I know attendinghood doesn’t fix everything, and will come with its own challenges but we’re in the last year of residency and I know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel but I’m so stuck in how awful things are right now I can’t see it. I’ve been with my husband since medical school, so I’ve been through it all and accepted my fate and now I think I’m just… sad.

Sad from having to attend my umteenth social event with my baby this weekend without her dad while all of my friends have their babies and husbands with them. Sad because we’re in the thick of another away rotation where I feel like I’m raising our baby alone. And we still have another away rotation to get through as well as god knows how many weekend/holiday shifts. At baseline it’s been difficult being alone for most of medical school and residency, especially since residency moved us to an undesirable area where I don’t have a community, but with a baby everything feels amplified. My husbands really great but sometimes he’s just so beaten down by the system that it feels like I’m all alone in this. This is an extremely brutal rotation and on top of not being able to physically see him, we tend to keep missing each other on FaceTime.

Looking for any positivity or solidarity for those of you on the other side. My husband is the type who prioritizes family and signed an offer that matches that but it feels like that’s eons away right now.

Hey everyone, looking for some advice from people who have navigated the medical school/healthcare job hunt as a couple.

I’m currently in the middle of this med school application cycle. Based on the standard admissions timeline, I likely won’t have a clear picture of where I’m actually matriculating until late March or April.
Meanwhile, my wife is graduating nursing school this upcoming May. From what her program and advisors are telling her, major hospital new-grad residency interviews happen around January, and they generally expect offers to be accepted or commitments made by February.

This leaves us with a rough 1–2 month gap where she might have to commit to a hospital system before we even know what state I’ll be moving to for medical school.

For those who have been through this:

How flexible are new-grad nurse hiring timelines? Is it realistic for her to hold off on applying/accepting until March/April, or does waiting seriously hurt her chances at competitive units/hospital systems?

Can she accept an offer and renege if needed? We obviously want to avoid burning bridges if possible, but how standard is this in nursing?

How did you coordinate geographic overlap? Did you pick a target region based on interview invites, or just wait it out?

Any insight, personal experiences, or strategies from nurses or med spouses would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone,

Currently, I’ve (M25) been dating a great girl (F24) for around a year, but have been with her for around 3 years… long story, just life is funky sometimes. It’s been great as an official couple the last year.

Truly, I absolutely love this girl. She makes me so happy, she’s changed me from someone so afraid of love that I was a full blown womanizer to being unable to imagine myself with anyone else. Shes smart, she is an amazing communicator & I truly feel like she considers me, always. I’m planning to propose soon.

The only problem is that we have a long road ahead as she just started med school and has dreams of specializing, and I sometimes fear I have not yet sewn my wild oats - not with other women, but with world travel and trying to build myself as a man.

For context, she just started med school a month ago. We are long distance. It is very hard because we miss each other so much, but I’m not worried about us. We’ve talked about what the future holds and essentially, once I propose, it will really be on me to travel wherever her career in medicine takes her over what could be a 12-15 year journey (med school, residency, fellowship). I could do this as my current job will likely let me go remote, but I have some real fears that it will be hard for me to build friendships + lay roots + explore my desires of entrepreneurship if we are potentially moving every 4 years. She will be all I have in these places, while she’ll have a career and people she sees everyday.

She also wants to have kids around 30-32… I kind of don’t want to have kids, but it’s something I’m willing to embrace and lean into for her. That said, given her career, I’d likely be mostly solo parenting with the help of our village (her parents are willing to move wherever we may be) for a 2-6 years while she finishes her education. Again, I have fears of the aforementioned above, but add in raising children on my own a lot of the time. Further more, I really envision myself leading an adventurous life full of travel (I currently travel all over the U.S. and internationally with friends, family, and alone), which I can do on solo trips while she’s in school, but kids would make that pretty much no longer possible until they are grown. I’d like to keep traveling in my 30’s, if possible.

She is the kind of girl I am willing to make serious sacrifices for, I truly believe she is a rare find, but I just can’t get over this feeling that by marrying her, I will lose out on the ability to establish my own businesses, have a base somewhere steady, and will likely have to let go of my more adventurous aspirations to be a very involved parent while she’s finishing residency & fellowship.

This isn’t a post about me having doubts & not wanting to be with her, it’s a post about me wanting to make it possible but needing help embracing what changes may come. For those who have done it, or who have advice, please let me know.

I’m dating a surgical resident who wants to become a cardiac surgeon, and something that has been bothering me lately is how differently other people perceive our relationship versus what the relationship actually looks like day to day.

The second people hear “heart surgeon,” they lose their minds. It’s immediately: “GREEN FLAG!!! He’s such a catch! Marry him!! Don’t let that one go!”
And I’m sitting there thinking…you guys realize I barely see this man, right? 😂

He works absolutely insane hours. Sometimes I hear from him once a day. We generally see each other once a week. He’s also a resident, so despite everyone hearing “surgeon” and imagining $$$, he’s actually broke right now and I end up paying for stuff.

None of this makes him a bad boyfriend. He’s sweet, hardworking, serious about his career, and I really like him. But dating someone in surgical training is not the glamorous experience people seem to imagine when they hear his job title.

What bothers me most is the pressure it creates. When everyone around you acts like you’ve won the dating lottery, it almost makes you feel guilty for having completely reasonable doubts or for not being 100% ecstatic all the time.

There is A LOT for me to think about before getting seriously intertwined with someone on this career path. If we got married and had children during his training, realistically I would probably be the breadwinner and function like a single mom a significant amount of the time for the next ~7 years. His schedule isn’t magically going to become normal because we get married or have a baby.

That is a huge lifestyle decision. “But he’s going to be a cardiac surgeon!” doesn’t actually answer any of those questions.

I also don’t want to rush this relationship because other people think his résumé makes him husband material. I want to date him. I want to get to know each other. I want to figure out whether we’re actually compatible and slowly fall in love over time. If we eventually decide to build a life together, I want it to be because the relationship itself works—not because everyone around me was impressed by his career.

This really hit me recently when I introduced him to a friend’s family. The second they heard “heart surgeon,” they basically turned him into a celebrity. Everyone was so excited and impressed by him that it actually became a little embarrassing. Meanwhile I’m thinking, “Guys, I promise you his job is actually one of the hardest parts of dating him.” 😭

I’m proud of what he’s accomplished and I understand why people are impressed. I just wish people understood that someone having an impressive career doesn’t automatically make the relationship easy—or mean that I should rush toward marriage.

Sometimes I just want permission to like him, take my time, and see where this goes without everyone screaming “MARRY HIM!!!” because they heard the words “heart surgeon.”

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice and a reality check from couples who have navigated dual high-stress, high-hour careers.

For some context: My partner and I have been together for years and have survived almost the entirety of grad school together. I just graduated from my MBA, and he'll be wrapping up his M4 and heading to residency next year.

Here is where my anxiety is spiking:

• He is heading into residency so soon... we find out where on Match Day in January, and he starts the following July but will highly likely (i hope) not have to relocate given his rank list.
• I will be joining an MBB consulting firm in a few weeks. For anyone unfamiliar: it typically means 60-80 hour weeks, being staffed on a new "case" every few months with a new team and problem to solve, and heavy travel. A lot of MBB associates fly out Monday morning and come back Thursday night for work.

We are both walking into crazy life expectations relatively simultaneously. He'll be dealing with the long hours, night shifts, and steep learning curve of intern year, while I'll be navigating the pressure, hours, and heavy travel of a first-year consulting associate.

I want to be there for him through residency apps and beyond, but I also know I'll barely be keeping my own head above water. Thinking about our schedules colliding like this is genuinely stressful, and I'm scared we'll turn into two exhausted people who just don't see each other.

I would love to hear from couples where both partners have highly demanding jobs (consulting, high finance, big law, medicine, etc.).

• How did you balance being there for each other without burning out completely?
• How do you manage the household mental load and chores when you are both working 60-80+ hour weeks?
• How do you prioritize connection when you are both just desperately wanting to sleep?!

Any advice, survival tips, or even just solidarity would be so incredibly appreciated. Thank you!

Can anyone relate? My SO just finished residency and had little time for friends for the past 3 years, especially on top of parenting our 2 little kids with me. We live in the city I’m from and where both of us lived before we moved for their 3rd and 4th med school years, so our area itself doesn’t really pose obstacles to building/maintaining friendship. Several people from their res program are staying in town just like us. My SO doesn’t jive at all with a few of them but likes the other two, has hung out with the a few times in the last year. They also have a couple non-doctor friends in town from before med school that they almost never talk to anymore.

In contrast, I have several close friends and see them a couple times per month—maybe 1-2x/month my SO will stay home with the kids while I see friends for a few hrs.

I felt hopeful this week bc they said they were going to make plans with friends one night and wanted to make sure I was down to stay home with the kids , but nothing ever got scheduled. When I asked them today what happened, they simply said, “I have no friends, I was just envious of the other night this wk that youre hanging out with friends while I stay home with the kids.”

I feel sad for them and worried bc I know how protective friendship can be for our well-being. I know I’ve probably been too hopeful about how soon and whether they’d become more independently social once residency was over, but here we are and I’m bummed for them. Can anyone relate?

I'm not talking about the relationship but her work, thesis and workload in general is getting too much for her to handle. She's currently in 2nd year of her ortho residency in a somewhat toxic and misogynist hospital.
How do I support her being so far from her 😥?

My partner has been on an incredibly long and difficult journey with his career, with several unexpected delays along the way, and unfortunately he didn’t match this past cycle. I feel like I’ve really supported him through so many setbacks and battles that most of his peers haven’t had to experience. At this point, he’s probably 3–4 years behind the typical timeline for people his age, but he’s incredibly driven and committed to continuing to push forward, and I’m genuinely so proud of him for that.
But if I’m being honest, I also feel like this journey has taken a toll on our relationship and on the way I see our future.
I used to love imagining our life together. I would daydream about where we’d live, what our careers would look like, the family we might build, the things we’d accomplish together. After so many unexpected challenges, I’ve almost become afraid to do that. It feels like every time I allow myself to picture the next chapter, something else happens that pushes everything further away. He’s also not naturally a huge optimist, so sometimes it feels difficult for us to create that sense of excitement and hope together.
And somewhere along the way, I think I’ve built up resentment and lost some of the admiration I used to have for him. Outside of his career, I sometimes wish I saw more discipline, independence, or passion for other parts of life. At the same time, I recognize that his career path has consumed so much of his time and energy that he hasn’t necessarily had the space to develop those things. He still lives with his parents because their support has made this journey possible, and because of that, there are also basic areas of independence—like cooking, cleaning, and managing a household—that he hasn’t really had to develop yet.
His family dynamic is difficult for me too. They are incredibly supportive of him, which I appreciate, but there are aspects of the family and their dynamics that I struggle with and worry about when I think about our future.
What makes all of this so complicated is that he is genuinely such a kind person. I know he is someone who would stand beside me through the ups and downs of life. We have so many happy moments together, so much love, and so many years of shared history. There is a safety and loyalty in our relationship that I don’t take for granted.
But I also can’t ignore how much the last few years have changed me. I used to be such an optimist. I loved dreaming, planning, and envisioning what my life could become. Somewhere throughout this journey, I stopped doing that.
And I think that’s what scares me the most. I don’t know whether we’re simply in an incredibly difficult chapter that we’ll eventually look back on and be proud we survived together, or whether this experience has fundamentally changed how I feel about our relationship. I don’t know if the resentment and loss of admiration will fade once life becomes more stable, or if they’re telling me something I need to pay attention to.
I love him, and I’m proud of him. I also miss the version of myself who felt excited about our future. I’m struggling to understand whether I can find her again within this relationship.

Honestly, I’m just exhausted and need to vent to people who actually understand this life.

I’m a remote engineer (33) and my wife is a 36 attending. We’ve been together since 2021. Back when we lived apart, things were great—she was affectionate and caring. But the second we actually lived together, it all fell apart.

All through residency she was depressed, hated medicine, and talked constantly about wanting out. I bent over backwards to support her, constantly moving from city to city just to accommodate her career, while leaving my own friends and life behind.
Intimacy completely died and stayed dead. But I kept telling myself the classic lie: Just get through residency. Once she's done, she'll decompress, realize how hard it’s been for me sitting idle at home while working remotely, and things will normalize. We even went through a big traditional wedding with 200 people.

She finished residency in October 2025. I genuinely thought she would take a breath.
Instead, she doubled down and became an attending in vascular surgery.
And nothing has changed. If anything, it’s worse.

The ambition just ramped up, there's zero family planning, zero intimacy, and by the time she gets home she’s basically a zombie—totally brain-dead and empty. She has zero emotional bandwidth to listen to me or understand how agonizing it is to wait year after year for a partner who never actually shows up.

I feel like I spent years waiting for a finish line that doesn't exist, and the goalposts just keep moving.

For those of you married to surgeons: does it actually get better on the other side, or do I just accept that I'm always going to be at the absolute bottom of the priority list?

Thanks

So I start CRNA school in January and boyfriend of 2 years just started his M3. He’s supposed to propose before I start school and then we’ll get married either my August break or December. I guess I’m just seeing if there are any success stories with a CRNA wife and ~hoping for urology/gen surg~ resident. I’m eventually wanting to be part time and home with kids, but I would go crazy without working and find a huge part of my fulfillment in nursing/ anesthesia.

I’ve accepted the fact that he won’t be able to offer me as much support as I’ve given him in school. I guess it just feels lonely to be entering what everyone says will be the hardest 3 years of my life while he’s also going through his.

Open to any advice or success stories if you’re a CRNA with a doctor partner or have gone through a difficult & different program at the same time as spouse :) thanks!

Hi all,

My partner is currently undertaking quite a brutal training programme, which at the moment involves a lot of night shifts.

They find them difficult and, honestly, I don’t know how they do it. But I’m finding that I’m burning out myself during these periods of nights.

I find that for the first few days I can be the partner I want to be: supportive and caring and I take on the extra household responsibilities without too much difficulty. But by around day 4, I’m over it. I know this also coincides with their cumulative lack of sleep, work stress and pressure further draining them, so by the end of the run of nights we’re both pretty depleted.

We’ve ended up in a rotten cycle of arguments as they finish their night shifts or on their first day off afterwards, and it’s becoming clear that this isn’t sustainable for either of us. I really don’t want this to continue.

I want to support them through the difficult periods of training, but I also need to work out how to look after myself and maintain my own capacity while taking on increased responsibilities.

For partners of doctors/medics who have been through this . How do you actually cope with the night shift periods? Is there anything that makes this easier for you as the partner?

I’d especially love to hear from people who have been doing this for a few years rather than just surviving a single rotation. I’m really interested in how you balance being supportive with not completely burning yourself out

My husband (M31) has just started M3 (almost done with surgery rotation!), and I (F30) work a fully remote job. However, I have gotten quite burnt out in this position and have been applying to new jobs. This is my third job search attempt in the past year and a half, so it's been quite a while that I've just been pushing forward at a job I am completely over. Luckily, I've started getting interviews and I'm hopeful for something new. However, these positions are not all fully remote, some are hybrid. Further context, we'll be trying for a baby come residency and I have accepted that I will be the one to have to quit my career, become a SAHM, basically be a single parent. I know this reality, I've accepted it. Therefore, this job search feels like my last attempt at taking a risk just for myself. Thankfully husband is fully supportive in whatever I decide. He knows I am very burnt out and am looking for something new.

Is it dumb of me to leave a fully remote position with my husband's expected graduation of Spring 2028 in which we'll likely be leaving the area? Should I do something for myself and grow in my career even if it's for a hybrid job I can only hold for a year and half (about when husband graduates)? Should I even tell hybrid positions about my likely departure due to husband's medical journey?

I'm appreciative of any constructive guidance.

We're on vacation; my spouse decided to pay for all our siblings to join and a couple friends came too.

After dinner we were chatting and conversation led to how difficult medical training can be after we were talking about shitty work/sleep schedules. I spoke up for my husband a couple times to back up things he glossed over and saying 'not even family knows how hard it is, what they have to go through'.

After I backed him up like this my spouse, braggart that he is, kept elaborating like 'look how hard I worked to get here'.

My sister in the corner who we thought wasn't listening, said 'yeah and she supported him through all of that'.

She gave me an opening. Someone actually spoke up for what I've done and I had a chance to express how much I've given up to support him and that I was happy to do it, but now that hes established I get to work on myself. Thats the first time my spouse or anyone in that room has heard anything about the effort I put in or plans I've had. First time anyone's ever pointed this out in front of my husband.

I felt so 'seen' and so f*ing ecstatic that I had a chance to say this without me complaining, with it coming from someone outside the relationship. My sister said later 'I got you girl, I see the work you put in' and it just felt so nice.

My partner and I have been together for 4 years, 2 of which have been in an LDR for his med school. He recently just found out he failed his M2 exams. He's started studying again, and of course I've been supportive and understanding that med school is hard, but part of me feels so hopeless. I just can't help but think about how I agreed to LDR with the understanding that we would be apart for 4 years, but now with this potential setback, it would be 5.

I'm in my late 20s, and I can't help but feel resentment and like my life is being put on hold for him. All of my close family and friends are getting married/having a kids, but I'm just waiting for him to come back. I know that med school and residency just gets harder from here, and that there are a plethora of exams that he'll still have to take. I feel so guilty that I'm doubting his capabilities, but I don't really know what to do. I have a community around me, I have a job, I'm busy in life, but it still feels like torture having to do this. I can't take an additional year of uncertainty. I want to get married, have children, have a life together, but I can't move to where he's studying because my own job/license is restricted to my country.

I haven't told him about how I've been feeling because I don't want to put more pressure on him or distract him from studying. Am I a terrible person for thinking to myself that if he fails, then I might have to end our relationship? I just don't know how much more I can take of LDR, along with so much uncertainty on my own future.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation, or could provide any advice? Anything would be appreciated.

My husband is a new attending, we have 2 little kids, and I'm pregnant with our third. Lately I've just been feeling so burned out. He does help me with the kids and chores, but I feel like the brunt of domestic responsibility is on me. I do the all the grocery shopping and cooking, most of the laundry and dishes, get the kids ready for school and do the drop off/pick up about 4 days per week, and do any of the other odds and ends that pop up. I am mostly working from home right now, so I understand I have more flexibility than him, but it can feel like a lot on my plate. Even when he is home he works so much of the time - he'll answer emails after our youngest is asleep while I put the older one to sleep, he works during car trips, in the mornings before he goes to work, during naps on the weekends, etc.

We plan to get a nanny or an au pair in about a year, so I hope that helps ease the burden some. Not really looking for advice, just solidarity.

I mean i just wanna use this space to get it out, my partner is a 1st Year Pediatric Resident and lately it has been a very busy month(s) and damn i just miss her and her energy, i'm trying to support her as much as i can, sending food, and being availabe, going to her once a week - since we are LDR.

But damn do i miss my baby so much 😭😭😭

I've seen other HCPs mention things like consulting, telehealth, teaching, and paid medical surveys. I'm curious what others here are doing to make extra money and whether they're worth the time. Looking for something flexible that isn’t just another shift. What side gigs have worked for you? How much have you made?

Thought I'd come back: Just sharing.. Sermo seems like a low effort way to make money by taking surveys. I’m gonna try this one.

Hoping to see what other couples domestic labor split is during residency. We are in 2nd year of IM residency and I'm starting to have physical symptoms of stress and burnout. I'm wondering if I'm doing too much, but my baseline for what's normal is so skewed.

So I want to poll this sub, how much do you contribute to the house and how much does your partner? What's your split like? What's a fair expectation for the non-med partner and the med partner? What does your day look like?

Mine:
-wake up and gym at 5 am if he doesn't take that spot
-unload dishwasher make breakfast shower
-get toddler up, ready for day and off to daycare
-switch laundry and do dishes while off cam on first meeting
-work till lunch
-switch laundry and walk dog during lunch
-get off work (gym now if I didn't yet) pick up kid, make dinner
-if he's still working I do clean up and bed/bath time. If he's home he will either clean up or do bed/bath time.
-sit on my ass and doom-scroll into oblivion
-repeat

I do all organizing, clothes buying, daycare enrollment, insurance plan comparing, dog dewormer/flea and tick meds, ect... He frequently does car maintenance and will help out a little bit more with laundry on his day off.

cross post!

My husband is an anesthesiology attending and they're constantly getting asked to pick up extra shifts and I'm genuinely confused by this. He never talks to me btw about much of anything so I'm left struggling to understand. Don't get me wrong, it's always voluntary and you can always say no but there's a certain amount of guilt you feel for turning down $$$$ lol.

But this has happened pretty much almost on every vacation he has had, almost every single weekend this summer , and even literally 2 years ago when he was on paternity leave for the birth of our son. Does anyone familiar with this field know exactly how this happens in the first place? Did they mess up and accidentally approve two people's vacations? Are people calling out sick? Is this all just a way to line the hospital CEOs pockets and force more patients into the schedule? What happens if none of the employees agree to work the extra shift being offered (I guess they would need to hire a locums person?) Why do they always need such last minute coverage anyways???

Anyways, I can't offer my husband $4k+ for staying at home and helping with chores and spending time with us, so I don't try to stop him. I believe being a good wife means sucking it up and making do, what's one more day of solo parenting anyways because this is my daily life anyways right? The shift is only 7am to 3pm anyways.... All ways I justify it to myself except now it's almost 12am Friday night and I'm having a mental breakdown. Saturday could've been my one day to sleep in with a toddler who is particularly attached to his dad, who wakes up at the crack of dawn, takes 2+ hrs to fall asleep at bedtime and naps, and gives his mom a particularly hard time. But of course he agreed to work tomorrow so it's just gonna be me myself and I running the one man show as usual...