Real life, real love

Dr. Joya Griffin may be popping puppy pimples on TV, but when she’s home, she’s home.  This star of Nat Geo’s Pop Goes the Vet is married to veterinary internist, Dr. Forrest Cummings and they make marriage to medicine work.

She spills the tea on their romance and how they make things work for a family of five!

 
How he asked you out on your first date

We met At Tuskegee’s symposium. I was a 4th year vet student and had travelled down to visit during my spring break with my best friend and vet school roommate, Dr. Niccole Bruno. Forrest had graduated vet school the year before and was an intern at University of Tennessee. He was back visiting friends (aka partying). I literally fell into his lap trying to find a seat for a lecture. Then we met officially at a party that night. He gave me his number and told me to call him if I had time to meet up before we all left. Of course, I called. We shared a stack of pancakes at our first date at IHOP!

When you knew he was the ONE

I knew he was the “one” pretty much after our first date. We talked about our family backgrounds, goals for the future, relationship with God over breakfast. I went home and wrote in my journal that I had met the man I would marry but had no idea how It would work out with me graduating and moving to Chicago for my internship and him moving to Florida to work ER. We kept in contact and became official about a year and a half later. We were married in 2010 after 3 years of long distance. 

Secrets to making your relationship work

Our secret to making our relationship work is making our relationship a priority.  We try to be intentional about having regular date nights even when we are super busy with work and the kids. Those times away from the kids help us to reconnect and have a little breather. We also use a marriage journal to help us communicate and stay connected. On Sunday nights we get the kids to bed early so we can have a few hours to watch a series together and relax before the work week starts.