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My wife and I have been together for seven years, married for three of those. We started dating a year after she finished her residency, when she had just started work at an employed practice. She put herself through med school and residency. She is an incredible woman - very strong and self-reliant (almost to a fault). Life was good for us, but bad for her at work. For five years, her work situation kept deteriorating - to the point where we were considering hiring an attorney. I encouraged her to start her own practice, as did many of our friends and cohorts in medicine. I am in the medical field as well, having worked for our state medical association and for companies that create and sell EMRs and medical billing systems.
Soooo... we started the medical practice in April, three months after I started a new job as Director in a company (unplanned - and I've been traveling for work 3-4 days a week for nearly six months) and six months after the birth of our first child (planned) and three months before my daughter (12) moved in with us full time (also unplanned) and one year after we purchased a house and moved half of her family into it (story below). As you can imagine, the stress is incredible. Their practice has struggled with their IT (they started out on EMR - which also was my recommentation and it hasn't gone well) and both MDs are overwhelmed. They have the blessing/curse of starting out with a full practice, blessing that they aren't completely freaked out over money but curse that they are starting a practice from scratch with a full schedule - they are OBGYN. I have been working to curtail my travel after we had a "come to Jesus" meeting last month - and have only traveled four days in the last month. I agreed that I would only travel a maximum of 8 days a month going forward. We have a large home, and purchased it and added onto it with the intention of having her mother and grandparents live with us - for their sake (the grandfather is 93 and this is an alternative to a nursing home) and for us to have the live-in support to keep the family together. This has helped greatly - in fact, we would have to hire a live-in if we didn't have them here with us.
My question is this - how the hell are we going to get through this? We have no life together - none, she is working non-stop, she resents me for suggesting this in the first place, she is feeling that there is no end in sight for at least 18 months, etc. etc. The stress is killing her, but being the kind of person who takes it all on, never says no to anyone (but me, it seems), and who is a complete perfectionist, she won't admit it. Her partner is not as capable of dealing with this stress as she is, and doesn't have the support system my wife does, so my wife takes on more and more - much to the detriment of her and our family.
:argue:
I would appreciate the advice of anyone who has been in a similar circumstance with their medical spouse and what they did to get through the situation. Thanks in advance for anything you can offer.
Soooo... we started the medical practice in April, three months after I started a new job as Director in a company (unplanned - and I've been traveling for work 3-4 days a week for nearly six months) and six months after the birth of our first child (planned) and three months before my daughter (12) moved in with us full time (also unplanned) and one year after we purchased a house and moved half of her family into it (story below). As you can imagine, the stress is incredible. Their practice has struggled with their IT (they started out on EMR - which also was my recommentation and it hasn't gone well) and both MDs are overwhelmed. They have the blessing/curse of starting out with a full practice, blessing that they aren't completely freaked out over money but curse that they are starting a practice from scratch with a full schedule - they are OBGYN. I have been working to curtail my travel after we had a "come to Jesus" meeting last month - and have only traveled four days in the last month. I agreed that I would only travel a maximum of 8 days a month going forward. We have a large home, and purchased it and added onto it with the intention of having her mother and grandparents live with us - for their sake (the grandfather is 93 and this is an alternative to a nursing home) and for us to have the live-in support to keep the family together. This has helped greatly - in fact, we would have to hire a live-in if we didn't have them here with us.
My question is this - how the hell are we going to get through this? We have no life together - none, she is working non-stop, she resents me for suggesting this in the first place, she is feeling that there is no end in sight for at least 18 months, etc. etc. The stress is killing her, but being the kind of person who takes it all on, never says no to anyone (but me, it seems), and who is a complete perfectionist, she won't admit it. Her partner is not as capable of dealing with this stress as she is, and doesn't have the support system my wife does, so my wife takes on more and more - much to the detriment of her and our family.
:argue:
I would appreciate the advice of anyone who has been in a similar circumstance with their medical spouse and what they did to get through the situation. Thanks in advance for anything you can offer.
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