Caring for yourself in the midst of uncertainty and loneliness :-/
Hi MedSpouse,
TLDR : Feeling sad. How do you adjust your mindset towards your own schedule when your partner's becomes unpredictable and intense? What does caring for yourself look like when your partner is in residency?
My partner is in his fourth year and hoping for a urology residency. On his third year he liked his rotation in the department, and the department liked him, so he arranged to do three sub-internships in urology. Now that he’s in his fourth year, reality is setting in, in a hard hard way for both of us - 80 hour weeks?!?!! Yeesh.
For context, I’m a teacher. I have a predictable schedule and reasonable hours but it is a fairly demanding job insofar as when I’m there, I have to be ON. So I don’t exactly come bounding home ready to tackle all the home upkeep solo and stoked every single day. When I’m get sick or have a particularly rough week I find myself more alone than I used to. He’s also a nontrad med student, started med school in his mid 30s, we’re both 38 now. So we had a pretty well established rhythm in our lives, we’ve been together for 15 years! Now, we’re both staring down what could be YEARS of this schedule that means he leaves by 5am and is home sometimes as late as 8pm. It’s feeling like a big big shift.
He’s questioning his specialty choice, I’m expressing that I love him and will support whatever decision he needs to make and I’m doing my best to keep things as streamlined for him on the home front - meals prepped, laundry done, etc etc. And he contributes when he can, I definitely don’t feel abandoned, but he’s also just utterly exhausted - emotionally and physically - when he’s home.
So I find myself in this headspace where I’m “waiting” to hear from him, to know when he might be home, as an anchor in my evenings or weekends. “Waiting” for him to have the energy and headspace available to have the serious conversations like about finances or a rennovation decision etc. “Waiting” for him to have enough time for me to ask for help with a home maintenance project. And the BIG one is “waiting” to know whether I’ll be able to even keep the job that I love here or if we’ll have to move for residency! Oy Vey. I put “waiting" in quotes because I think that’s what I’ve been telling myself I’m doing when really I’m feeling lonely and having trouble initiating and following through with things given the amount of uncertainty in our lives right now.
I’m thinking that I need to begin operating as a solo schedule rather than coordinating between the two of us. I have hobbies and things I like to do outside of work, but I’m also used to weekends together. So sometimes I just feel adrift. How do you think about your personal down time when your partner is at the hospital for the majority of your lives? How do you care for yourself and provide stability for yourself when so much is out of your control?
Much appreciation in advance, I’ve already gained so much insight from browsing medspouse posts, I’m really glad this lil community exists 🩵