I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar situation and could share their perspective on finding a fair balance. My fiancé and I are drafting a prenup, and while I understand his desire to keep finances separate given our income differences and his job’s demands, I’m concerned about how to keep it from feeling like a barrier to partnership.

A bit of background: My fiancé and I have been dating for about 3 years. We started dating in his last year of residency, and he recently became an attending physician (1-year) in a high-earning specialty and currently makes about ten times my income. He owns a rental property, while we both currently rent in a low-cost-of-living state. Beyond this, neither of us has major assets or debts. I am a non-U.S. citizen and recently accepted a lower-paying job on a work visa, aiming to close the gap after being in a long-distance relationship for the past two years. I’m optimistic that once I have unrestricted work authorization in the U.S., I could increase my earnings by 2-3 times.

Despite significantly increasing his income this past year, my fiancé experiences money anxiety and lives quite frugally. For the prenup he proposes that we keep all income and assets as separate property during the marriage, and in case of divorce, each of us would leave with what we individually brought into or accumulated during the marriage. Since he’ll be earning significantly more, he’s offered to cover most shared expenses (like food, vacations, and housing) and add me as a cardholder on his credit card to avoid it feeling like he has complete control over finances. Our combined annual expenses would likely average out to around $60,000, as we both live fairly frugally (him moreso than I).

I understand where he’s coming from and am trying to be empathetic—I fully agree that I shouldn’t automatically be entitled to half his assets if we were to divorce, which is why I was encouraging of a prenup to begin with. However, as someone who believes marriage is about being a “team” and making financial decisions together, I can’t help but feel concerned. His approach seems to 1) plan for a divorce throughout the duration of the marriage and 2) potentially create a power imbalance, rather than fostering a true partnership. I worry that his frugality and concern over finances might create emotional distance between us in marriage.

Currently, we don’t plan to have children, though we know that could change. Additionally, with him as the higher earner, I’ll likely be prioritizing his career, possibly at the expense of my own, which amplifies these feelings. While I appreciate his willingness to cover most expenses, I still feel drawn to a more joint financial approach (but not necessarily “50-50”). Am I being unreasonable with this mentality?

I am engaged to a resident in a tough surgical subspeciality. Residency has caused irreparable damage to our relationship. I was hoping that after intern year she would settle back into our relationship. However, I still complete the lion share of household tasks and romantic activities.

My partner suggests that I need to have less expectations for her because she is trying her best. She believes I need to respect her sleep schedule and not have high expectations about when she is able to complete tasks. She wants me to love her unconditionally and NOT just because of what she does for me.

Problem is, I watch what she does with her free time. Often times, she goes out with her co-residents on a weekly basis, foregoing her sleep. When she is not out, she is usually resting, sleeping or watching TV. When I ask her why she makes this exception with her co-residents, she states that venting outside the hospital to co-workers is necessary for her to replenish her battery. Going to the gym with me and helping around the house don't help her feel good.

Her main argument is that I should trust that after residency she will be able to better participate in the relationship. She feels I am being inpatient, judgmental and notes that any resident would feel the way she feels (aka my expectations are too high). Her fear of not being able to match my expectations then leads to her feeling stuck and not wanting to do anything because it doesn't feel organic.

I feel like I am losing my mind hoping and waiting that things get better while life passes by. Although I am not going through residency, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold my partner to basic (albeit lowered) standards. We do not have kids, her laundry and groceries are taken care of.

I am trying to figure out if this relationship is worth taking to the next level. Even when residency ends, there will be other stressors in life. If her MO is just to shut down during these periods, I don't know how sustainable that is for a healthy relationship.

I'm feeling heartbroken. My boyfriend is a first year resident. He always dedicated his upmost time and effort in our relationship. We are long distance so he called me any chance he got. It got to a point that I felt smothered and our conversations became mundane. We both became more easily annoyed with eachother, and I felt that the constant phone calls led to increased fighting and not much space in the relationship. This coupled with the fact that we were coming out of the honeymoon stage and going through some rough patches of miscommunication and misunderstandings. I suggested he call me less and we save our updates for one-two phone calls per day that we both can look forward to. This helped a bit but the main struggles of our relationship remained. I had an issue with his negative moods (he was easily angered or annoyed) as well as communication issues. Upon reflection, his issue with me was making him feel overwhelmed and putting pressure on him during an already stressful point in his work life. It came to a breaking point when I visited him for a week and we basically fought for majority of it. The last 2 days we finally got to a happier point with improved communication but I could tell there was a shift with him. When we got back he told me he felt overwhelmed at work and overwhelmed in the relationship but that we should wait and see if the "spark comes back". He went from super loving to not so much. I empathized and admitted where I went wrong (being too adamant and eager he work on his problems immediately). I had a completely new attitude which allowed me to take all the pressure off and just be supportive. Despite my efforts, two weeks later he visited family in an different country (which I was invited to) and just ghosted me for those 5 days. I was in utter disbelief that someone like him would ever do something like that. I understand if he needed space but he should've communicated that to me- it was very hurtful. When he got back he used roaming charges as an excuse and sent me this breakup text:

"Its all a bit much for me, you’re an amazing human being, really sweet to the core of the heart, always caring and being extremely understanding of things. I love you as well, and I understand things haven’t been the best for us the past couple of months, lots of misunderstandings and arguments. But I feel really down, residency is taking a humongous toll on me, and I know all the things that happen, while its not clear to you, like yesterday, I always have my reasons around it. I don’t feel anymore, and really don’t want to affect you negatively any longer. Its alot, X, and too much for me to bear and have you bear as well. We just don’t understand each other as much, and while I am not the best communicator and for sure something I have to take into account, and i’m sorry for that. You deserve a whole lot better than this, and its not something I have the energy and can afford at this moment. These past couple of days led me to realize I need this alone time to focus on residency fully, and not have to worry about other things in life. To stay all my hours in the hospital like I used to do. Its alot of demands on me, and I don’t feel anything anymore, its being sucked away everyday. Its not fair for you, and you have much more love to give to that person and have reciprocated back. I’m sorry X, you probably seen how I am from your last visit. I really wish you understand where i’m coming from, and its not easy for me to say or type all this out"

We talked on the phone after and as I walked through the relationship and how I really tried to give him what he needed and how we haven't been fighting at all since coming back from Vacation, he explained that he still feels emotionally numb and drained. Not just with me but other things in life. He suggested we take a "reset". He believes he treated our relationship like a sprint and not a marathon and he thinks space will help us come back together and try without the gloom of the recent fighting. He said he still knows he loves me despite not "feeling love" due to the numbness. I don't know what to believe.

Right now it's been 6 weeks since the breakup and we've been no contact. I'm not sure if he suggested the "reset" to just let me down easy. I'm hoping to reach out at the 8 week mark. Give me your honest opinion and perspective on this. A residents perspective would also be especially helpful about WHEN to reach out/a fair amount of time to cope with the past issues of the relationship and 80 hour work weeks.

Thank you!

I’ve followed r/medicalschool and r/premed on my main account for a while now to try and understand the culture to better support my girlfriend during the application process and now currently while she is in med school. Through doing so, I had this sub recommended to me, and thought this might be a good place to ask for advice. I’m primarily looking to hear if this is a normal experience or for advice, especially if any med students happen to read this and can weigh in.

My girlfriend and I are both women in our mid 20s who have been together for close to 2 years. I am not in the medical field, and she is in her first year of med school. Prior to beginning med school, she started to lose any desire for sex. I didn’t think much of it because I knew she was going through a stressful time with med school applications and also just switched to a new form of birth control. There are always going to be times where someone in the relationship may fluctuate with their sex drive and I wasn’t bothered because I assumed when she felt more stable this intimacy would return.

Unfortunately, it’s now been a year and we still are not having sex. This is something I brought up to her many months ago ahead of beginning med school since I knew she would be incredibly busy. She spoke to her doctor about her birth control, but nothing changed with the medication she was using and she doesn’t find it worth it to get her hormones checked which I suggested. I am empathetic towards this because I struggle a lot with menstruation related issues and have gone through a similar experience with trying various medication and understand it’s frustrating and exhausting. She made it seem like once she got into med school, she would be feeling better.

When med school came around, it only got worse. This is also when I suspected she had worse depression than I thought. I don’t mean to psychoanalyze, as this is something we talk openly about. She is saying things that are very textbook depression, and experienced them even prior to med school. I fear that the grueling schedule and stress on top of pre-existing depression is really taking its toll. I am worried about her, but whenever I have brought up my concerns about making sure she is okay and offering my support she responds as though she just has to grin and bear it. She is in therapy, but refuses to see a psychiatrist even during a break before her second year.

It’s gotten to the point where beyond sex, the relationship lacks general intimacy and romance. This is what’s actually been hard and taking a toll on me. I feel like I lost my partner, and I know that none of it is likely relevant to me but it’s so hard because I just want to be supportive but at times I’m devastated. I have talked to her about this and discussed ways we could try to have romantic moments that are less of a time commitment and little things she could do to remind me I’m loved. I’m not sure what else I can do. We haven’t been on a date in close to 6 months, and we barely even kiss and nothing more than a quick peck. I never receive compliments or words of affirmation and as an umbrella almost nothing that falls under any love language is happening. The most intimacy I feel is when we get to cuddle a bit.

I believe she loves me and has feelings for me and I’ve asked for reassurance of this. She has also expressed to me that she wishes she felt these desires again, and is upset and misses it. I feel like a lot of this just comes down to her likely being depressed, but I’m not sure if there is more I can be doing. Has anyone else experienced something like this? Is this normal for a medical student to go through this? Are there ways I could be providing better support that I’m missing?

My MedSpouse gets mad at me and tells when I say that I sacrificed a lot to help her career flourish. It really bothers me that she doesn’t understand and makes me feel like she is ungrateful for all the support I have provided throughout her medical journey. She even suggested that she was taking care of me during her whole residency. This is not true, we have a child and I took care of most daily tasks (take her to school, feed her breakfast/dinner etc.) all while having a career in corp management. There has been so much sacrifice (moving to a crappy city, leaving my friends and family, quitting my high paying job to move for her residency only to take a 20 percent pay cut, providing all the household chore support and picking up the slack with the kids. I would be fine with this if my MedSpouse actually was appreciative of this. When I bring up that I am having a hard time dealing with the sacrifice, she yells at me and says I’m making her feel like she ruined my life and that she is a villian. Never once has she said, yes you did make a lot of sacrifice and I am grateful. She only says she helped take care of me. How do I rephrase this to make her understand better? I love her but when she acts like this it is extremely upsetting.

Hello, I’m a third-year medicine resident applying for a two-year fellowship this year. The decision to choose my top program is causing me a lot of stress. I got married during residency and had a baby as well. My wife and family are local, and they have a family business. On the other hand, I don’t have any family nearby. However, I’m responsible for 80% of the bills at home, as my wife’s salary is not as high as mine. My top programs are in different states, and I received only one invitation from a local program that is not as strong as the others.

From my perspective, my top program provides better education and more income in the future, but my wife doesn’t agree. She believes that considering a move is a selfish decision, given that I would be disrupting her support system, as she has family support and her family business allows her a flexible schedule to take care of the baby and work simultaneously.

I’m open to moving alone and traveling to see them, but she doesn’t like that idea either.

Any advice?

How did you or your spouse go about finding a contract lawyer for first contract out of fellowship/residency.

What did you look for specifically in a lawyer?

Any recommendations for lawyers in Texas?

I love my bf (m3) so much but obviously things have changed a lot since he started med school. Moving in together definitely saved our relationship but I’m just so unsure of how I feel right now. Im a pretty independent person but it honestly just feels like we’re roommates at some points. I don’t even bother initiating sex because we only ever do it when he has the energy for it. We don’t have anything to talk about anymore but we used to yap for hours. He is so emotionally unavailable because he’s so busy or exhausted. I’ve had some drastic events happen recently and I just sat and cried while he watched rather than comforting me.

Don’t get me wrong, he really is such a great guy when he gets proper rest lol. & I love the time we do have together even if we’re both tired. And we have really good times together But it’s so hard not to compare to friends with partners that are so much more available. The last time we had a full day together was back in the spring. I know it’s selfish but I miss how things were before med school. Sometimes I wish he had chosen another path because it’s so draining for me.

How do you keep the spark alive and fulfilled in your relationship? I’m so drained from this but I I’d never leave because I’m holding onto how things were before med school even though I know things will never be like that again. I live in an awesome city with great friends but my relationship just feels so dull :( uggh help!

I’ve been with my husband for almost 18 years, the full gamut from medical school, five years of residency, and nine years in private practice. We’ve lived in two different cities and have three grade school age kids.

Y’all, it’s still hard! It’s so much better though. We’re settled in a city we love, with a great group of friends and family nearby. Much more financially stable (although some days I fantasize about him taking a job as a biology professor at a nearby college, paycheck be damned).

Residency was absolute hell. Our first was born in the midst of a trauma rotation (24 hour calls q3, which really meant 30 hour calls). I’ve always been independent and totally fine to do things on my own, but being a “single” parent in a new city was awful. Looking back I should have had weekly therapy. I tried hard not to take it out on him. It’s a tricky balance, because they’re killing themselves for a career they love (and he TRULY loves surgery), but you feel totally neglected in many ways. And he’s an incredible man who gives his all and loves me dearly… but I just had to come to terms with the fact that I came second in residency. We managed to carve out some fun moments, but we missed at least four friends’ weddings and barely made it home for Christmas half the time.

Private practice has been wonderful in so many ways, but it’s definitely not an automatic 9-5. Ha! Weekend calls are essentially spread over four days so he can get all the work done and see 5,000 patients. The stress is still there - pressure to make the right decisions and execute well. He is very well regarded in the community but y’all, the threat of being sued is a constant worry. People are so quick to want to blame the surgeons and it’s terrifying to work so hard just to be slammed with a suit. Thankfully this has not happened often but the threat is there, as I’m sure many of you in similar positions know.

He’s a wonderful father and with a slightly more flexible schedule he’s able to be at a lot of the kids’ things. He really puts us first when he can, but I can tell when he comes home and just needs to zone out for 30min and not be bothered. It’s hard and I want him all to myself, but this is where we are. It’s been worth it, but it takes a spine of steel to get through the harder times. I feel like I give more than I get some days, but that’s love.

For any of you in the early stages of surgery residency, you just have to decide that it’s worth it and be willing to sacrifice. Don’t lose yourself completely (I have worked throughout and now work part time so that I can be flexible with the kids), try not to lose faith in your spouse. That doesn’t mean they get off the hook for everything and that you don’t deserve appreciation, but this is a different animal. And for the love of god, make life easier on yourself and hire a housekeeper, a yard crew, and learn to use power tools so you don’t have to wait around for them to fix stuff!

We just came off of an especially long call weekend, so I was having all the feels. Hope this provides some perspective for those of you in a similar position.

My 36m gen surg resident ended with me 2 months ago - pretty out of the blue. Three months after finally passing his surgical training and me dedicating the last year to him so all he had to think of was study. Despite my big corporate job too.

Friends for two years, dated for two years. Went for a walk, said he didn’t see us getting married and having kids with me. Obviously I was shocked, as that was sort of the plan ha - we were moving to another country for fellowship next year. I walked back to my house (hadn’t moved in together as study schedule obviously). And he said he’d put my stuff in a bag - spare tampons, contact lenses and as he walked out the door said “I’ve written your medical note to get you a refund on your flight” (I’d booked flights for a a holiday three days before. Totally blindsided. Haven’t heard from him since apart from him replying to a text which his reply was “I do not love you, we are broken up, move on”. Blocked everywhere. Cut. Surgical precision.

When you spend all this time supporting someone to hone their craft, you don’t except to be the one they cut out so meticulously. He’s been working crazy hours post exams, every weekend - had a rash on his face from stress and was getting now sleep. We were finally going to get weekends back in sept after every weekend for the last year or so being study time only annd then broke up with me last few days of August..

Talking to my therapist; she said she had heard of this happening to another person. Is this a thing? Do you know of people that have basically used someone through exams and then gotten rid of them?

I am a very happy, successful, emotionally balanced 35F - and this has thrown me and my friends/ family so much.

My partner of five years is currently in surgery pre-residency (not sure if it's a thing in the US, we're from the Philippines - it's basically several weeks of trying out for a residency slot).

She goes on 60+ hour shifts and only goes home every three days to have anywhere from 3 to 12 ish hours to herself before going back to the hospital at 3 AM. She lives in a condo beside the hospital, but the problem is that we can't live together for various reasons and her hospital is a 1-2 hour drive from my place.

I always make the effort to go to her on those off days to bring her food/tidy up her place a bit, but we get like maybe 10-20 mins of interaction before she dozes off to sleep (which I don't mind, she badly needs it). She can barely talk during those times too because she's too sleepy, so I usually just cuddle her to sleep.

But these are the only times we get to interact, aside from the text or two here throughout the day. If she gets in, this will be our life for the next five years, and she's completely decided on surgery. She says that despite the exhaustion and humungous eye bags, she really enjoys the surgery work. Fortunately, her parents drop by often to help maintain her condo.

I'm a fairly independent person, so I can actually tolerate not seeing her often like this, but there's still fear in the back of my head that we'll fall out of love (so to speak) because we barely get to see each other. I'm also afraid of all the stories that say their partner changed and got depressed, bitter, acted like a zombie, etc. because of residency.

What can I do better? Any tips?

My husband started EM residency this year, so he’s been working for 4 months now. He’s having a very hard time adjusting to residency life and thinks about quitting at least once a month. I’ve been urging him to talk to a therapist/psychiatrist and he did have a Telehealth appointment booked, but they cancelled on him the night before. He thinks he’s depressed and he does want to explore antidepressants for treatment, but he can’t seem to find the time to re-book his Telehealth appointment.

I’ve told him anytime he thinks of quitting that I will support any decision he makes, but I do ask him to think of our future and our family. It’s just the two of us and our dog right now, but we do want kids at some point. I ask him what he would want to do if he were not a doctor and he never knows. I do have a job, but it would be a tighter budget to just live off my salary.

His residency placement was also 6th on his list and it’s 4+ hours away from any sort of family, which is not what we wanted when researching residencies. We recently went on vacation and in the car on the way to the airport he said “I never thought this day would come” and I said “what, vacation?” and he said “no, the chance to leave ______ city”. It doesn’t seem like he likes living in our town and he thinks I don’t like it either, although I’ve never said anything to the contrary (I don’t really like it, but I went from a big city to this small town so I’ve been trying to make the most of it).

We’re both also having trouble making friends. I wfh full time, so I don’t have the opportunity to make friends with coworkers. He’s always so tired outside of work that he doesn’t want to spend time with anyone other than me. The residency get-togethers are also often at breweries and neither of us are drinkers, so he often feels out of place. I’ve been saying from the beginning that both of us need to make our communities here, we can’t solely rely on each other for fulfillment. I’ve been trying to make my own friends and I’ve urged him to invite some of his closer co-workers over for dinner or something, but he doesn’t want to reach out to them.

I’ve told him that I don’t think quitting is the right decision, but his mental health is the most important thing. He says he sees the attendings he works with and they don’t seem happy. His college friend is an EM attending now, he was in med school when my husband was in undergrad, and my husband says he was very different from what he knew him to be in college, like the lights in his eyes went out. He said he doesn’t want his future to be like that.

He’s such a kind and compassionate person and I see these traits being snuffed out especially after long shifts. I don’t know what else I can say to make him feel better and to keep his head high. I try to say the right things, but I never truly know what to say. I don’t know what he’s going through at work and I probably never will. How do I comfort and support him?

Tl;dr - my husband is depressed and often thinks about quitting residency. How do I emotionally support him, but also encourage him to stay?

My husband is cross covering this weekend and the pager has never been this busy. It was going off all night last night and I'm so tired. He's already at work and I've got to drag myself through this day solo with two toddlers. Please wish me luck.

My husband is a PGY-2 in a long surgical residency. He is pretty destroyed by the pace, hours, and expectations but luckily we’ve been able to have a healthy marriage despite this and generally get along well.

Here’s the problem: in the last two years, we’ve gone to seven weddings for his friends and the invitations just keep coming — he desperately wants to attend every wedding he can, and I hate it. My husband feels like he’s missing out on “normal” life and wants to stay connected to his pre residency friends by going to all their life events. In theory, this is lovely! In practice, it makes my life miserable and I don’t know how to make it stop.

These weddings are all fancy affairs in off the beaten path places that require time and significant money to get to (flight, rental car, driving multiple hours). We have used nearly all his PTO on this and I’m sick of spending our free time and money on all these events. Worse, his hours mean that even getting to these weddings in the first place is incredibly stressful for me — on multiple occasions I’ve driven us to the airport as he’s coming off a 24 hour shift and falling asleep in the car. Then we have to show up and be fun & social when he’s exhausted from residency and I’m exhausted from taking care of him, working full time, keeping our household afloat, you know the drill.

I feel like an asshole telling him we can’t keep going to all these weddings but they honestly cause a tremendous energy and financial strain. We technically have the money (we aren’t going into debt) but I would estimate we’ve spent 10-15k total on these which is serious money. All these people are close to him and my husband is worried he will lose these relationships if he doesn’t go to the weddings.

Has anyone else been in this situation? What should I do?

This sucks so bad. Basically just the title. He met her as a patient, saw her for follow ups post surgery. She got a crush on him and would get dressed up for appointments. They met again on a dating app and have been seeing each other for two months. She has been fucking him in my bed. Her texts are drooling over his career, it's gross.

It seems like it should be an ethical violation, but I couldn't find anything about it.

He's leaving me for her. It hurts so much. We've been together for seven years. We were about to have a baby. Now he's trying to sweep me under the rug, and slot her into my place. She's 35 and desperate to get married and have a baby. She just swooped in and stole my whole life from under me.

I hate that he gets no consequences. I signed a prenup because I trusted him, I thought he was a decent man. Turns out he's a disgusting fucking pig.

Hi all,

My bf (PGY-4 gen surg) of almost 4 years and I have started to seriously consider moving in together. We're both pretty busy so in the past we've only been able to spend weekends together (if he's not working), but I'm currently in a bit of a transitional period and have been able to spend more time at his apartment so we are able to at least have dinner together 4-5 days out of the week, and we've both been a lot happier.

He has another 8 months left on his lease and I'm currently in-between apartments and staying with family, so moving in together at the end of his lease makes more sense right now than it has in the past. In the past he's mostly been apprehensive of making such a big change during residency, but the plan is to continue to spend most of the week together so we both get a sense of what living together may be like, and to revisit this topic and make a clear decision after he takes the ABSITE in Jan, so we can start apartment hunting for the beginning of the summer. We coexist pretty well in his current place, the biggest issue we face is not having enough space for 2 people.

I wanted to get some advice from people who have moved in with their partners during residency and issues and considerations that you may have faced in making the decision and post-moving in together. What has helped and what would you do differently?

EDIT: looking for advice on things that wouldn't be super obvious in the initial conversation, of course we'd talk about things like rent split and what kind of space we'd need, but I'm more so looking for feedback in addition to the typical considerations when moving in together.

Additionally, I'm applying to medical schools in the coming cycle, so the whole "bulk of household tasks falling to me" would not at all be applicable (with the exception of meal prepping, as I already do so for myself)

My husband (38) has been out of training for two years and is convinced he’s a failure. He claims his “failure” rate for ablation is 50% but the numbers aren’t close to that… for the sake of argument let’s say it’s 30% (extremely cautious estimate) with zero cases that have resulted in harm and most, save for maybe four that have resulted in success with the second go at ablation. The outliers were all resolved with the third attempt or through treatment otherwise. He is in private practice in a large metropolitan area, which is demographically the same as where he trained. And the duration of his training was great - there were instances of burn out, of course but nothing to suggest he wasn’t on the right path. He received multiple awards throughout and he seemed genuinely very excited to get started. Now, however, things are quite different. 

I (36F) do not work in medicine and have no history with cardiology outside of my relationship with my husband (12 years - together through his last part of med school, residency & fellowship). I am currently a stay at home mom to our 15 month old. Despite my best efforts at talking him down, he just simply won’t or can’t listen to the facts and he has such incredible anxiety and depression stemming from his work that he rarely has good days anymore; even working cases without issue, monetarily exceeding expectations with this group… he seems incapable of acknowledging his successes. And since I do not know or understand the exact details of his work, he isn’t able to take my commiseration or advice seriously. The fact that we are a one income household is definitely not helping but he is adamant that I stay home and frankly I’m worried that if I were to push the subject more he would take that as yet another “failure”… anyway…

I am at a loss. I have no idea how to help. So, I am here, praying/hoping/etc. that some of you might have had a similar introduction to the specialty and have come out on the other side. If anyone could provide insight into their own struggle or advice on how to help a spouse going through this, I would be so appreciative. Thanks in advance. 

**Cross posted to r/electrophysiology but evidently it was removed? I'm not sure what rule I broke, but if any of you have another subreddit suggestion for this, that would be great.

25f with a husband applying to residency. He got invited to the program directors house for a resident/faculty social dinner in a southern state. The dress is business casual for the applicants, but I am unsure what how formal to dress as the spouse. Jeans and a sweater with boots? Blouse and a skirt? A dress and jean jacket?

EDIT: I’m realizing I need to give more context; my husband is tending to go to the gym or out with friends during the day when our nanny is here or after the baby goes to sleep and when we do social engagements it’s as a family or at least as a couple/or him alone after baby is asleep. He definitely is being an active father and does a lot around the house! I was more trying to illustrate how much he expects of himself (and by proxy me at times). We also have a house keeper who comes twice a month! Also he’s called me weak when we’re arguing about this and has felt bad and apologized afterwards. Still isn’t nice/fair/productive which I have told him and taken a hard line on not using that language about me but we’ve both spoken in anger. However, he is generally uninterested in having a serious conversation about our priorities and I do believe he looks down on me for not being able to “keep up” with the lifestyle he wants and that’s what I’m really struggling with. He also fails to account for the disproportionate mental and physical load I’ve taken on for our child and doesn’t account for that in why I’m feeling overwhelmed. He feels that because he’s an active father/partner and he moved away from many of his family and friends to be near my support system during fellowship that I need to make sure we host/visit his friends and family as much as possible. I do want him to be happy here but my god I just cannot keep up.

My husband (33M) is a second year fellow. We’ve been together since college so we’ve navigated medical school, residency and his first year of fellowship with a newborn (our first child). Originally he didn’t plan on a fellowship and we compromised that he would do one near my family so I would have support when we started our family. I (33F) do have good support here and I work a remote but demanding job and have to travel every few months. My husband is a really great dad and hard working person. I love him so much and he’s my best friend but lately we’ve been drifting apart. He works 3-6 nights/evenings a month, on top of a full administrative workload, travel for conferences and tons of call which he can take from home but it’s like 12-16 days a month on top of everything else.

He also has, what I feel to be, really high standards for our life. He wants us to be making nice home cooked meals most nights (FYI he’s doing the cooking but I’m alone watching the baby during that time), have a clean home, do multiple renovation projects both by ourselves and with contractors, we’ve traveled or hosted people in our home on average every month (sometimes more) during my entire pregnancy and the first year of our baby’s life, he wants to be able to go to the gym multiple times a week and go out with friends a few times a week at least. I’ve spent multiple nights and weekends solo parenting the last two months after a whirlwind of traveling this summer and my job is very stressful lately. I’m just fully burnt out and when I try to share this with him and ask to deprioritize things he gets annoyed at me and says I’m being weak. I’m really struggling with anxiety and I feel like I can’t talk to him about it because the best advice I get is try to go to the gym or go out with friends more—which can help but at this point I’m so exhausted the idea of planning more social engagements makes me want to cry. I am trying to sneak off and exercise during my lunch breaks and work from elsewhere during the day so I don’t spend every break I have helping my mom take care of our son/cleaning the house/doing chores.

Anyway, sorry for the longgg rant. Basically my question is—am I just being a baby? How do other people cope and manage this. How do you keep up with the relentless pace? I feel like the only option is to quit my job but I make way more than him and support our lifestyle until he’s finally done with his studies. I’m just tired and resentful and so scattered.

Hi! Does anyone work or their husband work at Dell Children’s?

My partner and I have been together for a little over a year and a half. He’s a second year trauma surgery fellow and we met right before he started his fellowship. His first year actually wasn’t too bad and he had a few off days every month with at least 1 full weekend off every other month. Second year, however, has been the complete opposite. We haven’t had a full day together since August 1st. He’s on call every other week and is doing a lot more 24 hour shifts. I’m trying to find ways to make our short time together meaningful- which is hard since he usually has a million notes to write and resident evaluations to complete. We do not live together. We see each about 1x per week after he gets off a day shift (so usually between 6p-7p) and will either make dinner or go grab something and then just watch a series on a streaming platform. Then I leave the next morning when he goes in at 6a. I think I’m just struggling since his schedule changed so much when in comparison to last year. I appreciate any advice on what some of you all do!

Five months into intern year y’all!

You hear a lot of negatives that come with dating someone in residency so i just wanted to share a few things that I’m so grateful for in my resident and that i really appreciate.

It’s really the little things. It’s his one weekend off after working 20 days straight that he spends moving furniture around the house with me and chopping up mushrooms for lasagna. It’s the 5 am litter box cleaning on his way to work. It’s the running to the car when the weather gets cold so I don’t have to be outside for too long. It’s the silly dances he does in the kitchen and the concerts he puts on as he’s walking around the house. It’s the way he takes the dogs out for a potty break after he gets home from a 16 hour shift. It’s joining me in a giant dried corn pit at the pumpkin patch not caring what other people think and just being kids together. It’s doing the dishes after dinner together every night and the way he tries to convince our 8 week old kittens that he’s the favorite while trying to conspire against me. It’s how he is always so excited to share what interesting cases he’s seen and how he’s so encouraging to me and my dreams right next to his own.

The best part is how he watches Gilmore girls with me every night because he knows I’m obsessed with it.

My resident works so hard, and dude if you see this, I’m so proud of you! I love you and I know you work hard and I appreciate all of the little things so much.

Hi everyone, I figured this might be a good place to start my search.

Hubby is looking to leave current program a PGY2. He would ideally be able stay in his speciality, but spots are hard to come by for PGY2!

Does anyone know what specialties would accept his intern year credits?

Hi everyone, I was wondering how you guys approach the job search when your partner is anticipating a move between different locations. Do you guys ever sit on several offers and renege wherever your partner doesn’t move to? Or do you just wait and not start the job search until your partner knows exactly where they are going?

(Background: my fiancé got accepted into 2 different medical schools but he is unsure which one he will go to since they’re pretty similar. I got a job offer in both cities but I only have a few days to accept the offer. Wondering if I should accept both and renege one once he commits to a school)

In months leading up to the wedding earlier on, my parents said they would help out. I mentioned that it gets expensive, etc.

Once we got closer to the date, they didn’t offer to help with anything, and my mom even sent me a list of 30 people she wanted to invite without contributing financially or offering to do any of the heavy lifting. On top of that, they barely engaged during the day itself and have been distant ever since, not reaching out at all.

When we recently confronted them about this, they denied everything, saying, “We saw you guys stressed out, so we didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, and we assumed you guys got it.” To make things more awkward, prior to us confronting them they invited us out to eat at Nando’s, and acted weird about paying for the tab. My father eventually paid, but we had no plans on going out to eat.

In terms of my mother, my mom also tends to be judgmental and rarely says anything positive, while my dad usually just agrees without expressing his own thoughts. He also has a history of being physically and verbally abusive, and while that has changed, he still isn’t a good listener and tends to dominate conversations without really engaging. I’m left feeling confused and hurt, unsure of how to address this moving forward or whether I should bring it up with them again.

My theory is my parents think my wife is loaded for cash and can pay for everything, pickup the tab at dinner (my parents didn't pay for my birthday dinner, didn't get me a gift, and my wife paid), and now this makes holidays a bit different now too.

TL;DR - Did your immediate family begin acting different once you married your wife/husband?

I travel frequently and would like to find something that can travel with me /do from anywhere.

Me (26F) and my partner (26M) have been together for almost 6 years. We have been friends since high school and known each other even longer than that, so we’ve been in each other’s lives forever.

We did long distance for my time in college so us not being together all the time isn’t a new thing, but we moved in together after I graduated over 2 years ago and it’s still so hard. He works so much, and he is tired and stressed most of the time. Some positive things is that he never is rude or takes it out on me, and we do spend time together when we can. But it’s so hard.

I always considered myself to be someone who enjoys alone time and doing things by myself, but sometimes I feel like I’m not in a relationship. It hurts that he’s so busy, but I know this is hard on him the most because he works insane hours with little pay, but I can’t help but feel sad and lonely.

I’ve been reading other posts here and knowing other partners and spouses feel this way too, so that makes me feel a bit better. But I’m just filled with a bunch of emotions like disappointment that we can’t be together like other couples, anger at myself for not being a better supportive partner, and frustration because nobody else in my life knows how I feel, not even him.

I’ve thought really hard about what I feel like is missing, and I think I need support from people who understand.

I’ve never posted here before, so I don’t know how to end this lol

Hi everybody (first time Reddit poster here - 23F). For background, my husband (24M) and I are long distance while he is in the Caribbean for med school (he’s doing really well!) and I am finishing my Masters in the US. He will be taking Step 1 this upcoming May/June and then the school will tell him where to go for clinical rotations. He will likely have to be at a couple different hospitals in different states for the next couple of years and I don’t want us to have to do anymore long distance. I’m at the point of my Masters where I need to start looking for jobs. I know his student loans could probably support us, but I’d prefer to use my income for our bills and limit spending our loan money.

My current/near future qualifications:

• BS in Honors Health Behavior Science with Distinction
• MS in Health Promotion
• approx 3 years part-time work experience with local/state Health Department

-National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach

• Certified Health Education Specialist
• approx. 5 years research experience (health behavior mostly) and 2 theses
• various presentations at research conferences and awards
• was a graduate research and teaching assistant for MS degree

Not sure where to go from here. Any suggestions or advice from people who have been in similar situations?

So my partner (34m) and I (36f) have been together for 3 years, and he is about to finish his second year of med school. I’ve been trying to support him as much as I can and always let him study whenever he needs to or wants to, but I also try to plan fun couple activities for us to do for both our mental health plus the health of our relationship, but he’s always got an excuse for why we can’t do it (usually that it’s too expensive or he needs all the free time to study). It’s not like I’m planning luxury activities, I’m literally talking going to the movies or having a picnic, going on a walk, that sort of thing. I get the expense thing, he only works a 6 hour shift a week, but he’s not even interested in free activities like hikes, as he says he needs all that time to study. So then I’ll go out for the hike by myself and then come home and he hasn’t done any study at all. I work full time and I study parttime so I understand that time is precious, but I want to at least occasionally spend quality time with him. He spends heaps of time playing on his phone, sleeping or playing COD, so it’s really starting to feel like I’m the problem. On the very rare occasions I have convinced him to do something, the whole time he’ll be in a bad mood because he says he feels so guilty about not studying so I end up feeling terrible and guilty for pulling him away from it.

TLDR my second year med student bf and I don’t do anything anymore because he always says he has to study, even though he often doesn’t, and I don’t know what to do or how to help him and our relationship. I feel very lost. Has anyone else experienced something like this with their partner?

Only 5 months in to residency and I’m at a breaking point. My husband is a first year Gen Surg resident who is having to travel for 7 week rotations to different hospitals and works more than 80 hours a week (yes, I know that’s not even allowed but they don’t care). He clocked 92 hours last week. He’s currently out of the state and won’t be back until the 3rd week of November. They put him in 1 BR apartments when traveling, so it doesn’t make sense to travel with our two kids, two dogs and myself when he’s working so much anyways.

We have an 8 month old who I breastfeed and is still a terrible sleeper. I mean TERRIBLE. Up 6-7 times a night just trying to be soothed back to sleep. And we also have a 2 year old who wakes up at 5:45-6 am for the day. I’m a stay at home mom, with no family or friends nearby because residency moved us 13 hours from home.

I was so anxious and depressed that I tried TMS for months, packing up the kids 5 days a week to go do therapy. It did nothing. I think it’s just because my depression is so situational and I don’t see a way out of it.

My husband always says he wishes he could be home to help and he knows I’m struggling. I have anger towards him though, because he picked this. I just don’t know how we will go on like this for 5 more years. I’ve lost so much weight, dread waking up, and feel like I have nobody. I mean I kinda don’t? He’s not even here, and when we do see him 1 day a week he’s not helpful because he’s just so drained. How do you med spouses that had to move with kids do this without your partner around to help? You’re all much, much stronger than I am. I hope it’s just this adjustment period that’s hard, and hopefully as our kids get older I’ll be able to catch my breath.

Rant over. All of you that do this so easily, I envy you. Any advice is appreciated before I lose my mind and move back home to my support system.