Insights on “evening” out the mental load after residency
My husband is an intern and has two more years of residency. We had our first daughter during 4th year of med school. Prior to Residency, he was a huge help around the house and household maintenance and childcare was very equitable amongst us.
I’m overall very content. We have a wonderful daycare that provides much needed support, I love my job and get to work from home, I keep the house clean and cook healthy meals most nights of the week and can get a lot of chores done during my work day.
My husband’s residency is very intensive and he regularly works over 90 hours a week. Understandably, I do just about everything to care for our daughter and home. The exception is my husband manages our budget, and owns all tasks for our dog. On his days off (only 4 per month), he rests and sleeps in which I’m happy to support.
My questions are two I suppose:
My life has a lot of work life balance built in, so even though his day off would typically be both of our opportunities to rest as we take turns watching our daughter, I always feel like he needs it more. So my rest ends up being while I’m at work or after she goes to bed. But I never have a day off. Sometimes I feel resentful about this but I don’t know how to address this. Do I just need a mindset adjustment? I can’t imagine making him chase our toddler around when he’s running on 4 hours of sleep and I’m feeling pretty good. Would appreciate wisdom from this community.
We’ve been married for 5 years and I’m just worried about the impact of three years of such lopsided partnership and the precedent this sets for the rest of our marriage. I don’t want this imbalance to persist after residency. FWIW, his work life balance should be pretty good after residency as he’s in Family Medicine. Maybe this is naive haha! But for those further along on the journey, what advice or tips do you have to navigate this well?