Is it the spouse's job to be "visible?"

[v-girl]

I do owe the dept secretary my recipe for booze brownies.

[Phoebe]

I have been to unit when the kid's beg, although they aren't allowed inside and to deliver girl scout cookies. Some nurses know me because they have babysat for us. DH has worked there for 7 years. People know his status.

I've been to DH's hospital once, when DS was a patient. I hope to never have to go there again! It's definitely not the kind of place you would want to just drop in, getting through security is enough of a deterrent. DH doesn't have time to eat or pee when he's there so I am unconcerned. And besides, most of the other residents are younger, unmarried and sans kids, so it's not like he's a great catch either. I do hope that when he is done training I can get to know some of the people he works with, but it will be a much smaller ER so a different situation.

[peggyfromwastate]

That makes sense, Peggy. But, don't you think that once dh has found his job post-training that you will be more involved in his life as your mother was with your father's?

I guess I always thought about every part of our marriage as the rest of our lives - because life is when you live it. So, wouldn't residency be a part (even if it is the beginning part) of the rest of our lives?

I don't feel like I'm uninvolved now. He talks to me about work, talks to me about his coworkers, but there's really not a time or place for me to go and make friends with them. He works a new rotation every 2-3 months. When he's on an "Away" rotation that he won't come back to, I don't even meet the coworkers once. That's ok with me. I feel that just by listening to him talk I am involved as much as I can be!

When he's at a "home" rotation, I still don't meet them, but if I happen to be in the hospital, or the clinic, they will all say hello to me and what not. There are some techs who are more outgoing and get along with DH more than others, so I think THEY feel like they know US because they usually start a conversation.

I guess that I feel comfortable with my level of involvement with his coworkers, such as it is. I don't feel like I need to be friends with them. DH isn't even friend with them! He is nice, respectful, and cordial. But they don't hang out or anything. It's not a close-knit community.

[MrsK]

I'm always amazed that DrK knows my collegues and clients as well as he does. But I've also worked with the same people for 13 years and he overhears me when I work from home. It's hard for me to know his workplace for various reasons. He's on a new rotation every month. He works on locked wards where he cannot talk about his family. His patients are so distubed that he generally doesn't want to talk about work at home. This is pretty common for psychiatrists. They have to compartementalize their lives. My job is to keep his home life pleasant.

[Pollyanna]

I guess that I feel comfortable with my level of involvement with his coworkers, such as it is. I don't feel like I need to be friends with them. DH isn't even friend with them! He is nice, respectful, and cordial. But they don't hang out or anything. It's not a close-knit community.

Yes this, exactly.

Plus, I am not a huge fan of mixing work with pleasure. I have seen it go wrong too many times and cloud people's better judgment.

[diggitydot]

Honestly, I purposely have as little contact as possible with the clinic. My mom was a nurse all throughout my childhood. Anytime anything went down in the clinic, it almost always stemmed from a spouse spending FAR too much time there. Either working in some official capacity or just "keeping tabs on things" -- didn't matter. I vowed when DH got accepted to medical school that I wouldn't be *that* spouse.

[Malpka]

In residency, we hung out plenty with other residents, but never really with nursing or support staff. In fellowship if he was off, the other fellow was on- so not much hanging out. We rarely went to the hospital- maybe for lunch in the cafeteria if he was on call and it had been a long time since we had seen him?
It is different now in private practice. I literally have never been into the hopitals where he works, but we go to his office quite a bit. Honestly, it is not much different than any family business. We stop by, drop off lunch, bring treats for the staff from time to time. I don't do it so much to be visible, but just that it is our business, and sometimes the easiest place to spend time with DH!

[PrincessFiona]

Deb, I moved it to the call room.

Insecurity, jealousy & paranoia can be marriage-killers for sure. There has to be an agreed level of trust for each marriage.

But that doesn't mean being oblivious to the possibility that a relationship can go too far and destroy a marriage. It happens all the time. You have to know where the lines are and recognize when they're being crossed. There's a difference between being "secure" and being just plain blind. Some of the spouses who are casual flirts but completely aware of the lines may be in better shape than the oblivious ones.

[diggitydot]

So, instead you're the spouse that compartmentalizes your life from your spouse's? So, you two live in two separate universes? I've got friends like that - and they've all been divorced in the last few years.

I think you need to back up a tad and re-read what you and I both wrote because you've extrapolated a whole ton of imaginary shit from who knows where.

I just do not understand the concept of completely separating your life from your spouse's.

I don't get that, either -- because I haven't done that. Trying to avoid being in the clinic is not equal to complete separation of lives. He's there to see patients, not hang out with me. We have a home for that. The hoary bitch of medicine doesn't need to invade every single interaction we have. If I have to drop off his pager/cell phone/stethoscope/whatever, I do so, talk for a minute about his day, say "hi" to some of his co-worker peeps who are good friends of mine, give him a quick peck, and then beat feet out of there.

DH knows the people I interact with on a daily basis - not as well as I know them, but he is familiar with them. And, I know a good chunk (not all, but many) of the people dh interacts with on a daily basis. You don't have to be best friends with these people - but it's a good idea to at least have everyone know that everyone else is a real, living, breathing person.

Who said we don't know the people that each of us interacts with on a daily basis?

[SuzySunshine]

I don't know why I feel it necessary to post again, but I do.

I totally see Lily's point, I think DH showing up at my old office type jobs regularly or really at all would have seemed weird. He has known most of my co-workers though either through Christmas parties or through drop ins when he was taking me to lunch or something. But yes, more then that in a business setting would seem odd.

We have only visited DH at work on evenings or weekends to have a meal with him when he's free. That is how I've met most of the nurses that I know that work with him because he likes to show off the kids when we do drop by, which is even more rare this year. The others that I have met I have met at Christmas parties or other after work functions.

I don't find it necessary to know ALL of his co-workers and I definitely wouldn't consider them friends (other then one who is in my moms group), they know I exist and if they happen to be there on the rare chance we drop them by then we say hi.

[MissCrabette]

Wow, I didn't realize this would be such a hotly debated issue.

He's still a student (for 2 more weeks!) and he's been hopping around the various specialties so he has no long-term "colleagues" he works with. However, once residency starts, I don't see myself stopping by long enough to get to know his coworkers. I've stopped by the hospital here several times when he's forgotten his wallet, ID, or stethoscope, but I never even stepped foot inside the hospital. He always waits for me at the entrance from the garage so I'm in and out. Maybe it's a bit harsh, but I agree with Lily in that I see that as a place of business and not socialization. Besides, I have an intense dislike of hospitals. Just the idea of being around sick people and all sorts of bodily fluids makes my skin crawl. Now meeting in the cafeteria would be slightly different, especially when you have kids who are missing their mom or dad. But "dropping by"? I'd have to drive out of my way and take a good chunk out of my day to do that. No way could I masquerade that as, "Oh, I was just in the area and decided to pop in to say hi." I think it would be weird, in my situation at least. I have baked stuff and sent the goods with him, but that's about it.

[MrsK]

Jenn, I needed a laugh today so thanks for providing it.

What work environments are these? School teachers? No. Business offices? No. Retail stores with customers? No. Seriously, I am very curious about these hang out and visit type work locations, so do tell.

As for causing problems at work, it wouldn't cause a problem but it WOULD be inappropriate in a business office to show up and chat. I am here to do a job. I am not here to visit and have a nosh and chit chat. That's why it is WORK. Maybe your life lends itself to that sort of behavior, which again, is therefore YOUR DEFINITION OF NORMAL. Your failure to recognize that the way you live your life does not work for others, or is not comfortable or necessary for others, is unfortunate.

Also, I work 2.5 hours from my house. I guess if you work at home and have a spouse who is ten minutes away, you've got the kind of time in your day to hang out. That's not our reality, and your overreaching implication that this is going to lead us down a road of doom, despair and a swift divorce is almost as offensive as it is hilarious.

I definitely do not think that a hospital is a proper place to stop in for a visit. My husband is usually working with sick people who have been waiting to see him, or he needs to run for labs, or check on this that or the other, or read up on a new therapy. He does these things at WORK so that when he is HOME he can be home.

I'm with Lily on this one. In most of the offices I've worked in. . . even those run by sole practitioners . . . meet the family at weddings and funerals. My firm doesn't even invite spouses to the holiday party. (Boo Hiss) DrK got to know my co-workers because I basically announced that I was getting married and moving who-knows-where right when I was offered partnership. His career became relevant to my partnership negotiations and was invited in to the office. (Also, the circumstances caused so much interest that he had to make the rounds just to quell the gossip.) My work/home life is very blended because I work from home. DrK's is not so much. He works in an environment where it is dangerous for spouses and children to drop in -- a "blue collar" analogy would be working in a prison or a hard hat area. He works with a population that is frightening and he does not wish to bring his work home with him. On some occassions, he has come home very disturbed by something a patient may have said or done and we talk about it. We talk about his work a lot and my life is very much built around his work -- as are the lives of many medical families. I don't think it's fair to suggest that I'm not involved or that I'm unsupportive if I don't show up at his workplace to chat with his co-workers.

[houseelf]

FWIW, I'm guilty of not being visible. During fellowship, DH didn't even have time to pee most days. He was slammed constantly and the hospital could have used a few more fellows or residents to help out.

Conversely, when I worked, DH never came to the courthouse. During residency, I only went to the hospital on rare occasions during residency and typically this was during the evening on weekend call so a lot of the staff wasn't around. It would have been weird to have DH show up at my work especially since it would appear he would have had more time off than he did. Through the years, my sick days became an issue for my boss because DH never took time off too. Now I have this weird imagery of him in scrubs next to inmates in prison togs waiting for cattle call, but I digress.

Anyway, I think a lot of this depends on the work culture and how a marriage evolves. We're just really busy. Also, my husband is NOT Mr. Touchy-Feely. He is well liked but is known for not tolerating shenanigans. I don't say this naively, I understand that affairs of the heart can happen to anyone, the occasional hard ass included. I just know that he isn't as easy a target as someone with an easier going personality.