To think being married to a doctor is draining sometimes??

[Bluebluesea321]

I think we might be quite a rare breed but I’m a non-medic (City job) and DH is a doctor. AIBU to find it quite a draining position to be in sometimes?!

He works long hours, as do I, but inevitably our lives revolve around his shifts, whether he’s on call, whether he’s working nights that weekend, whether we can go to so and so’s wedding or will he be working etc etc. Not to mention the fact that when he has been on nights he’s in a terrible mood sometimes for days afterwards and I inevitably end up ‘looking after him’ a lot of the time!

I love him dearly and I’m so proud of his ambition and work ethic but sometimes it is hard! Our life revolves around his work!

I don’t know how two doctors together can manage sometimes as surely sometimes you’d both be working alternate weekends etc.?

Just a bit of a rant anyway and interested to see if anyone shares my pain!!

Why can’t you just do stuff without him? No need to sit in the house while he is working.

@naboo well, obviously, and that’s not my point at all. I pretty much always make sure I’m either away with friends or doing something else, particularly on the weekends when he’s on nights, but what makes it difficult is the lack of quality time together and not being able to really plan ahead without knowing his rota or how tired he’ll be etc.

My DS is married to a medic. Her life is as you describe, but not so much now as he's qualified as a GP.

There's a guy at work (finance) married to a medic and their life definitely revolves around her job including where they live, when they go on hols etc.

It's not going to change much, not until he's a consultant, takes about 10 years, so you're in for the long haul.

Most other medics i know are married to other medics so it's much easier to accept the shifts etc.

YANBU. This is why doctors usually marry other doctors.

Same can be said for all shift workers, firefighters, pilots, paramedics, a huge swathe of professions.

Get more resilience / independence, and hope he gets to consultant in non emergency medicine soon

@dimsum - nice to know it’s not just me! He’s hopefully only a few years away from consultant-hood (fingers crossed) so I know that he’ll have a bit more control of things then but in the mean time it is hard!

Don’t even get me started on the location factor!

@Babysharkdododont - bit unfair to suggest I don’t have enough resilience or independence...! I have my own highly paid and stressful career myself but it’s just a shame that my down time is often not his down time so we probably spend a lot less quality time together than other couples!

I think that's just shift work for you, DH is a paramedic who does quite a lot of overtime and we have the same thing. We just plan for when we can see each other and deal with it the rest of the time

The doctors I know aren't married to other doctors but most got married in their mid-30s or older. This means they were either consultants or established as GPs before getting married. A few of them did move including emigrate to get married though.

When we had DC’s, DH decided that being a doctor in a hospital wasn’t compatible with family life and retrained as a GP. The hours are still bad but it’s been much better for us all as I’m an accountant with a consultancy firm, usually office based but international travel each month.

Yes, I found being married to a junior doctor utterly exhausting. We had one child during foundation year training & one child during GP training. It’s much better now he’s a GP.

@MoominMantra - I can see it! Although I think surely what a nightmare it would be having two grumpy doctors working consecutive night shifts and debating which week they may be able to go on holiday because what if one rota doesn’t work

I suppose in a way it helps that my job is a lot more predictable!

Look up the Mitchell and Webb sketch of the dr and ice cream tester!

I'm not suggesting that's your job btw, but I think being a dr is all consuming and if it's anything like my DB and DF, many of them are slightly aware of how noble and self-less they are doing this life saving work instead of earning pots of money!

I think what you're feeling is pretty common but I also think it gets easier as drs get more senior.

@SophyStantonLacy that sounds tough - children is my other concern as we aren’t at that stage yet (I think he would be keener than me at the moment) but hopefully in a few years. I do think how on earth childcare and general looking after kids would work! I suppose he often has mid week days off!

It's a stressful profession without a doubt. Years of training for a skilled job which demands time and energy.
However, you trade the easier life for financial gain.
Doctors are well paid. He could go private or cut his hours and still receive a good income. He has choice.
My real sympathy is with care/ nursing professionals on the lowest rung of the ladder who do the ridiculous shift patterns you describe and take home 20/30k.

I get what you mean. DH is a firefighter and sometimes just having to think all the time about where he is and how that affects me/my work, my plans, Dd can be exhausting.

He works shifts, but is also on call from home. He's also working up to promotion so there has been a lot of training this year, including a couple of overnight stays.

Therefore I am the default parent/person at home. If someone needs to wait in for the boiler man etc that's me. DH's shifts change, I have to re-arrange my work around him and Dd. Luckily my job is very flexible and our friends are all fire service too so they understand and we make plans accordingly.

But sometimes it would be nice for him to have a simple working pattern that requires no thought 😂 I make it sound awful, it's reallly not. There are a lot of positives to his job too. Because he works shifts we manage to both work full time and look after Dd between us. Which has saved us thousands on childcare. Plus he gets more time with dd than if he had stayed in his Monday- Friday 8-6 job.

That sounds hard, especially not being able to plan anything . Can I ask how far in advance he gets his rotas and how many hours a week he works? My DS is a medical student and I am worrying in advance

@Bluebluesea321 we also had one child during medical school (graduate doctor - DH used to work in the City) - that was the easiest! You just have to plan childcare as if you’re the only parent IME.

@kingsassassin. I will look that up!!

Yes there is a slight noble edge I have to say!! It is an amazing job and I 100% could not deal with what he has to deal with but yes there’s a sense of martyrdom definitely!!

@SophyStantonLacy - good to know!! I suppose plenty of women have partners who are never home due to totally different types of jobs in the City etc.

It used to be worse, OP. Not that it’s much consolation, but when I was a junior doctor I worked 100 hour weeks in critical care, including some 80 hour continuous shifts.
DH would never have seen me unless he came to the hospital with me! So he slept in my on call room and cooked my dinner in the doctors’ mess kitchen. I was permanently exhausted, and on the few precious nights when I actually got home I regularly fell asleep halfway through my dinner.
Social events needed awful sacrifices on my part- I once had to work five 24 hour sessions back to back (120 continuous hours on duty), to cover my own leave in advance to go to DH’s sister’s wedding, 300 miles drive away.
It must have been tough on DH too, but he never complained and was always utterly loving and supportive.
Sadly, he died while I was still a junior doc, so he never got the benefit of my senior years, when we would have had more time together.

@sluj - usually 2/3 months in advance I think but the issue is if you’ve booked something like a holiday and the rota comes out with a particular combination of nights/on calls during that week then it can be very hard to swap round. They can give advance notice of a pre booked holiday but it isn’t guaranteed obviously. You hear horror stories of people having to swap a shift for their own wedding!!!

Working hours vary, often 12 hour days but sometimes shorter days (9 hours), regularly works weekends and week long stints of nights.

Yes it’s an incredibly hard life he has chosen but also has its rewards. My doctor daughter is marrying her doctor fiancé and they’ve certainly had to face real hardship in their relationship with no matching shifts for months. They worked opposing weekends and nights for a couple of years, were exhausted much of the time and had study and exam pressure on top of that. They couldn’t even choose matching holiday periods.
A good indication their marriage will survive most things though.

@Babdoc - I’m so sorry and it sounds like he was the most wonderful husband. That really does sound horrific so I suppose I should be thankful that things have changed and it does get better as they get more senior!

I'm a doctor married to a non-medic, and have no doubt it's stressful for him at times. I work part time (3 days a week, average just over 28 hours) since having DC, but still have to do nights and weekends, albeit less frequently than full timers. My training rotation has moved me around several different hospitals so I've had a variety of unpleasant commutes meaning even on a "normal" day I'm out of the house >12 hours.

I'm very lucky that DH has an extremely flexible job and is able to make adjustments around my shifts. I'm current on mat leave with DS2, but when I'm working he does all the nursery runs and looks after the children if I'm doing extended/antisocial shifts. The rota does impact on our social life a bit, but I usually get a reasonable amount of notice of shifts so rarely have to make last minute changes. And having random days off midweek if I'm post-nights etc is really handy!

It would be easier if I became a GP, but I'd hate it and be rubbish at it, so an increased amount of antisocial hours is the sacrifice I have to make for the job I love. It's tough for both of us at times but we wouldn't change it.