Well, which do you think would be better, tw? When do you think he would be most receptive?

Honestly, Saturday. That is part of the reason I didn't talk to him about Love Busters or give him the questionaire. He has spent the last week exhausted. I just don't feel like 8pm is a time to talk about it. Partly because we are in bed at 9 and since I get up at 4, I am just exhausted as well by that time.. I am much more of a morning person.

Hey Brain Hurts can you include a link mainly for future people looking at this. I got a one month subscription and have been downloading tons but don't know how to link.


The program on Feb 17, 2011 segment 02625 about a woman whose husband is in the military and being deployed has a lot of issues that relate to mine: she knew what his profession was and doesn't feel like she can complain about changing careers and he uses a doctor as an example. Could you link that?

Pretty tough advice. I'm not sure you could convince someone, especially a doctor who has gone through 4 years of college, 4 years of med school, 5 years of residency and sometimes a couple more years of fellowship to give up their career. You are talking about 13-15 years of prep that they are just supposed to give up. WOW. That is pretty tough. I mailed them a question about did they think some careers just were not supposed to get married and they mentioned it VERY briefly one week but only had a few seconds for it and really didn't answer it. According to their philosophy, I guess they would probably recommend that a lot of doctors should never be married....

Wow..

They don't recommend that doctors don't get married because a career doesn't come before a marriage. If it DOES then he has no business getting married. Being a doctor is no different than any other profession, if you place you career before your marriage it will suffer. We have had many doctors come through here over the years and they did just fine with their marriages.

In your case EVERYTHING comes before your marriage. Everything. It isn't just your husband's career. Its EVERYTHING.

TW -

What you have to realize about the MB "philosophy" is that it is about having a romantic, fulfilling marriage.

Given that, would it be said that doctors should NEVER marry? No.

But it should be noted that for the SPOUSES of some physicians, a romantic and fulfilling marriage is going to be difficult, if not impossible to maintain.


That being said, one of my coworkers was married to a pediatrician for 18 years, and had a romantic, fulfilling marriage because her husband prioritized his marriage over his career.

And maintained a private practice.


And fulfilled on-call obligations for the two local hospitals.



ETA: that marriage is related in past tense because the husband passed r/t bowel cancer. After which she found notes from him filling every nook and cranny of their home. (Example, one in his coat pocket, found post-passing saying "What are you doing in my pockets?")

fyi, we have never had a doctor who couldn't do this program in my years at MB. It is no more difficult than any other demanding career.

A career is supposed to complement your marriage, not the other way around.

Between the rehab center and my home health job, I've had 60-70 hour work weeks, with my wife working 40 - and we can still meet UA goals...

/shrug

Amen to that!

Good to know that doctors have made it work. And honestly, he has arranged his schedule so that if he is intentional it can work. However, I think back to residency where call is every other night and his hours are dictated to him and to a certain extent med school as well. We specifically chose to marry as he finished med school and to delay children until after residency because of the time contraints. I knew he would have no time for children and didn't want to be doing it alone. I think he is strange as a man as family committments is one of his top needs so I will have to change his thinking. He considers time with all of us together as marriage time which it isn't. If we take a 2 week family vacation then he has spent time on his marriage in his mind. ( Which is true in a way...)

So I wonder what Dr. Harley would say about residencies or military people who have to go on deployments. He said in the clip I referenced to change careers and he said that about the doctor as well.

He recommends changing careers if it is harmful to your marriage. Anything you place before your marriage will eventually destroy your marriage. Divorce and infidelity are epidemic in the military and in traveling jobs. So I don't think you want to look to them. We have lots and lots of affairs over on the SAA forum in military and traveling job marriages.

Family committment is not an intimate emotional need that has any effect on the romantic love in your marriage. A spouse that lists non intimate ENs as top needs reflects a loss of romantic love in the marriage. And while FC is important, it does not support the romantic love in your marriage. For example, if you were dating and were surrounded by 4 kids all the time you would have never fallen in love.

Here's the clip.
Radio Clip

Grin well we did a TON of stuff with his family while we were dating. I ate Mexican food with his parents and two sisters almost every week. I actually met his parents on our first date. He has the sweetest family. I talk to his mom almost every day..much more than my own mom. My own mom didn't calll me on my birthday, but she never, ever forgets. His dad sent me a care package with cookies he baked for finals when my husband and I were dating. He was/is the stable father I never had. I lived with one of his sisters in college when we were engaged. So I knew that family was very important to him and I adore his family. So I don't know that that means he lost romantic love. I knew that was important when we were dating. And his parents have always made me feel so welcome. When we were dating he went to see his parents without me and the first words out of her mouth were "How is (my name) doing? I'm so sorry she couldn't come." To which he said, Hi mom, so glad you are happy to see me! His mom is so sweet.

This is how we dated for 2 years. He was in med school and I was in college. Although he had his own apartment, his parents lived in the town where the med school was. My college was an hour and a half away. My mom also lived in the metroplex but over an hour away from his parents. So I would come home on the weekends and either I would stay at his parents house in one of the girl's bedrooms or he would come to stay at my mom's apartment in my sister's room who was off at college. Or he would come to my college and sleep on the floor with my other roommate's boyfriend ( his best friend and eventual best man at our wedding). Then I graduated and we became engaged and by that time his parents had moved 4 hours away. I substituted for a semester and saved and planned the wedding, but typically he would come and stay the weekend at my moms' apartment. Occasionally I would go for the weekend at his apartment and sleep on the couch, but we didn't do that often as it set up temptations ( didn't want to sleep together until after we were married) and we didn't want to inconvenience his roommate. We didn't see each other during the week except on school holidays.

The point is that you wouldn't have fallen in love if you didn't have time alone meeting ach others intimate emotional needs. That is not how romantic love is created or sustained. You can't sustain a marriage with FC. That is not how it works.

Sure, you can sustain a marriage.

Not a fulfilling marriage, or a romantic marriage. And it would be a marriage frighteningly vulnerable to intrusion... but that's still marriage, right?

Well see that is just it. I honestly would have called our marriage happy. Now hubby's work satisfaction no, but our marriage yes. And I think that several things have made all of this come to my mind and to be the canary in the coal mine as some of you said:

I turned 45 and am having my midlife crisis.. What do I really want to do with my life? I don't have much left, now what?

I finally have some time to actually breath. I do not know when I have had this much free time on my hands. Generally, I bounce from kid to kid teaching and then getting housework or other chores done. I remember one year I was caring for my disabled father, taking my daughter to vision therapy and teaching her was really hard that 1st grade year because she couldn't read and so we did therapy together a lot. The boys were in 6th and 8th so I was still teaching them everything. It was the hardest year of homeschooling ever.. And of course add children's activities. It has been gradually better until this year. My oldest is driving and so they take themselves to everything which is GREAT. I am not teaching my oldest anything. It is all AP courses online or dual credit. I'm only teaching my middle one math this semester. Now I have only my girl who is a 5th grader and reading VERY well. I don't have to sit with her while she practices violin or piano. She can do it on her own. I teach but then she does a lot of her work independent work as well now. I don't have to hold her hand anymore. I've never, ever had this much leisure time. I am actually getting the house organized and getting caught up on finances and actually have time to think about these things. Before, I would have just collapsed into bed thinking, "we need to do something fun, but I wouldn't have really taken it farther than that because my dad needed to be taken to therapy or to the grocery store or whatever on top of schooling.. I still have to go check on his grandmother and visit with her but the home takes good care of her. And my dad died so I don't have any of that to do anymore..

But I think the thing is that my husband doesn't do any lovebusters. He is always sweet and talks to me nicely. He tells me EVERYTHING about his day. I know exactly where he is and what he is doing at all times. He doesn't ever raise his voice or speak disrespectfully. So that is probably why we are in as good a shape as we are. As I said, on the en questionnaire he gave me top scores in all but two areas and says he feels happy with our marriage. And the two areas were: domestic support ( which he has complemented me on quite a bit now. But as I say in this post, I actually have TIME to keep the house clean. I just didn't before.) and physical attractiveness ( I've lost weight and make sure my teeth are brushed, dressed well etc when he is home.. I have to say that was probably last on my list. Once again, he is complementary on that!)

And I think like Dr. Harley has said my giver has given out. I have bided my time taking care and training my children, taking care of my husband, taking care of my dying father for 5 years, taking care of husband's folks occasionally, now taking care of his 100 year old grandmother, other people at church.. I guess my taker is now saying, "Is it my turn?" The part that I thought was interesting about negotiation in the book is that I do that. I try to make it pleasant when I bring something up and I always look at it from his side,but that is where I stop. I decide my side isn't important. So now I need to figure out how to decide that my needs are important and it is ok.. AS I said, we don't argue.

The thing is, TW, that your LB$ balance can erode with both time, and also with contrast.

So, on one point the lack of UA time has allowed your LB$ balance to fade into conflict at least.

Add in contrast from those people you do other activities with (the don't have to be opposite sex, even having a good time with same-sex friends can create a contrast to our time with our spouse) and it adds interest to those time withdrawals.

While your marriage has been good in so many ways, it is not great... and it landed you here.

That is a good thing, though. Now you can learn how to maintain a state of intimacy with your husband.

Absolutely correct! For example, one conflict we had that neither of us was happy with was the fact that he thought church was too important to me. He said he felt jealous and partly because I enjoyed myself so much there and enjoyed worshipping the Lord and he didn't feel that way and felt guilty as a Christian man. After reading the MB books and realizing that admiration is my number 1 need, it is easy to see why I liked spending so much time there. Everyone there tells me how wonderful I am. They fill that number one need. Now that he knows that he has been MUCH MUCH better about filling that need. After he gets back and we talk about the UA time that is one thing I will bring up. I spent so much time there because he wasn't here to give me that. I feel a lot more lonely now that I'm not involved in so much but he is still gone. I can easily see how I went there. In fact I always bragged to people that the way to be a good doctor's wife is to not be needy. You do what you need to do and don't rely on him. I hated the people that were so clingy and never understood it. Good grief don't wait for your husband, just go to Sunday school whether he can go or not. Maybe that wasn't good advice.. Grin

I think it will make sense to him when we plan out the time and he sees exactly where his time goes. I'm not sure he even realizes how little he is here then I will show him my grid and he will be able to see the difference and my need if that makes sense. Since he is a planner, I think planning out each week showing the times will appeal to him. It should also show him that what he THINKS his priorities are, are not the ones the way he spends his time reflects!

Thanks everyone.

Dr. Harley has said that in all of his years of counseling, he has never had a case where a man stood up to his employer and said that his marriage was going to come first, who lost his job over it. Never.

I would say it is simply a matter of declaring "I can't be on call during the following times" (and lay out 15-30 hours for your wife, 15 hours for your children). Or, if you don't get to pick the times, then block out those hours on your schedule, and if there is not enough time, then tell your employer "I won't do this schedule. It doesn't include enough time for my family."

Dr. Harley once switched careers and took a position at a new university so he could demand the right to not serve on any committees. He discovered they were a waste of time, at the expense of his family.

There is no employer exactly. The hospital give his practice the times that they have to be on call. It works out to each person taking one weekend and 4 other days to be on call. To do surgery at a hospital, you have to take call. Period. He is actually the one that makes out the call schedule. The problem is as a surgeon things come up. For example, we had the car packed to leave on vacation and his grandmother fell and broke her hip that he had to fix. He only had 3 surgeries scheduled on a Friday and we had a date planned. He should have easily been done by 6 ( actually by 3 or 4). Well, one case had an unexpected turn and didn't go as well as expected and took longer and his last case got bumped for an emergency and he couldn't start it until later so we are going out at 8pm and he is EXHAUSTED and frustrated from his day.

Stuff like that happens alot and it is frustrating to him. And like that date, I had bowling shoes in the car, I was all ready and excited and he was depressed.. I couldn't blame him. It wasn't a lack of planning. He had scheduled a reasonable amount of surgeries ( 3) to allow for our date. It was out of his control. [quote=markos
I would say it is simply a matter of declaring "I can't be on call during the following times" (and lay out 15-30 hours for your wife, 15 hours for your children). Or, if you don't get to pick the times, then block out those hours on your schedule, and if there is not enough time, then tell your employer "I won't do this schedule. It doesn't include enough time for my family."

Dr. Harley once switched careers and took a position at a new university so he could demand the right to not serve on any committees. He discovered they were a waste of time, at the expense of his family. [/quote]