Marriage and intern life

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doconboard

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So, 2 weeks into residency. I am on wards rotation (which I dont think I will do for my long term career anyway). I leave home at ~5:30am, come home at ~6:30pm. That is 6 days a week. Wife doesn't approve. There have been multiple days that when I come home, wife is angry/sad that I am late. We spend rest of the evening "consoling" her that this is not my fault, it is the situation's.

Mind you, I expected this going into residency. We have been together since end of my 3rd year. She knew going into it too. I guess she didnt know AS much about it.

Has anything like this happened to you folks who were/are married while starting intern year? How did you approach it?
 
The only people who haven't experienced this are married to other people at the same level of training.

And while it's true that she didn't know what she was in for, neither did you.

GET COUNSELING NOW!

Or just call it and get used to swiping right.

Those are your options.
 
Sounds like she wasn't ready for what she signed up for. Not everyone is cut out for being with a doctor- better you find out now that you're six years and three kids in. You can't change who she is, so you need to lay it out straight: this is my life, if you can't deal with it, gtfo.
 
doconboard said:
So, 2 weeks into residency. I am on wards rotation (which I dont think I will do for my long term career anyway). I leave home at ~5:30am, come home at ~6:30pm. That is 6 days a week. Wife doesn't approve. There have been multiple days that when I come home, wife is angry/sad that I am late. We spend rest of the evening "consoling" her that this is not my fault, it is the situation's.

Mind you, I expected this going into residency. We have been together since end of my 3rd year. She knew going into it too. I guess she didnt know AS much about it.

Has anything like this happened to you folks who were/are married while starting intern year? How did you approach it?
Click to expand...
While I could sympathize with her if you were writing about night float and she wasn't prepared for that, pretty much any profession is going to have you working until dinner time and some weekend work. If you were a lawyer or a banker etc you'd also be coming home at 6:30-7pm most days and working part of every weekend.
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
She just wants the D
Click to expand...

This is a legit point.

I do remember once upon a time being the little woman that was mad when my bf got home late, and this was legit the reason why.

OP - I know you're tired, but is there any chance you might be able to fix being home late for dinner with a hot beef injection?

Men in my experience tend to underestimate this as a factor in female bitchiness.

It's sort of like somatization. We're upset you're too tired to put out but rather than vocalizing it, it becomes about you not taking out the trash. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and other times.....
 
gutonc said:
The only people who haven't experienced this are married to other people at the same level of training.
Click to expand...

So I'm married to a non-physician, and me working a lot during training wasn't that big of a deal because he had his own **** to do.
 
doconboard said:
So, 2 weeks into residency. I am on wards rotation (which I dont think I will do for my long term career anyway). I leave home at ~5:30am, come home at ~6:30pm. That is 6 days a week. Wife doesn't approve. There have been multiple days that when I come home, wife is angry/sad that I am late. We spend rest of the evening "consoling" her that this is not my fault, it is the situation's.

Mind you, I expected this going into residency. We have been together since end of my 3rd year. She knew going into it too. I guess she didnt know AS much about it.

Has anything like this happened to you folks who were/are married while starting intern year? How did you approach it?
Click to expand...

Hi doconboard,
I think it would be helpful for your wife to meet and befriend wives of other residents. It will help her went her frustrations to someone else besides you, and, more importantly, get perspective on life from other residents' wives. I am guessing you wife is going through a period of adjustment in the new place of your internship, being away from her familiar social circle, and it is hard.
Also, have her read this article from kevinmd. Good luck.
What I wish I knew: Advice for spouses of doctors and residents
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/11/wish-knew-advice-spouses-doctors-residents.html
 
Margo said:
Hi doconboard,
I think it would be helpful for your wife to meet and befriend wives of other residents. It will help her went her frustrations to someone else besides you, and, more importantly, get perspective on life from other residents' wives. I am guessing you wife is going through a period of adjustment in the new place of your internship, being away from her familiar social circle, and it is hard.
Also, have her read this article from kevinmd. Good luck.
What I wish I knew: Advice for spouses of doctors and residents
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/11/wish-knew-advice-spouses-doctors-residents.html
Click to expand...

OK, not directly related to this post, but I'm going to rant a little on this topic in that it seems like this type of stuff is always addressed at someone's wife when half to more than half of medical students now are female. It feels kinda like the 1970s faculty wives club that my mom hung out in and doesn't address that there are a lot of male partners of residents and attendings. Actually on further reading of the article, it's pretty much solely directed at stay at home wives.

Honestly, though, I'm going to be mean here and say that any reasonable adult should be able to tolerate their partner being at work until 6:30 in the evening.
 
Margo said:
Hi doconboard,
I think it would be helpful for your wife to meet and befriend wives of other residents. It will help her went her frustrations to someone else besides you, and, more importantly, get perspective on life from other residents' wives. I am guessing you wife is going through a period of adjustment in the new place of your internship, being away from her familiar social circle, and it is hard.
Also, have her read this article from kevinmd. Good luck.
What I wish I knew: Advice for spouses of doctors and residents
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/11/wish-knew-advice-spouses-doctors-residents.html
Click to expand...

Sometimes the spouses can make things even worse and introduce thoughts and ideas that may be dangerous for the OPs relationship. Each individual has their own biases and relationship baggage..

My former best friend's girlfriend sabotaged my relationship with my GF at the time by doing exactly that. She was an insecure bitch and made her insecure too.
 
Crayola227 said:
Clearly joking, hence the opening disclaimer. This gonna be how it is now, you gonna come after me in all the threads?
Click to expand...

Hey now, DV is never a laughing matter that should be joked about. You should be ashamed of yourself.
 
There's lots of things that could be contributing to this that the OP didn't mention and could potentially help alleviate the situation. For example,

-did she move with you to a new place where she doesn't know anyone? If so, you need to help her find some friends.
-does she not work? If so, help her find a job that she likes, even if it's part time or volunteer.
-etc

And please, please resist the urge to think, "We should have some kids, that will give her something to do during the day!" Adding children to this situation is a recipe for disaster.
 
Even now that I am an attending, there are still days when I have to work later than other days because something came up that couldn't wait. In my case part of it is that I have chosen to do inpatient work, but even in outpatient jobs there will be many days when something happens that throws off your schedule and you won't always be home right on time. I can't imagine staying married if my husband wasn't able to accept that being a doctor means sometimes working inflexible hours (in fact, I am typing this on a weekend when I am on call and waiting for the babysitter to come so I can go into the hospital to round). The brutal reality that spouses of doctors have to accept is that, in many cases, this is not a normal job where you can just punch out when it's quittin' time. Even if you end up doing outpatient, in many cases you will still have pager call on evenings and weekends at the very least. Is she going to be able to accept that sometimes you might have to interrupt dinner to answer pages?

How is your relationship with your wife normally? Is she normally an easygoing person or does she tend to be high maintenance?
If she's not normally like this then I would try to get to the bottom of what's bothering her here. Does she feel neglected by you for other reasons? Is she feeling desperate for your attention because she doesn't have her own job or friends to give her something else to do? Is she feeling insecure that you're going to cheat on her now that you can get women's attention just because you're a doctor?

At a time when things are calm, I would sit her down and try to get her to explain: What are her expectations? What does she want to see happen? What would make her feel better about the situation?

If you are not happy in your relationship, if she's always been an unreasonably high maintenance person, then honestly I think it is better to find that out now and cut your losses than to let a miserable relationship drag you down all throughout residency. Oh, and if you do end up limping along all through residency and wind up divorced as an attending, you better find a very good lawyer, because she'll probably find a lawyer who will try to convince the court that the only reason you're making attending money is because of all the support she gave you during training.
 
Were you guys together during third and fourth year of medical school? I'm confused as to how third is a surprise. Night float and not getting to see my husband for a week straight because I had to go to work before he got home was an adjustment for my husband and I. But normal ward hours like you describe were exactly like the last two years of medical school so we were both used to the schedule by residency.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J120AZ using Tapatalk
 
I think Psai is onto something here. IS there any way your wife could spend some time with you during the day???? I know that this is a long shot, but is it possible?


Psai said:
6:30 pm? Really? Have her put on a pair of scrubs and follow you around.
Click to expand...
 
Did your wife disclose before marriage that she was an energy vampire or are you just finding this out? Sounds like a nightmare. Tell her to get a job and a hobby or gtfo. You will be putting up with enough crap as an intern. Never understood people who look to others for validation or entertainment. And 6a to 6p is a regular non-call day for interns.
 
Goro said:
I think Psai is onto something here. IS there any way your wife could spend some time with you during the day???? I know that this is a long shot, but is it possible?
Click to expand...

Not really possible while on wards but would be one of the funniest questions ever for the PD. "You see my wife is a basket case without me. Is there anyway..." Maybe if he does a derm elective. They probably take a full hour for lunch.
 
Do you have children? My advice will be a little different if you reveal that in the past six months she has perhaps given birth to your first child, moved across the country to this new community where you are training (and she doesn't really know anyone), and is now home alone for fourteen or more hours straight with a two month old with colic.

*To be fair, I think my husband and I both had a few days where we were really looking forward to our other half coming home to take the baby during our son's first few months of life (and in general our amazing little guy is a pretty happy baby). In our case, we're both physicians, and we work around each other's schedules to avoid outside childcare so we've both been on both sides of the equation. I've had patient transfers come in coding less than five minutes before I was supposed to be out the door and have delayed to my departure to intubate, achieve ROSC, and then place central access before handing the patient off to a colleague. My husband sometimes considers an 8PM home arrival good when he is deep in RSV months. It happens and we deal with it.
 
SouthernSurgeon said:
Sounds like a bad problem.

She's got to get on board or get off the train. She doesn't "approve"?? The jobs the job...
Click to expand...

I haven't gone through each response here but to simplify it a bit I think this sentence about sums it up......

Especially at this point of your career/training, there's not a whole lot schedule wise that you can control and she needs to realize that. Yea it sucks, it can put a strain on a relationship but this is when it gets hard and couples can do one of 3 things in my mind: become stronger, compromise where able to and get through it, do nothing and let the anger/resentment fester and then have 'issues' down the road, or realize that this is a deal breaker for one of them and call it quits.

I was married before med school and had one kid at the end of med school and another during residency. It's not easy. Fortunately for me I think the fact that my wife also has a career that required significant graduate level work/training helped in that she knew that committing to certain fields (Medicine, Law, etc...) requires a certain time and energy commitment and was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

Now is the time for ya'll to sort through this though as it does not get much better, if at all. Obviously it depends on what field you go into, but for a good number of us there will still be weekends away and call as an attending.
 
This happened while I was in med school. We went to counseling. I ended up divorced. I'm much happier now with a truly supportive partner.

You need to address this problem asap as things aren't going to get any easier.
 
mdpdgirl said:
Were you guys together during third and fourth year of medical school? I'm confused as to how third is a surprise. Night float and not getting to see my husband for a week straight because I had to go to work before he got home was an adjustment for my husband and I. But normal ward hours like you describe were exactly like the last two years of medical school so we were both used to the schedule by residency.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J120AZ using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
he did say they have been together since the end of 3rd year so all she really saw was 4th yr...certainly NOT representative of being a med student or resident.
 
crayola... never heard of a woman like you... hotness and crazy scale.. perhaps a dood. all men i know who are married. their ladys stop putting out. lots of fun...

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk
 
Intern year is a relationship killer.
doconboard said:
Mind you, I expected this going into residency. We have been together since end of my 3rd year. She knew going into it too. I guess she didnt know AS much about it.
Click to expand...

If you're just now starting intern year, you got married after being with this person for less than a year, or is my math not right?
 
Communication is so important, as is setting expectations. Intern year is tough but depending on your specialty you accrue more knowledge/responsibility as time goes on - which may mean more time in the physical hospital or answering phone calls. Plus this is wards, what about your ICU months (assuming you have a few) or nights? There has been some great insight on this thread, be supportive but also firm that this is your job and it's going to be tough.

It's not just medicine that is tough off the bat, intro banking and law can be the same level of work...
 
Crayola227 said:
Dude, you're like Captain Misogyny, definitely pot kettle black.

Let it go. Get over it.
Click to expand...

Typical female banter, turn to misogyny talk when all else fails. You're a woman who advocated for domestic violence even as a joke. You should be ashamed of yourself. Domestic violence is no laughing matter and what I've said about relationships (especially casual ones) in no way relates to this. Go **** yourself, hypocrite.
 
shoal said:
crayola... never heard of a woman like you... hotness and crazy scale.. perhaps a dood. all men i know who are married. their ladys stop putting out. lots of fun...

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Sex is a trap.
We fall for it anyway.
 
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SouthernSurgeon said:
We had an intern like this once, a long time ago. Wife would get really upset and passive aggressive anytime he stayed later than his designated shift. And yes, to bear out the stereotypes, she was a stay at home with a relatively new baby. It was pretty rough...he quit after 4 months or so, went into a cushier field. Still got divorced another year or two after that...
Click to expand...

I agree, he needs to dump her now
 
Last edited:
shoal said:
crayola... never heard of a woman like you... hotness and crazy scale.. perhaps a dood. all men i know who are married. their ladys stop putting out. lots of fun...

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

nah, enough longtime posters on here can confirm I am this crazy and this hot
but thank you, I've always seen myself as a dude in a hot chick's body

there do exist women that men struggle to keep up with.... crazy unicorns.
maybe look for high testosterone women? I don't mean the hirsute, I mean like ring finger longer than index finger & assertive being signs

also look for scorpios if you're feeling very brave

OP - good luck
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
Typical female banter, turn to misogyny talk when all else fails. You're a woman who advocated for domestic violence even as a joke. You should be ashamed of yourself. Domestic violence is no laughing matter and what I've said about relationships (especially casual ones) in no way relates to this. Go **** yourself, hypocrite.
Click to expand...

The ignore button. You may feel a sting.
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
Typical female banter, turn to misogyny talk when all else fails. You're a woman who advocated for domestic violence even as a joke. You should be ashamed of yourself. Domestic violence is no laughing matter and what I've said about relationships (especially casual ones) in no way relates to this. Go **** yourself, hypocrite.
Click to expand...

I actually, I will challenge you that my post could have been taken for a suggestion for consensual sexual roleplay and foreplay, but if you choose to see it as advocating for domestic violence or cannot take it as a joke, I'm sorry
 
Crayola227 said:
I actually, I will challenge you that my post could have been taken for a suggestion for consensual sexual roleplay and foreplay, but if you choose to see it as advocating for domestic violence or cannot take it as a joke, I'm sorry
Click to expand...

Right... I'm not the only one who saw it from my angle, the obvious angle. Just admit that you ****ed up. That's sending an incredibly wrong idea to the OP and others. Shameful!
 
Wow, those are not super terrible hours. I have had several 14-16 hr days (q3 ward call system). You need to have a discussion with her.
 
So....getting back to the topic at hand.

OP, I think the first step is to talk to your wife and find out exactly why she is "angry and sad" about you coming home late. Is it because she's lonely? Bored? Depressed? Had different expectations? Pick a time to talk when you won't be rushed and when you're not both already upset because you're fighting about how you've come home late yet again. When you ask her about her feelings, try to really make an effort to put yourself into her shoes and be empathetic, even if you don't "agree" with how she feels. Once you understand where she's coming from, and she hopefully also understands where you're coming from, then the two of you can brainstorm about solutions that will be acceptable to both of you. As it is now, it's hard to give specific suggestions for how to improve this situation, because we don't really have a good sense of what her concerns are based on your OP.
 
I am sorry that this is happening to you.

Sounds to me like you need marriage counseling. This wI'll hopefully help each of you understand the other's position better.

630 is really not that late. As a physician, you are going to have days like that. Granted, it won't like be 6 days a week like it is now, but the life of a doctor (or a doctor's family member) is tough.

What people sometimes don't understand is that deciding to go into medicine (or marry a doctor) is a lifestyle choice.
 
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