedom that comes when you finally stop forcing your life to look the way you thought it was supposed to look. Around the time of the wedding, my business was going through a season. And when I say a season, I mean there were things happening operationally that needed my attention. Mistakes were being made. Things needed to be tightened up. Responsibilities needed to change. There were places where the business had outgrown the way we had been operating, and I could see it. Now, here's the uncomfortable part about being the founder. Sometimes everybody around you can say,, it'll be fine. Don't worry about it. It'll work itself out." And you're the one who knows, no, it's not gonna be fine. It actually will not be fine unless somebody deals with it. And that's not catastrophizing, that's leadership. And the one thing I was absolutely not willing to allow was for patient care to suffer, because I had just gotten married, and technically I was supposed to be drinking something out of a coconut water in Bali. No, patients don't care. Patients don't care that I just had a beautiful wedding if their experience suddenly becomes sloppy, and they shouldn't. That's the responsibility I accepted when I built this business. So I had a decision to make. Do I leave for almost a month because that's what happened, Or do I stay, fix what needs fixing, and go when I can actually go? And I knew myself well enough to know the answer. Because if I had gotten on that plane, my body would have been in Bali, and my brain would have been in Jersey in the clinic. I would have been sitting next to my husband in paradise secretly wondering, Did that get handled? Did somebody call the patient? Did they fix that issue? What happened at the clinic? Is everybody okay?" I would have been on a honeymoon, but I would have been having a very expensive anxiety with an ocean view, and I didn't want that. So my husband and I had a conversation, a real one, I'm the boss, and I had to work. Sorry, honey, can't go on a honeymoon." But no, because I'm married now. There's another person whose life is affected by the way I make decisions. And I remember saying something along the lines of, "I want this honeymoon. I absolutely want this honeymoon, but I don't think I can leave for a month right now and actually be present with you." And that mattered to me because what is the point of taking a honeymoon just so we can say we took one? So that people can see the beautiful pictures? So we can check the newlywed box? So we can check the wedding, check for honeymoon, check Bali, post-Bali, back to life? My life doesn't work like that, and I finally stopped apologizing for it. Here's what I realized. Sometimes prioritizing the business for a season is not the same thing as choosing the business over your marriage. Those are very different things. If my husband and I are sitting together looking at the same reality and saying, "This is what the season requires right now," that's partnership. Marriage isn't always forget everything, choose me. Sometimes marriage sounds more like, "Okay, what's happening? What do we need to do, and how do we make this work together?" And that's less romantic on Instagram, and it's a lot more useful in real life. And I think that is one of the thing I'm learning about marriage already. Partnership isn't always escaping the problem together. Sometimes it's deciding together which problem matters right now. So I went back to work, and I didn't casually went back to work, I went back to work. I restructured part of the business. I hired another team member. There were responsibilities that I removed from a team member because mistakes were happening, and I could no longer pretend the setup was working. And that taught me something too. Sometimes leadership means admitting this person may not be a bad person, this may simply be the wrong responsibility in the wrong hands, And keeping someone in a role that is repeatedly producing problems because you're afraid of having an uncomfortable conversation isn't kindness, especially when patients can actually pay the price. That's not leadership. So I changed things. I moved responsibilities. I rebuilt some systems. I got much more involved than I normally want to be, and for about a month, I worked seven days a week. Now, let me say something before somebody turns this into a hustle clip. I am not recommending seven days workweeks. Absolutely not. I knew this was temporary. That's important. That's the difference between the season requires more from me right now, and this is now my personality or my identity. I had an objective: stabilize the clinic, fix the problem, protect patient care, build the right team, then get back out. Because if your business only works because you are permanently working seven days a week, you didn't solve the problem. You became the solution to the problem, and eventually, you will become the next problem, and that's the lesson for another day But I did it, and something very interesting happened. Years ago, I think this change of plan would have caused me enormous anxiety. The Bali trip was supposed to happen, we planned it. I just got married, people are asking. This isn't how it's supposed to be. I would have made this whole thing mean something wrong with me, like what is happening? Why is this happening? Why can't anything just go according to plan? I can't believe I'm working right after my wedding. We should go on a honeymoon. That's what people do. Everybody else gets to do this. Maybe I'm doing too much. Maybe I'm making the wrong choice. Maybe I should just do this, you see? I would have turned this whole scheduling problem into an extensive crisis. I don't do that nearly as much anymore, and that might be one of the biggest changes in me, in my life. I stopped making everything a big deal. Not because things don't matter, because I stopped believing that every change of plan means something had gone wrong, and that's the difference. I think anxiety loves a storyline. Something happens, and before the thing has ever finished happening, our minds has written the entire movie.. This shouldn't be happening. This is terrible. This ruined everything. What if this means blah, blah, blah? What if this never happens? What are people going to think? And now you're no longer responding to what happened, you're responding to the meaning you assigned to it. I delayed my honeymoon, and that's what happened. I did not ruin my marriage, miss my only chance to travel, fail at being a newlywed, choose my business forever, lose Bali. No, I did not. I delayed a trip. That's it. And when I stopped making it becoming bigger than it was, I actually felt peaceful about the decision, and that was surprise this new version of myself. And this is something I'm trying to practice more now. Instead of asking why isn't this happening the way I planned, I ask, "What is this season asking from me right now?" That is a completely different question because sometimes the season says go, sometimes it says wait, sometimes it's work, sometimes it's rest, sometimes it's push, sometimes it is not the moment to push. And I have become much more willing to trust what I know about the season I'm actually in, instead of forcing myself to perform the season I thought I should be in. My life is not a typical life. I don't work a job where I clock out and everything becomes somebody else's responsibility. I built something. I take care of people. I'm a mother. I am a wife. I'm married. I have different roles that sometimes collide and pretending they never collide will not make the m- make me balance and it would make me dishonest. So Bali waited and eventually my husband and I took a seven-day cruise. Seven days, not a month, not Bali or cruise. And you know what? I let it be enough. That's actually a big deal for me because there was a time when I would have thought So Bali waited, and eventually my husband and I took a seven-day cruise. Seven days, not a month, not Bali or cruise. And you know what? I let it be enough. That's exactly a big deal for me because there was a time when I would've thought, "But this isn't what we planned. This is, isn't what I want." Now, this is what works right now. Let's go. Let's enjoy it. Let's stop asking the seven-day experience to compete with an imaginary month in Bali that hasn't happened yet. Because comparison doesn't only steal joy when you're comparing yourself to other people. Sometimes you steal your own joy comparing your actual life to the life you had planned in your head. And I'm, I'm gonna stop preaching right now So before I keep going, I want to interrupt this episode j- for just a minute because I have something coming up that I really want you to know about. I am hosting a live master class called Connect the Dots Masterclass, and I created this because I keep meeting women who have done so much for their health. They have seen the doctor, they have done the labs, they tried the medication, the supplements, changed their diet, listened to the podcast, googled everything, and at some point they start thinking, "How have I done all of this and I'm still confused?" This is exactly the woman I created Connect the Dots for, because maybe the answer is not that you need to try more. Maybe nobody has ever helped you stop long enough to look at everything you have already experienced and ask, "What does all of this mean together? What has actually been answered? What wasn't? And why am I still chasing one problem after another? And what could we be missing because we keep looking at pieces instead of the whole picture?" That is what I'm going to unpack during the masterclass. This is not your another health webinar, where I'm going to spend an hour telling you which supplements you should be taking, the medications, the diet you should be having. The session is built around helping you understand why you may still be searching for answers and how to start making sense of the bigger picture. And I think this is important because there comes a point where more information without understanding just becomes more noise. So if you've been thinking, "I've done so much. Why am I still struggling? Why do I still feel like something is missing? Why doesn't anybody seems to put this together?" I want you to attend this masterclass. Register for the upcoming Connect the Dots Masterclass using the link below this episode. Come live, bring your question. Let me help you start looking at your health story differently. Okay? So now back to the honeymoon I didn't take And then I came home, and do you know what glamorous newlywed life was waiting for me? Back to school. Yep. I went from cruise mode to mom mode. That's real life. I unpacked, rest, back to school schedules, work, clinic, marriage, motherhood next. And weirdly, I wasn't upset about it because I'm starting to understand something that I think I spent years resisting. Life does not have to stay in one beautiful season long enough for you to fully enjoy it before the next one arrives. Sometimes things overlap. The wedding overlaps with the business problem. The honeymoon overlaps with work. The cruise overlaps with back to school. Marriage overlaps with motherhood. Joy overlaps with responsibility. You don't always get a clean transition, and I used to think that, and I used to fight for that. Now I'm learning to live inside it. And I want to insert something here because this actually connects to something Because here's one of the biggest thing this season has taught me. Stop prioritizing appearance over consequences. People expect me to go on a honeymoon, but people asking me where my honeymoon was were not going to run my clinic as I was gone. They weren't going to deal with mistakes. They weren't responsible for patient care, for hiring, restructuring, living inside my marriage. So why would I make a major decision based on whether the decision looked normal to them? That sounds obvious, but how many things do we do because this is what people usually do? This is when you're supposed to have a baby. This is when you're supposed to get married. This is when you're supposed to retire. The honeymoon's supposed to look like this. A successful business owner is supposed to behave. This is what a good mother does. This is what a good wife does, right? At some point you have to decide, am I living my life or am I following the instructions that came with somebody else's life? I know what this season requires from me better than anybody watching it from the outside, and I have become much more comfortable with that. So the second lesson I learned is temporary sacrifice needs an expiration date. That is important because there's a dangerous version of everything I'm saying here. It's just a season. People have been saying it, it's just a season, for eight years, right? No, that's not a season anymore. That's your life. If something requires more from you temporarily, know why. What am I solving? What does better look like? When does I reassess? Because otherwise urgency becomes normal. I worked seven days a week because there was a specific problem I was trying to solve. I hired, I changed responsibilities. I wasn't simply working more because more work makes me feel important, and that's a trap. If you're going to give something more of yourself for a season, make sure the season is actually moving towards an end. Third lesson, don't force rest before you created the conditions that allow you to rest. That may be my most controversial takeaway because we've constantly told, "Take the vacation. Protect your peace. Just unplug." And sometimes yes, absolutely, and sometimes if your house is on fire, lighting a candle and putting your phone on do not disturb is not self-care, right? Sometimes peace comes from dealing with the thing that is stealing your peace. I knew myself if I went to Bali while the clinic felt unstable, I would not relax There would be no relaxation for me. So I dealt with it, not forever, for a season, and then I left. Sometimes the boundary isn't I am unavailable f- to figure it out. Sometimes the boundary is I'm going to fix the system so this stops becoming an emergency that requires me, and that's very different kind of self-care. And the last lesson may be the biggest one. Stop treating delayed joy like lost joy. That's... I was doing that. I was treating delayed joy like it was lost joy. This one, Bali's still there. As far as I know, they didn't not close the island because Dr. Genta didn't show up. My husband is still my husband. We are still married. We still get to travel. We still get to celebrate. The experience didn't expire because it didn't happen immediately after the wedding. And I think we do this to ourselves all the time. If it doesn't happen the moment we want it to happen or we imagine it happening, we mourn it as though it's gone. Who said? Maybe it just belong to another season. I don't need the honeymoon to happen on a schedule to validate the marriage. I don't need the celebrate to look conventional to prove I'm happy, and I don't need every good thing to happen right now in order to trust that my life is still good. That has given me a lot of peace. I think I used to believe peace came from having everything go according to plan. Now I think peace may come from knowing that when the plan changes, you will be okay, and that's the difference. The wedding taught me a lot about fear. Marriage is teaching me about partnership. And this little honeymoon situation, it taught me something about control. I don't need to control the timing of every beautiful thing. I can respond to what is in front of me, make the best decision I know how to make, talk to people affected by it, adjust and keep moving without turning every detour into a tragedy. So yes, I got married I did not immediately go on a honeymoon I had planned. I went back to my clinic. I worked harder than I wanted to for a month. I made difficult leadership decisions. I hired, I restructured, we stabilized things. And then I went away with my husband for seven days. I came back, put the wife hat down for a second, picked up the mom hat, back to school, and kept going. Not because I think women should do everything. Please do not make that the lesson. The lesson is almost the opposite. You get to decide what matters most in the season you actually live in. Not the season Instagram thinks you should be in, not the season your friends or family members think you are in, not the season you had written in your planner six months ago. This one is the real one. And maybe that's why I'm less anxious than I used to be. I've stopped needing every chapter to happen in the correct order. I stopped believing every convenience is a warning.. I stopped turning every delay into an evidence that something is wrong. Sometimes the plan change, sometimes you pivot, sometimes you work, sometimes you leave, and yes, sometimes Bali waits. And sometimes the thing that looks like life interrupting your plans is actually life asking you, "Do you trust yourself enough to know what matters right now?" I think I finally do, and when we eventually get to Bali, I want to be there, not just physically. I want to sit next to my husband without wondering what is falling apart at home. I want to enjoy what we waited for. I want to be able to say, "This is the season for this right now." And maybe that's what I've learned more than anything. Not everything has to happen when you planned it to still happen beautifully. Sometimes the plan wasn't ruined, it just wasn't the plan for right now Thank you for listening to the Find the Root Cause podcast. If this episode helped you feel more seen, more informed, or more hopeful, share it with another woman who needs to hear that her body's not broken. Follow the show, leave a review, and check the show notes for your next steps. I'll see you in the next episode