If you’re married to a surgeon please tell me if you think I’m being unfair?

I'd suggest hiring someone to help you with childcare and housework. I understand that you're frustrated and fed up but a surgical career demands full commitment - as a patient I would expect nothing less. If you were to divorce, you'd likely have at least 3 days a week where you'd need to employ someone to help you anyway. Plus loss of income and incredible stress from the split, among other issues.

You're being ridiculous. Get a grip.

He really can’t just leave his patients, I mean people’s operations would be cancelled. I know that’s tough for you, but I guess you knew this when you married and had a child with him. A whole day off at the weekend is something i’d have killed for when mine were little. Set up a rota for week day evenings so you’re not having to ask him to do things. I think you just have to accept you’re the default parent when she’s sick. I was a single parent for many years, it’s not easy doing everything. Can you drop some hours / pay for a cleaner?

Solidarity OP. I’m married to an anaesthetic reg. Assume your DH is also a reg- very easy to spot non doctors on this thread suggesting a surgical trainee should simply go LTFT (and that he can use his massive salary to buy loads of extra help… sigh). If he is a consultant then I do think he’s taking the piss a bit.

The childcare split seems reasonable enough- I know when I go back from Mat leave and DC is in nursery I will do every pick up and drop off except the odd zero day after on calls. What does seem unfair is him not doing anything else re cooking or shopping or taking on the mental load. Can he do the supermarket trip with DC at weekend (including planning food for the week, even if you have to cook it)?

And I wouldn’t like the non urgency to get home. It might be different for the surgeons but (if DH is not on call) the last case is often finished by 4.15/4.30 and he can head home then. If he’s reading up on tomorrow’s patients can that be done from home? Does he not have clinic days? I would push a bit on exactly what’s causing him to run late. Sometimes it will be a patient on the table but not everyday.

I agree with a lot of what @jamontoast2 says.

Candidly, your set up is not unusual even for a lot of women whose husbands aren't surgeons BUT that doesn't make it okay and yanbu to feel like this.

i think part of the issues is your set up is not great. You need down time (which is normal imo) but that is coming at the expense of weekend family time wjich is bad imo

It doesmt sound like the marriage is dead and You aren't low income so have options... in your shoes I'd be doing a few things.

1. Firstly def get on good contraceptive if.you aren't already and Put more kids on pause!
2. Outsource some things - use family budget for time saving measures like a cleaner/laundry service/cook meals etc
3. Automate what you can i set up subscriptions.and have an outline food shop template.
4. Start training your child to do chores now

My almost 3 yo can get cutlery, get her bib and put it away, get her own water. After pick up and before bed she will tidy up toys and often "helps me" with laundry (ie folding or loading)

1. Look at getting someone over in the evenings 1 or 2 nights per week, local Childminders often moonlight at babysitting so get your child familar with them and use the evening to go to class / the gym / whatever.
2. Linked to previous build.out a network of at least 2 ideally 3-4 people you child is comfortable being left with (this requires regular exposure / use of childcare so the child is familiar / comfortable with them)
3. Try to come to peace with your situation.

Easier said than done i know.
I bought into the hype that if i just picked my dh carefully enough it would be 50/50 and i wpuldnt "get screwed". Its not, it never is...and I've concluded women who think they have 50/50 are dim, deluded or the 1 in a literal million. you are the mother. you are the primary carer. Its inescapable. You can delegate "dentist responsibility", "vaccinations" or whatever but ultimately you are the one paying attention and making sure it gets done.

I'm Not married to a surgeon but I am a teacher so automatically all school holiday childcare falls to me. To be honest I love it and I would never dream of insisting ny dh take off half the holidays (his holiday entitlement is way smaller than mine). My 13 weeks is about the only perk of my job and its that flexibility which allowed us to have no childcare fees for 13 weeks a year when the kids were younger.

You won't be able to change the nature of his career so I suspect you need to become at peace with your role. If you were both surgeons it's unlikely you'd both be able to continue full time without a nanny and a cleaner. So what will help you now? Do you need a cleaner? Do you need dh to go part time? Do you need to to part time. Sit down and have a proper conversation about what your future will look like e.g when your dc starts school, the school holiday etc. Ask him how he will adjust his career?

You know what they say?
Whats the difference between God and a surgeon?
Even God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.
And
Whats the difference between God and a surgeon?
Even God wonders if he’s made the occasional mistake.

You don't like his lack of initiative

Whats with the surgeon worshipping on this thread? It’s a bit odd.

Pretty sure he can afford a cleaner, or get one of the nurses that will inevitably form an orderly queue to do it for him.

What an obtuse comment. As if a woman‘s perspective wouldn’t be an valuable add on to this question. Especially since the burden of caretaking usually lies on mothers.

Shouldn’t she set him free if thats all that matters to him? Then he can eat take away every night, live in a shit hole or actually do some cleaning, which he had better do because if he actually does nothing like currently you wouldn’t let your child stay with him, for hygiene reasons.

Must be infuriating to be married to someone pulling in 6 figures who is literally saving people's lives day in, day out and it's still not enough.

No wonder he's checked out.

@Likao

Not a surgeon, but he works 6am til 9pm every day. I get no help. I’ve reduced my hours to part time.

I used to get really pissed off, less so now. Yesterday DP worked from home, and the response when I asked him to take DS to a late afternoon activity was that he was really put out. I just thought, fuck off - spend some time with your child.

This isn’t great, but unfortunately I think one parent needs to back down significantly on their career and do the majority of childcare, until DC is more independent. Either that or you each back down less significantly - but equally. I think you sit with him, and have this discussion,

Doctor married to doctor here. If he was female he wouldn’t be afforded the same luxury of never having to worry about childcare. It’s the biggest reason men go higher and have better careers, whilst women are seen as unreliable. It makes if even easier for your partner to not contribute as you are non medic; at least when my husband says he “can’t” come home on time I have some insight as to whether this is likely to be the case.
It’s shit, but it’s important that your career matters too.

Does he also get 6 hrs a week to himself?

I’d also add that there are some interesting comments about surgeons on this thread!

They are not god-like creatures that deserve fawning devotion. They are people. People who do very important, sometimes life-saving work with unavoidably long hours. But so are non-surgical doctors, nurses, paramedics etc etc. The job does not give them special dispensation in life in general.

They are not treated that way whilst they are at work either. The days of the nurse handmaiden deferring to the all powerful consultant are long gone (if they ever really existed). I think it is unfair to generalise surgeons as arrogant. In my experience of now hundreds of surgical colleagues, most are just normal people whose behaviour is centred around wanting to do a good job and get the best outcomes for their patient rather than their own ego. Yes, of course there are some complete tools (and you might say there is a certain assortment of personality types in certain branches of surgery. I couldn’t possibly comment). However, I recognise this style of alpha overconfident loud behaviour in a number of friends and acquaintances outside medicine, and I would say much more so in those who went to work in big highly-paid City jobs than in my medical colleagues.

Sorry that things are so tough.

There is an interesting parallel thread on a medical forum triggered by this - https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/other/australian-hospital-manager-calls-junior-doctors-a-workforce-of-clinical-marshmellows-in-email-stuff-up/ar-AA1y9DRg?cvid=e150c6689e524a9190a170e1d0e86725&ei=36

The conclusions I draw from that thread are that, as doctors, our attitudes towards professionalism and the need to get away from clinical work are, in general, very skewed. This will be because staying to make sure things are done and not dumping on the very skeleton out of hours on call team has been inculcated into us from day dot. However, attitudes towards the job being everything are changing.

I am a medical consultant. DP is non-medical and has a hybrid pattern of office/WFH. The day-to-day mental load still falls to me, and I am the one who ‘sees’ that laundry needs to be done, dishwasher needs to be loaded and emptied, child-related admin, supervising homework, household bills, car service and MOT, presents for both sides of the family, etc etc are sorted.

However, school run is down to DP as I can’t get there. If there is sickness, DP has to do it as it is easier (and we agree more reasonable) for him to rearrange his working day/work from home than it is for me to cancel lists of patients, who will have been waiting some time to see me, and will effectively go to the back of the queue again if I cancel them. If something comes up that needs my specific expertise urgently, I have to stay, because who is going to do it if I don’t? Luckily, in my speciality, this is not a frequent occurrence, but there are too few of us in most hospitals to make an out of hours on-call rota of my speciality viable. Other specialities have much more acute work and therefore have more antisocial hours built in and/or more risk of unexpectedly having to stay late.

However, aside from this, I would say that we are both very hands-on in terms of facilitating extra-curricular activities and spending time with our child. We split school holidays/inset days between each of us taking annual leave solo or holiday clubs. However, this means that I get 1 hour to myself per week (which my DP fiercely protects and makes me go and take) and he gets 6 hours. We have very little time together as a family.

His stage of career its important. It is incredibly tough as a resident doctor and really the only autonomy they have over their working hours now is choosing whether to work in the NHS, or whether they leave clinical medicine or pursue it in another country. Savvy people might look at work-life balance and choose future speciality based on this. They also have precious little choice where they work, and even if they are in a stage of training where they have been able to choose their region, they have to rotate to different hospitals, which can be over an hour from their base. I have had trainees (both male and female) have to relocate to the area they are working, away from their young family for a year at a time, and have to maintain the household and pay rent on a salary that is not princely.

As a consultant, you have more autonomy, but a lot less than people might think. You have a stable work base and can feel more secure to request to work LTFT (but be aware that trusts are also entitled to refuse flexible working requests) and you have a little more ability to through money at the problem of cleaning/wraparound care. But the flip side is that you are now at a stage that you have expertise that others don’t. Unfortunately, for a surgeon, there are procedures that only ‘the boss’ can do.

So in summary
1)there is a certain amount that unfortunately just goes with the territory regarding time at work and inability to drop tools.
2)However, that is no excuse for not contributing to the household maintenance (he will have many colleagues who are part of 2 doctor families).
3)If he is currently a resident doctor, things may improve in some ways when he gets more senior…but the demands on him will change.
4) have a chat with him about whether it is an option for either or both of you to go LTFT. It is definitely more common in medical careers now and not seen as unacceptable.

I realise this isn’t what you wanted to hear but I’ve just had three hours to myself since Christmas. My DH works night shifts 6 days a week and a lot of the time a seventh so we only see him in the afternoon. He’s constantly shattered and does one of the DC drop offs. Unfortunately, the setup can’t be changed and it’s either accept it or leave for doing it all alone.

So unnecessary, she’s clearly struggling and you’re just sticking the boot in. I hope you got whatever is missing out of that.

?

The job is demanding and all encompassing. Being a surgeon and to some extent a medic is a lifestyle choice and in the majority of countries your are remunerated according and can outsource to give you free time. Unfortunately, in the uk this is not the case. Have you thought about moving abroad, do you want / need to work ?

What is all this ‘I’d love a day off a week!’ crap from posters?? Does anyone saying that have a partner but also work and do 100% of parenting and home life? If that was me and I had 6 hours a week without children, I’d probably be sorting a cupboard, getting to the gym, cooking something for me to have healthy lunches, doing 2 hours of work and the dishes and some online shopping for the house or child, and boom the time is gone. It’s less time ‘off’ or more accurately child free than many single parents and he hasn’t had to have a single responsible thought apart from keeping his child alive while playing with them. Op, from now on how about he does the shop with your child and comes home and cooks dinner with them? Hes got that time, he doesn’t get to take zero responsibility. He can do that and take her to a class or whatever he does. Personally I’d also say to him and just so you’re aware, if you suddenly discover you need to do work Saturdays now I’ve said you need to contribute to running our life, I want a divorce, as fast as possible. And you will have to take more responsibility for your child than you ever have in your life before then, or barely see them and know nothing about them, because I won’t be doing the bloody wife work then and telling you what they shared in the school information night or how her drama performance went or how to access her report or what she likes now.

Yep. Not married to one but I dated one once and was blown away at how arrogant and up his own arse he was. Definitely something missing in terms of understanding how to relate to people.

He's at work, feeling like some kind of God (nurses all around).
Then comes home to 'nagging?'
Be careful that you don't make yourself the undesirable option here.
You sound exhausted and understandably so.
Something needs to give, what do you want OP?
He will always prioritise his career. It makes him feel good.

And men are quite predictable.
So if you want him around more;
argue / critique less and compliment more.

Work it to suit you. Men are stupid creatures and love a good ego smooth.

If you want him, make sure home is a nice place to come back to. As PP said, get a cleaner.

I employed an au pair.

Get lots of help. He can pay for it.

Or have a think about if you want to keep him.. he won't change. They never do xx