Piecing, 2 steps forward, one back, or more?

[25yearsmlc]

Scout,

how long have you been an MD and was your wife there for the whole training schooling "shebang"? I was there for the whole prolonged arduous ordeal. Our first child was 8 WEEKS old when H began med school at the age of 30, just after 3 years of a veterinary practice. (I married h while he was in veterinary school and I was in college---way too young). In his defense, I don't think either of us knew what we were getting into by him going to med school. I was in law school when "we" decided for him to go ahead and apply to med school BUT didn't know that I was pregnant and sure didn't know what was to come.

So, assuming your wife was there for the "crappy" part of being a doctor's wife, this means a couple things to me. Get ready for some slapping, okay? I mean, no offense, but SINCE YOU ASKED...

Being married to a doctor of medicine while they are "becoming" doctors, means that for every night you were in hospital/on call, She fed and bathed the kids without help, read to them and tucked them in by herself, and went ALONE, to an empty bed...for YEARS... When YOUR kids were sick, chances are it was HER caring for them...


Your workload and call schedule impacted others so much, but the focus was on YOU and YOUR hours and how hard YOU worked, and you were probably praised for it...and no one thought to acknowledge your wife's contribution or how little nourishment she got from the R. More like "poor H, he sure works a lot...."

It also means that when you were home at night, you were very likely to be too tired to be interested in her day, or even very agreeable, too tired to help much in the home or with the kids, WHILE they got to watch you fall asleep b/c YOU work hard, and it often meant sex was nil, and or foreplay was limited or rushed. Romance? What's that? Even for the man who IS a romantic (and my h was actually) there is so much pressure that invades the brain even when you are home or on vacation....more to learn, trying to please the staff, the patient, not get sued, etc. ALL affecting everyone. Looking at your watch during or right after ML, being blatantly pre-occupied at the kids' birthday parties, IF he got that time off at all.
Planning a "date" just wasn't ever done by my h, once he entered the med profession. It is the most demanding UNRELENTING career i can think of AND is a career that pretty much involves/affects EVERY person in the family. 9 Thanksgivings in a row, on call, and not home, so my kids actually did not know that it was a holiday except they had no school.

Every social situation you enter as a couple leads to HER being asked what field YOU are in and where YOU work....and or, a comment gets made about how "lucky" she is, b/c you must earn a lot of money... Occasional Insinuations about her marrying you b/c you are a doctor are sometimes made as well... And If she complains about your hours to others she is seen as ungrateful or bitter, and you, the doctor, get the sympathetic look. Also, very little is asked of her about HER interests or achievements as she is seen as an accessory to YOU...and with the nature of your career, she probably HAS had to put her interests aside, or behind yours. Otherwise, who will care for the kids? The house? The car? The bills? HER dreams? Her public accolade? Her work? Her contribution to the world, that gets shoved aside b/c how can it compete with your work? How can a wife compete with a cancer patient? We can't. Other's needs will always be more immediate than ours.

In my case, h would go out of his way to impress his staff or at least not rock the boat or irritate anyone and would rather inconvenience me/us than them. Example: when d18 was born, H was in med school and I worked full time. After one night in the hospital, I was to be discharged with our baby girl on a Friday morning and h was to pick me up that morning. I got discharged @ 8:30 am but h didn't show up to pick me up until 5 pm. No phone calls to me telling me to stay IN the hospital, or to call someone else to take me home or to call a cab or something, other than just wait for h...
I didn't get served lunch and I had a newborn, not to mention our s3 was still at a sitters....why? Because h felt it was more important to not miss another day, since he had missed school while I was giving birth. He didn't even ask for the day off, or early out to pick me up. Instead of a beautiful memory of bringing home our first daughter, I still feel humiliated that I was alone with the baby waiting for 8-9 hours in a hospital with my suitcase all packed...and a nurse giving me some of her lunch so I wouldn't be starved. (I didn't have my purse with me) I asked him to take some time off the next week but he didn't AND he was on call that Monday. I had a 5 day old baby, a 3 year old and btw, had herniated a disk during the 8th month of pregnancy...well, I would bet a $1000 that the staff on duty back then, doesn't remember my husband's name or face, let alone that h was soooo hard working that he worked at the hospital instead of going home.

Yes I can say I've let it go, but I sure do recall how I felt so devalued. H apologized about a year ago, in a way. He said something like he would do things differently now...but I wonder. I cannot seem to compete with his craving for mentors and their approval. Seems he would rather see admiration or devotion in the eyes of his patients, than his own wife's eyes, or the eyes of our children. None of our children wants to be a physician.

Having children totally changed MY life and career choices. In part, this was b/c h was not available to "cover" for me if I worked late and I knew that would always mean a nanny or some other "make shift" arrangement would have to occur. I chose jobs that didn't require long hours of me, and taking lateral transfers, or changing fields so I could be home at night for the kids, knowing h would never be. I have no regrets about spending time with the kids, but the more h worked, the more I felt the need to be home. And as it turns out, the more h felt financial pressure to compensate, although we were making enough money in 99% of people's cases. Only h feels the need for more money, more prestige, more whatever it is.

When h worked late he always seemed "surprised" and never accurately predicted his schedule. I see that this was b/c he wanted to avoid conflict so he'd tell me he was "on his way" only to leave the hospital an hour later, or that he "thought he would be off that day" only to be on call...IF he had simply been realistic maybe I'd have sighed, but it was the chronic BSing that bugged me. By denying he was gone a lot and pretending his hours were just fine, I was invalidated and things were left unsaid...I guess i wish I believed he was just a bit grateful to me for sticking it out so long. I also wish I had not "waited" for h to "get it" one day, and just divorced him years ago, or made other adjustments. He'd romance me just enough to keep me in the M...the minimum amount of effort in THIS area of his life, and the max in his career area. H's best years, best efforts and best qualities were all given to his job. We, his family, got the left overs and scraps.

Since medical school was a choice h made after we married, I can look and compare his veterinary career to his human medicine career. I can also compare it to my legal career and my brothers, who are also lawyers. BTW, h does make considerably more money now. And having money is definitely better than not having it. I am proud of his work b/c he does improve his patient's lives and is a good doctor.
But I was proud of him before, and I don't care all that much about money. It wasn't a choice between "wealth" and "poverty". Just a choice between modest life style with great quantity of great quality of life, versus upper class life style with little or no time together....I'll take the first choice ANY time, and never once in our M did I wish that H would work harder, or more, or take more call or earn more money. I know a few doctor wives who did this, so I'm glad to Not count myself as one of them.

I've never been that worried about money and I felt an economic life style of the
middle class life was fine. I love the theater, various art forms, the outdoors, travelling, etc. But I have explored them for the most part, without h. For a married woman, I have been alone a lot, and the kids have had phone based relationships with their father for their whole lives. H always seemed to be putting off "real life" or time with the family, until after the next position, a higher salary, diff title, new job, etc. Now our 2nd child is leaving the nest and h MAY be awakening to the reality that the first 2 of our 3 kids are NOT close to him. And the time as a family of 5, is over now, never to be re-claimed.

Yes, his work is important and his career choice is well regarded by the public. God knows h does work hard. But as a woman, as a wife, best friend, and as a mother, my needs for a man, a husband, my best friend's company, and a co-parent for our children, have ALL gone unmet for literally decades. In short, the medical profession as h's career choice, for me, and for our children, was not worth it. And I have a VERY hard time believing that h's choices were FOR our family, though he claims that it was. He may even believe it himself, b/c otherwise he'd be forced to realize that his career is much more immediately rewarding than building on family R's. New titles, accolades, a bonus, promotion, etc. are all "fast food for the starving ego" (from the book "The Heart of a Father", I think) whereas fathering is like depositing a dollar a day into an account and only after years, can you see the effect of the "compounding interest" in your loving relationships.


I am sorry to say all this and even sorrier to feel most of it. Hope this helps a bit.