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

[Likao]

I am 40 and we have 1 dc age 2. I do everything for dd in terms of nursery runs, packing bags, ensuring dd has new shoes that fit, taking her to appointments etc. Any admin you can think of, I do.

i also work full time from home, so I have flexibility which is why I do nursery etc. At weekends DP will take dd out from 10ish to 4pm ish on a Saturday or Sunday so I can have a break. I don’t think this is ok or enough and I’m starting to get really pissed off that everything is left to me.

if I ask DP to do a specific task like put a wash on or pick up some food then he will. But what infuriates me is there is NEVER a sense of urgency from him to be home at a reasonable time and he would absolutely never ensure he was there to collect dd from nursery for example. I have to cut my data short often to collect her if unwell but he literally does not think he can do this because he can’t just leave patients (in his words). Obviously I know that there is a difference with his job but I am absolutely at the end of my tether tonight and very upset he’s been at work since 6am and not even asked how I’ve got on with dd and her bedtime (she’s very difficult at the moment). It’s making me very unhappy and feel very alone. It’s caused loads of arguments the last few weeks as I feel totally put upon. I don’t feel I have an equal relationship and the only answer I get back is that his job means he can’t do more. I’m sick of it all, should I expect more, is it fair?

I can't get past one parent thinking it is reasonable to absolve all parenting responsibilities 85% of the week and thinking that it's all made better by spending a few hours with his child at the weekend. It's like he's a separated dad without the cost or inconvenience of running his own home.

I don't really see what his job has to do with it TBH. There are plenty of high-powered careers out there that a) are full-on and stressful, b) eat into your day (though a lot of consultants will work pretty strict 'office hours'!), c) carry a sense of entitlement (if that was what you were getting at!)

He works FT. You work FT. You are also picking up ALL the childcare, child admin, appointments etc, which is clearly not on (working from home is fatal in this regard). So - something has to give. I would say, you need a nanny or au pair. If you're both working FT and at least one of you is on a decent salary (I assume) then this shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Your DH is being an inconsiderate arse and an au pair isn't going to help him pick up the slack, but why should this all fall to you?

I think YABU. He’s giving you a day to yourself each weekend. He literally has peoples lives in his hand for a living, that is a huge mental load. I wouldn’t expect a surgeon to be home nice and early regularly. Having just spent 2 weeks in hospital with a surgery cancelled twice they are under huge pressure.

It's more than he gets. Sorry OP but yabu. These are tough years but you'll get through them

The fact that it seems so exceptional to you is really quite sad. I mean that genuinely.

Well this sounds annoying OP, but I presume you're (literally) banking on your combined incomes giving you and your child a standard of living that many people will never have any chance of achieving.

Erm it was the same before you chose to bring a baby into it. Surgeon Most days 24hr call out aswell when he is home he's home. It's not an obsession you can't just up and leave operations etc if they take longer or an extra one has been added to the list. You wouldn't understand unless you work in that side of healthcare

You get a whole day at the weekend. He doesn't get any time to himself.
I recently had life saving brain surgery, the first surgery of the day was more complicated than they first thought. So they didn't start my surgery until 4pm and finished at 9pm and imagine they also had to do notes after I went to recovery. I expect none of them left the hospital until 10pm. I'm sure that happens regularly and if they worked their contracted hours my operation would have been cancelled.
Sorry but I can't see a way around this there aren't enough hours in the day. You both need sit down and talk and pay for help or one of you needs to reduce their hours.
If he's not physically there he can't help.
I know in an ideal world everyone would work the same hours at work and do 50 % of household stuff but life isn't perfect. Raising a family isn't perfect, I did most of the childcare when mine were little but my husband did later on.

Surely you understood the demands of his work before settling into married life and having a child? YABU OP, it’s not like he’s in a 9 to 5 job and can just say, ‘I’ll be back in half an hr, keep the patient under anaesthesia whilst I pick my kid up from nursery’, or ‘yeah, no worries I’ll not bother with the post op check on that patient, they’ll be fine until morning’. Did you honestly think a miracle would happen when DC was born and he could reduce his working hours?
I do wonder why some people have children then complain about the demands they make on their time and working lives.
Listen up all those who don’t have kids, and who already have a full on life with no spare time… don’t do it if you cannot afford a nanny!!!! Children deserve parents who can make time for them, not grumpy harassed ones who turn up at the school gates making kids feel like a nuisance in their lives.

If you both work ft and earn good money why don't you outsource picking up your dd? Or go part time ? I was a sahm because DH worked unreliable hours and I think that saved us from divorce because I didn't have any resentment from him not doing enough and also I wanted to spend as much as time as possible with them because they grow up so fast...

Do you regularly get 6 hours every weekend to yourself and have young kids? It seems like a lot to me too. To me, this is normal when you have kids. We divide and conquer w 3 kids and a dog....or we do it all together depending. But each kid has different activities and things going. My dh usually spends his extra time working during the weekend at home or an hour at the gym class. The rest of the time he has one or two kids in tow doing the activities while I have either one or two of the kids plus the dog.

I didn't get a day off for years and years, never mind one day a week. Single parent, 24/7 365 days a year. First time I had a break was when youngest was eleven, so thirteen years. I must be bloody superwoman 😁

I think @Devon24 post is spot. You need to see whether or how you can make it work whether thats throwing extra resources at things or not. Others who are not in this situation wont fully get it and much advice will have a lot of bias.

The difference between surgery/anaesthetics /pilots and any other high powered office based job is the ability to down tools and walk away when ever you want need or can, delay till tomorrow, take the work home etc

You absolutely can walk out of a meeting etc, set a defined time for something to end and ensure it happens. You can in a theatre setting some of the time - but encounter the aberrant vessel, unexpected tumour extension then yes you can walk away and the innocent patient either dies or has a poorer outcome. Likewise the pilot can ot just bail out halfway across the north sea because the flight left 2 hrs late!

I do not know or have met a surgeon who would do that and just walk away because..... Patients place their trust in us and the team to do the best for them and when they are on the table, they are the focus of everyone - scrub nurse anaesthetist and surgeon. When a theatre team work well together it is a beautiful thing to watch and be part of - no one is focussed on themself but a stranger who trusts them to do their best for them.

I never commit to school pick up on theatre days, so have a solid child care arrangement. If i do ace list and get home early it is a celebration for all of us!
But I can commit to finsihing clinic on time ( yes I work through what some poeple would call a lunch break to achieve that) but they are my kids and I will be there for them.

I always viewed it as pretty simple. DH was out of the house for 14 hours a day. When I went back to work I was out of the house for 9 including school drop offs. I had five hours a day, 25 hours a week more than him in which to deal with the dross of life. He earnt multiples of my salary. It was swings and roundabouts.

If I'd wanted a partner who was home at 6pm for bath time, I'd have married a more pedestrian bloke. I'm also going to be totally honest, I like having a husband with a glittering career and I like the advantages and privileges it has brought.

@wannabewitch very interesting what you say re neurodiversity. My husband (anaethetist) almost certainly has ASD and for me it's the rigidity he has around what is objectively a really challenging career which is so difficult. He genuinely cant seem to be flexible or deviate from work rituals (routines pre and post nights, obsessive revision schedules). And I say this as someone who worked as a doctor myself so I'm not completely clueless about the realities of hospital life. I honestly don't think he'll change so it's up to me if I can cope with it or not. He's a fantastic doctor and any team would be lucky to have him but the price to our family has been awful.

The surgeons I know are pretty obsessed with work but I think it's one of those jobs that kinda requires that. Not sure re solution.

Yes, I do. And usually at least one evening a week, too. So if my partner does nursery pick up I might take a book to the pub, then go to meet a friend for dinner, or if it’s summer go and sit out somewhere or swim and then have a drink somewhere. Or go to the theatre or cinema or some other event. My partner has Sunday nights so from about 4pm all the way to bedtime I try to make sure he doesn’t have to do anything so that would also add up to about six hours. He does a hobby one weeknight a week though he is taking a break from it at the moment.

We only have one child, though.

It really is loads when you have a young child and work, OP. I'm a SAHM to a 3yo and, in order to get a bit of a break, I go to a hobby group once or twice a week, but after our DC has gone to bed or as close to bedtime as I can manage. Six hours in the day where DH went out with our DC every single weekend would feel like loads and actually very unfair on him. I understand that you do work 18h a week but in terms of time solely for yourself, as someone else points out, when does he get his six hours? Sorry, I do think YABU. You knew what his job entailed when you decided to have children.

I think YABU. He's working. He's not out on the lash. You get 6 hours on a weekend to yourself. Use it for yourself. Get a cleaner during the week so your not wasting your resting time doing jobs.

does he regularly and always do 1o-4 at the weekend?

that is quite unique and I’d suggest you tell him how important those hours are and that they are non negotiable

can you imagine what would happen if SAHm got unionised ! 😀

YABU. Anyone married to a surgeon knows that the job comes first - always has, always will. And yet you, presumably, chose to have a child, knowing this.
That's fine - your choice, but you need to understand the implications. I have said on another thread that I was never up for solo parenting, so it was one of the reasons why we never had children.
I wish more people thought about this stuff before they rush into the baby thing.

Oh, and your husband looks after your child for 6 hours every Saturday? That's pretty impressive, tbh - why can't you see that he's doing as much as he can?

DH’s best mate is a surgeon.
I’d say it’s not for the faint hearted being married to him, his job always comes first as it has to - he literally has someone’s life in his hands when he’s at work!
He is however paid well, so they have a cleaner, gardener, etc but he often doesn’t turn up to social stuff as he’s needed at the hospital. His wife works part time but didn’t work before the kids were at school. Is less work/more bought in help an option OP?

He says virtually every surgeon is on 2nd or 3rd marriages in his circle though.

Comments about surgery attracting a bit of an arrogant pushy Alpha type of personality - well, maybe, but would you want a nervous timid type holding the scalpel if you were the patient?