Reply to Wives of physicians--dealing with loneliness

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hmm, for us it's vice versa: my DH is the physician's husband.  I have hated the super long hours, being gone for the whole weekend (14 hours Sat, 14 hours Sun), working the nights in a row, as you get up and go right back to work, and not ever being home on the holidays...  etc.  However, it really depends on which specialty you are in, whether that will change at some point or not, and how flexible you can be.  I had then decided to go part-time because the hours were just too long, and we were not seeing each other, this was also before kids.

I think the main question for you is: How does your husband feel about this, and would he like to change something?  80 hours a week is just too much for family life, unless you have tons of vacation weeks maybe...
If you just want to keep yourself occupied there are many options, and that's a different question altogether.[/quote]

OP here.  Thanks for your response.  You mention the holidays.  DH is pretty much never around for the holidays.  There were many Thanksgivings where I was alone as we have no family here and just ate a frozen pizza as my Thanksgiving dinner while DH was on overnight call at the hospital.  I found that very depressing.

DH will never go part-time, that is one thing I know for sure.  His work hours have been the same since residency (well in residency they were worse, actually).  DH loves his job and does not seem to realize that he actually works 80 hours a week (I guess for him it does not feel like he works that much, but for me it feels like he works even more than he does).  His work hours has always been a huge issue for us, and I cannot seem to solve my feelings of loneliness.

I work full-time and I also volunteer once a week.  We have no family here and I have only made a few friends.  I am very active in professional organizations, a few social groups (meetup.com) and I exercise as well.  But this not enough to help with the extreme loneliness I feel from DH's long hours and overnight call (and he also works some weekends).  I think it's more of feeling a lack of connection with DH because he works so much, and also I cannot get rid of the resentment I feel about his long and unpredictable work hours.  I wish I didn't feel this resentment but I do.  We do spend pretty much all of his free time together but he is exhausted most of the time when he is home and so I don't feel that he is 100% present with me when he is not working.

The only thing that would help is if I had a bunch of female friends who I could do things with when DH is working late or on-call at the hospital.  But no female friends have been willing to give up their Friday or Saturday nights (or even weekday nights) with their spouse to hang with me.  I seem to only be able to get the occasional weekend lunch date or cofee date with these few friends I've made here.  So that is the problem--finding new friends who are willing to hang out with me so I don't feel such overwhelming loneliness.

Tonight DH is on call at the hospital for the third time in five days and I am just incredibly lonely.  I went to the bookstore tonight just to be somewhere with other people, but I just get overwhelmed with the loneliness all the time when he is working late or on call.[/quote]

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