To ask which professions you would avoid

[Ifonlyiwasbeyonce]

Just that really, my ex worked long hours and left the house at 7 and got in at 8pm, sometimes later. I was so lonely and sometimes he would more often than not go out after work. Are there any professions you would avoid?

It’s so odd that that would be the case!

I wouldn’t marry someone who regularly worked away, especially if I wanted children. I hear of women with husbands who are basically not around all week or for weeks at a time and I think they may as well be single for all it’s worth. Also wouldn’t marry someone who was ‘on call’ like a doctor or whatever. I’d hate to be married to someone who might have to leave important events at the drop of a hat.

Can’t speak for DV for infidelity for sure. A former friend of mine is a police officer and she had a longstanding affair with the sergeant who ended up leaving his wife and child for her.

In terms of partners...

• anything where the person earns huge salary but hates it. They are trapped by the big money but spend all their time moaning.

• Physiotherapist because they all consider 10k to be a short run

Tbh if you want someone who works short hours and works to live only (and why not), I wouldn't think in terms of professions. Having said that, a possibility would be a patent lawyer, they work quite steady hours.

i imagine that any company or organisation that pays extremely well expects a high workload, long hours and some flexibility from its employee. It’s not really a question of ‘it’s unfair’ to have to make that choice. If you don’t want those conditions you have to accept that high paying roles will probably not be for you.

Is it always obvious though.

When we had our first we rented 30 min walk away from DH work place- he was out 8.30 to 5.30 - various jobs later he was out a lot more with work hours and commute times then I was on my own all week with kids and he was other rend of country Mon-Fri - which went on for years for various reasons - when we finally got in same place - he had few days working form home a week established and Uni holiday working from home so was around a lot more than ever before.

We also managed to keep it down to one move in their childhood - HE seems to expect lot of moving round and many of his peers ended up moving or having really long commutes on top of long work hours for middle bit of their careers often coinciding with young kids. They all hope to avoid it or thought they could and still ended up in that position.

What do you think is the right thing to do? Live to work or work to live? We wouldn’t have any doctors/lawyers around if that was the case I suppose

Nurses (or anyone else who works 12hr nights!), DP and I used to exchange a sad little wave as we drove past one another in the mornings as I came home from a night shift and he was going to work as we wouldn’t see each other for days despite living in the same house! He told me after I quit ward nursing that I seemed so much happier and am much nicer to live with now.

Teaching

Don’t marry someone who works as crew for an airline if you don’t like many of the reasons listed above 😅 antisocial hours, always tired, never home when you need them and always misses birthdays/parties/christmas/school events etc etc. Sweet pay if you’re a pilot but the above is the trade off.

Oh and according to mumsnet they are horny bastards and cheat all the time, but my husband is always asleep when he’s not flying so can’t understand where this has come from 😂

Omg are you married to a pilot?!

Avoid a prison officer!!

Lots of nights, have to stay on in emergencies ( there's lots) stressed, injured ...

Agree with dentistry , way too much stress , working at an unsustainable pace all the time moaned at by people who think you are on megabucks when mostly you earn the same or less than them .

It was great when I qualified but the poor young dentists now graduating with £80,000 to £100,000 debt terrified of the GDC and patient complaints with 50% of their earnings going on student loans , taxes , NI and a big chunk of the rest on indemnity , registration cpd , stuck on the NHS treadmill because they can’t afford the time or money to go on courses to get their skills up .

The abuse verbal and physical from a more and more demanding public who are convinced you spend most of the week on the golf course , driving your Ferrari or sailing your yacht when the truth is as a very experienced dentist , training younger dentists and with several jobs I never paid higher rate tax until I started another job on top of what I was doing that was health related but nothing to do with dentistry .

The vast majority of dentists surveyed would not want their children doing it and very, very many are looking for a way out.

This point in time , I hope, is the bottom of the curve and things will improve but as someone who has a lot of contact with dentists in crisis it is a horrible profession to be in with absolutely zero public appreciation of a profession trying to do its best and zero public sympathy for a service on its knees. People do not go private to earn more money they go private to avoid going bankrupt .

i always think I would find it stressful being with someone who works in a prison or in the police. Seems like such a dangerous job, especially being in such close quarters with dangerous criminals ☹️

And yet at every enquiry into another scandal, or mismanagement, all these top bosses seem to do fuck all and the cleaning lady knows more about what's gone on.
I wouldn't marry a Police/Prison offer. A politician (wouldn't want my life made public). A boxer/MMA/security etc, there can be a certain lifestyle that goes with the territory. High finance, the expectations and subsequent substance misuse is way too much. Possibly a journalist.

Mainstream classroom teaching, police, front line NHS, low paid public facing roles.

Really interested to hear this.

From the outside, for the past few years every (private because no chance of nhs) dentist I've been to has felt more like a sales pitch rather than a medical consultation.

Where has all the money gone??

Off-shore workers or shift workers would be a no from me. I don't want to have to handle kids for three weeks at a time by myself and I really value having weekends together as a family. My last serious boyfriend before I met OH went into the emergency services and I look on that as a lucky escape because I see how much his partner has had to sacrifice in terms of her own career and social life to support his career while the kids are young.

HAHAHAHA - I could not be with a physio. They'd see what a bag of carnage I am.

Dental rate of inflation has been over 10% for over a decade now. Ie materials etc are increasing by at least that amount every year.

Indemnity insurance (malpractice insurance ) has increased by much more than that as you are more likely to be sued in the U.K. than anywhere else in the world.

If working in the NHS a dentist will have to work until April/May just to cover expenses like registration , insurance etc before they earn any money.
Dental equipment and materials are improving all the time but that comes at a massive cost . When I qualified in order to do endodontics (root canal) you only needed fairly simple equipment , now an operating microscope costs £20,000 and the MDTA cement used costs £60 a time .

A room in dental practice in a cheap area, doing mostly NHS dentistry costs upwards of £140 an hour to run, in a practice doing mostly private dentistry upwards of £220 an hour.

This massively increased costs are why dentists doing both NHS and private work have seen a decrease in earnings over years both in real terms and in relation to inflation.

As to “selling” a dentist can be liable to be sued or GDC proceedings if they do not offer all the options available to a patient at examination.

Depends on your temperament + priorities

I like nice things + value alone time pottering at home - DHs well paid / time consuming job (which he loves) is ideal…

If you are more interested in having someone around all the time then find someone who works in a salaried role in local government
or at an administrative level in an office

I have friends who work as salaried architects / planning officers / paralegals / office managers / in HR - they all seem to have jobs you very much leave at the office at 5:30 and don’t think about until the next day.

anyone in a ‘big’ job is going to have to make compromises for the salary / prestige etc

the ideal balance is different for everyone.

honestly though - I think if you find someone you really gel with + can communicate your needs effectively then the job probably doesn’t matter that much

Are you talking about when you were on maternity leave or do you not work ?

I think the actual ideal is if both partners are able to work 3/4 days each so both get some time working out of the house but not ridiculously long hours, and both contribute towards the running of the home .

That's probably not practical in most/many cases.

Teaching. Don't be fooled into thinking it’s worth it for the holidays.

@Ifonlyiwasbeyonce I think, with apologies, you are asking the wrong question. I would say my DH actively avoided looking after DC. He did run a business but meeting clients took time too. As the business grew, his time away grew. I was very happy with his money though. So we enjoyed a very decent lifestyle. That’s the trade off that I was prepared to make. I wasn’t lonely. I kept up with friends and hobbies.

I would never ditch anyone because they work hard and make money. Working long hours for not much is the killer. DD is a barrister. Self employed and works hard but also cases come out of the court schedule so work is never 9-5. The money is very good though. I’m not sure any profession is 9-5 but you have to take some pain for gain, My DF was a farmer. Look at the hours needed for that! No profession is an easy ride.

Any senior role is going to involve long hours, unless they are part time. There aren’t many professional roles where you just work 9-5 and don’t need to look at work outside of those hours.

DH works in IT, and while it’s well paid he works 9-6 core hours, with a 45 min commute either side (normal for central London).

But I agree medicine is particularly bad for this. As a consultant I get phone calls out of hours, often work odd hours, often go into work on a Saturday, answer my emails on holiday etc. It’s just part of the job. The positive side is that as a consultant I have a lot of flexibility as long as the work is getting done - I do a lot of school runs, then work from home in the evenings.