I feel selfish
My partner is a night shift nurse at one of the hospitals in our city. We have been together for 5 years and are getting married soon! I love him very much and I know that he loves his job but it is really wearing on me.
I don’t have any friends or family who are a medspouse, so maybe that’s why I feel so isolated in this. I find it so hard to live our lives on polar opposite schedules. I come home to a silent house, maybe see him for half an hour while he gets ready for work, and then he’s gone. I eat dinner alone, clean the house up alone, and go to sleep alone.
Even on his days off, the times I’m awake and home from work he is typically sleeping; either in preparation for or to recover from a string of shifts. These days sure we will eat together, but I still hate the going to bed alone while he stays up until 4am.
It is next to impossible for us to get away for a long weekend, a vacation, or anything like that. If he is off for a couple days during the week while I work, he will take advantage of that and go visit friends out of town or on camping trips in the summer. I love that he is able to do that for himself, but then I wind up feeling bitter and jaded.
Why is HE able to pack up all responsibility mid-week, when I still have to work and take care of the house and pets? Why can’t he ever arrange these things so they line up with MY schedule and I could go too, when so much of my life is built intentionally to revolve around his schedule/maximize our time together?
I feel selfish because obviously none of this is really his fault. It’s the nature of his career. And to him, honestly this is probably normal (both of his parents are MD’s). But this is not the life I had envisioned for myself, nor the way I thought marriage would look. I spend so much time in our home, without him. Does it get better? Am I being ridiculous? Any and all comments welcome.