How Do You Deal With An Absent Spouse?

I received an e-mail from a friend saying she thought of me when her husband got very busy with work recently, and she wondered how I deal with my own husband's work-related absences. I'll be totally honest. I do miss him when he has to spend his entire call night at the hospital, especially when our son is sick. It's a little ironic that that tends to happen a lot. For example, a couple of nights ago, my husband was on-call and had several patients to observe at the hospital. At 1:30 in the morning, our 2 year-old-son, who's been sick with a nasty cold, woke up with a fever over 104 degrees! I gave him medicine and fluids, but I felt so frightened and lonely trying to figure out if there was anything else I could do for him while he screamed and cried and burned with fever. It was at that point that I was so thankful we had added text messaging to our cell phone plan months earlier. My husband was, luckily, awake, and he helped me get through our ordeal by texting me and actually talking to me over the phone for a little bit. The best part was he came home the next morning and took care of our little guy while I ran some errands. Knowing he practices at such a great office is what gets me through our frequent separations. He works with five other doctors, and they rotate their call schedule. Whoever is on-call for the night takes care of all deliveries and emergencies in the hospital as well as any after hour calls from patients. That means, the other doctors can go home, leave their work at the office (unless they absolutely have to finish it at home), and not have to worry about a single patient. Also, when the on-call doctor finishes his/her shift the next morning, he/she goes home and has the rest of the day off. I know it's a very unique situation, and few physicians have the ability to do this. We were so lucky that my husband found an office where everyone is so family-oriented. He's only on-call about one night a week, one Friday a month, and one entire weekend a month. My son and I see him so much more now than we did in residency, and I think we're finally getting used to his new work schedule. It's still erratic because his call night changes each week, but I can't complain. When he was in residency, his days at the hospital were long, and when he was on-call, he had to work a regular shift the next day. It was hard on him, and I came to realize how single-moms must feel. I dealt with the loneliness by reaching out to other stay-at-home-moms in my community. My son and I joined a great play group, which would meet each week, so the kids could play and we moms could chat about our lives. It was such a tremendous support for me, since we lived so far away from our families at the time. Even though we've moved back to our home state and closer to our parents, I still keep in touch with the moms in that group because, even in e-mail and Twitter form, they're so supportive and helpful. I wasn't sure what kind of schedule my husband would have when we moved to where we're now living, so I prepared myself by finding a new moms' group to join right away. It was the best decision I could have made. My son and I are so busy now with scheduled meet up events practically every day! We've gone to so many of them that I decided to help out and become an assitant organizer for the group. The moms are amazing, and both my son and I have made some great friends. We plan on staying in this town for a long time, so I hope these new friendships last a long time. Besides having friends for support, I'm now closer to my parents and in-laws. We've seen them a lot since we came back to our home state, and it's been so nice to be able to talk to them face to face rather than over the phone. Moving here has also allowed us to renew and strengthen our relationships with some of our college friends. One couple moved here before we did and helped us out socially by asking us to be a part of their weekly board gaming group. We've had so much fun meeting new people, and we've spent a lot of time entertaining friends at our new house. I've found that on the nights when I do feel lonely, watching a movie, playing with my son, reading a book, or even just surfing the Internet have really helped. And, with today's technology, my husband and I can communicate with each other through text messages and e-mail whenever we're apart. Really, there isn't any reason for me to feel lonely, but the truth is that he's my husband, and I love him, and I'll always miss him when we're separated for too long. It helps knowing that when he's done with his call shift the next morning, I get the rest of the day with him.

I know that my situation is very different from that of other doctors' wives and their spouses. If you're married to a physician, how do you handle the loneliness and your spouse's constant absences? You can leave your stories in the comments of this post, e-mail them to me at asktheobswife@gmail.com, or tweet me on twitter.com (@asktheobswife).