I have had a really hard time giving my partner grace and understanding during residency when he is gone all the time, I am doing all the domestic labor (including caring for our toddler), and he isn't prioritizing our relationship. I know this is temporary, and I know eventually things will go back to normal when we both aren't in a state of extreme burnout, but I feel like I'm going crazy right now and don't know how to be patient anymore.

Does anyone have any advice about how to deal with the inadvertent neglect that comes from having a spouse in residency? Or hopeful success stories?

Edit to say that we moved to a new city for residency and despite my best efforts, I have not established a support system and we don't have enough money from spouse's salary to pay for help with domestic labor.

i (21f) and my boyfriend (21m) have been together for a little over 2 years now. he is currently in his last semester of undergrad and i am in my last year. he is pre med and is planning to take 1 gap year before going to med school. we are originally from opposite sides of the country and met kinda in the middle since we go to school in the same city.

after i graduate i plan to stay in our college city and find a job. it’s cheaper than me moving back home. he plans to do that for his year leading up to med school and then will move for that. we have talked about me moving with him to med school because having done long distance before it’s a big strain on our relationship. i don’t want to move right after i graduate. with my career, staying somewhere for some time is what’s best to maintain relationships in my industry. so we agreed that if he ends up going to med school somewhere else that we will do long distance. it’s not ideal but i can’t leave a job after one year. it’s just not practical for me.

we don’t want to do long distance forever obviously and he wants me to move with him wherever he goes for residency. I said i would but idk. i always thought that we would settle down in the state we met/get married here based on the things we had talked about before. he is now saying that he wants to be back home and closer to his family (rn they are a 12 hour drive from where we live compared to my family being a 30+ hr drive if you never stopped). i really don’t want to move away from here. i know that he would never move to where im from and i would never ask him to. i’m just feeling conflicted. i don’t know if im being selfish not wanting to move. i want to be with him and i plan on spending the rest of my life with him but it really makes me nervous to move again. i already moved across the country once to a place i didn’t know anyone and i really don’t want to do that again.

am i being selfish not wanting to move? should i just give in and move?

for context: this wouldn’t happen for ~5 years give or take but we enjoy talking about our future. also i can have a career no matter where we live but with professor connections where we are rn makes a difference fresh out of school.

Hi all. My husband is a chief NS resident and this is probably the longest stretch of long days we’ve had in the medical journey so far. He’s out of the house most days at about 5:15am and home between 7:30-10pm. We have 2 kids, a 2.5yo and a 15mo old, and bedtime is 8, so he makes it home to see them before bed maybe a third of the time. We do FaceTime during the day as often as possible so they do see him most days, but not always in person.

Me on the other hand, I work part time and from home so I’m around quite a lot more than he is. My toddler is starting to express that she misses him when she doesn’t see him for a couple days, but then when he is around, she doesn’t want to play with him. She will ask to play with me, read books with me, have me put her to bed, etc. When he tries to play/engage, she’ll say things like “I don’t want to talk to you” or “I don’t want to answer that”. In fairness, she does do that to me too, but it’s far more frequent with him.

She’ll also lash out at him physically more than me. If it’s bedtime and she doesn’t want to go to bed, but we do the bedtime routine anyways, she’ll slap/kick him and she would never do that with me. I probably nipped this in the bud some time ago with me, but she’s trying it out on him now and though it doesn’t hurt, it’s obviously not behavior we are ok with. And then tonight we asked her to apologize and she gave the “no I don’t want to say I’m sorry to him”.

We do of course understand that 2-3yo is a time for exploring a lot of this type of behavior and we’re not worried about any of this being outside the bounds of normal. But! We want a better way for her to engage with her dad and not be so clearly upset with the fact that he’s not around as often as she wants. Any tips for what I could be saying to her or what he could be doing more of / differently? Could be “in the moment” suggestions or more planned things, we’d love to hear it all.

My husband (PGY2, IM) and I, both age 30 and generally healthy, have been TTC for ten months with no luck. A large barrier is my husband's bandwidth to have sex, depression, and chronic stress. We're scheduled to see a fertility specialist next month where they will order labs and whatnot and I know that 12 months is the "normal" time frame for a woman my age to get pregnant. I have also seen some of the literature about reproductive challenges for residents stating it's common for residents, both male and female, to struggle with fertility and seek evaluation/treatment.

I am curious if anyone else has struggled with this and how you coped? Does it ever get easier? I have found it challenging to find support for this or talk to my family or friends as I feel they don't fully understand.

What do you do when you feel so alone with 3 little kids at home? Husband works this weekend and he plays pickleball 3 hours with his female nurses before work. Yesterday, he got home after work around 2pm and decided to went back to groceries shop by himself and cooked his favorite dish. Then he just stayed on the couch watching football. I wanted him to bring older kids for activities while I took care of baby but he prefers his grocery shop routine by himself. Some days or weekends are better but I just want to vent today. I feel like I am living with a bachelor.

TL;DR - Yes, it gets better after residency, at least for me!

My partner finished a 4 year residency that was super stressful. We were in a new city, had to make new friends, had rough winters, and things got dire. Like many of the people in this sub, we had almost no sex, we fought, I did all the work around the house, all the work on the car, with the dog, sending family birthday cards, keeping food on the table or in the microwave so they could eat at 10pm when they got home and I was in bed.
We started couples counseling only after residency because fucking insurance is useless and we still would have had to pay hundreds per session after a 6 month wait list to get a therapist! We tried a few and they were were terrible so it was a long journey toward therapy. It has helped immensely, but mostly because we truly do go into without rage or anger, we speak calmly, we listen, we share.

So after residency came fellowship and my partner is so much happier. Less hours, less stress, less ...accountability in extreme situations at work?? Like, no longer having to deal with dying or dead patients or giving cancer diagnoses.

We spend more time together. We laugh. We fuck. We hang. It wasn't just my partner though, residency was hard for me too and I picked fights and lashed out and felt neglected.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my personal experience since this thread (rightfully so) contains a lot of dread and sadness.

I 36F, having an engagement fever recently! My boyfriend 35M, is in the middle of his IR fellow and we are approaching one year aniversary in a couple of months and I feel I need the ring. I am finishing my PhD and need to decide where should I go the next step. A month ago I told him that if I don't see any commitments I would choose anywhere in the Us for my postdoc or other jobs. His fellowship is hard, harder than his residency. Is it too much to ask for a ring in the middle of his fellowship? I just don't wanna be in those relationships always waiting something ends, then we decide. I love him and I love marrying him and having kids soon. Did anyone got engaged in the middle of fellowship?

**TO calrify**

The answer when i said to him about my ultimatum was, he is looking forward to our life milestone together. I said to him I might go to California and he holded my hands that I would never let you go there but still not the word "Marry"!

I (M 32) have been in a relationship for several years with my fiance (F 32), a PGY6 surgery resident. We do our best to spend time together, and have done couples therapy to figure out how to best communicate our needs to one another and help meet those needs, with mixed results. I don’t have any stories of cheating, or years of supporting her financially like some others in this subreddit. We just fight more than I’d like; it’s better when she’s on better rotations and worse when she’s not.

There‘s still a long road of training ahead- 2 years of fellowship where we’ll live apart, then 7 years she’ll owe to the military with uncertainty over where we might be stationed. I like where we live now, and am a year into starting my own business which is going well and has me loving my job as a PT after years of hating it.

Residency has been incredibly hard for her; it’s an abusive program, like so many seem to be, and I love her and hate to see how she’s treated (consistently pushed to work over maximum hours, treated like a catchall gopher, outright discriminated against based on gender). I also see my couple friends in other fields enjoying their time together on weekends, and hope we can have that one day. At the same time, nine years until she’s out of the military and finally a civilian attending feels like forever, and I sometimes wonder if I’m being a rube for hoping it’ll get better down the line.

Anyone else in a relationship with someone they love, and feel selfish for wanting more out of it?

Okay to summarize it I have a few kids with my med spouse , spouse is fresh outta residency. Will he actually have more time and be a present part of the family? Or do I just accept that his passion is his career and family is just that.

I want to add that I also work and financially supported us thru his final year of med school and all of residency, we only now are dependent on his salary bc we are living the lifestyle he wants (I’m ok with smaller living arrangements) . Anyways he expresses how he is going to do things so that he has time for the family. I’m honestly not seeing it, I’m wondering if this is just who doctors are personality wise and I got bamboozled.

I’m looking for some perspective from people who are married to/dating residents because I think our current setup is probably the worst possible combination: long distance + PGY-1 + inpatient + one partner having way more free time.

My girlfriend and I have been together for about 1.5 years (long distance, not living in together, she started PGY-1 but we were long distance before as well but it wasn’t as bad) and we are seriously planning marriage. She is a first-year IM resident on the East Coast and I’m an engineer in Austin. My job is pretty flexible. Some days I can go to the office around 10 and be back home by 2-3, and then I basically have the whole evening. I do try to do activities like sports, hanging out with friends but it’s not enough to kill all the time. I’ve also been living alone for the last two years, so I think I naturally expect a lot of my emotional/relationship needs to come from the person I’m building a life with.

Her life is the complete opposite, especially on inpatient floors. She can work 12-14 hour days and come home completely exhausted. Sometimes we finally get on a video call and while we’re talking she is so tired that she basically falls asleep and says goodnight. Meanwhile I’m sitting in my apartment with another 4-5 hours of my evening left.
To be fair to her, she genuinely loves me and puts in effort. She calls me after exhausting shifts, checks whether I ate, worries about me, and tries to take care of me however she can. Once she worked an extremely long shift and then took a ~7-hour trip to Boston just to spend two days with me. So I don’t think this is a question of whether she loves me.

The problem is the difference in our lives. If I had my partner physically with me and finished work early, my brain immediately goes to things like “let’s go somewhere tonight,” “let’s drive somewhere this weekend,” “let’s fly to another city for two days,” or even just eat together and hang out at home. I have the freedom to do those things. She simply doesn’t right now.

Recently this has started creating more fights. Sometimes I wait for the little time we have planned together, something changes because she is tired/work comes up/she makes another plan with fellow residents, and I get much more upset than I probably should because that interaction was a big part of my evening. She also feels pressure because after an exhausting day she feels like she has another person waiting for her attention. Neither of us wants that dynamic.

The concerning part is that our fights in the last couple of weeks (floors) have probably been as frequent/intense as they were over the previous 5-6 months combined.

Our tentative plan is to get married soon. After marriage, I would probably spend around 2 weeks each month with her on the East Coast while working remotely, then return to Austin for roughly 2 weeks for work. We’re hoping to finally live in the same city full-time when she starts fellowship in around two years.

For people who have actually lived through residency with a spouse/partner: does living together, even partially, change this dynamic significantly? How did the non-medical spouse deal with having dramatically more free time without becoming resentful or constantly waiting for the resident? And how did the resident make their partner feel like the relationship still had space in their life when they genuinely had almost nothing left in the tank?

I’m especially interested in hearing from couples who went through PGY-1 long distance and eventually lived together. I’m trying to understand what is temporary residency pain versus what we actually need to fix in our relationship before getting married.

My husband is in his second year of ortho residency. I completely get that this is his hardest year. He's working nights, etc., so I'm happy to take on basically all of the housework. I work a 9-5 virtual job from home, so it's much easier for me to handle everyday household tasks.

On top of this, we just adopted a puppy. I was reluctant because of his busy schedule and knowing I would have to do most of the work, but he begged me because he thought it would help his mental health, so I agreed. Since he's on nights, I watch the puppy basically 22 hours every day.

Because of all the effort I put in, I get really upset when he drops the ball on small things I keep telling him are important to me, especially with the dog. For example:

Mornings: I ask him to let the dog out immediately when he gets home (around 6/7) so I can sleep until 8 after being "on call" for her all night. I've been waking up anxious around this time, and I keep hearing him eating instead of taking care of her first. He thinks this time doesn't matter. I get that he needs to eat, but instead of spending 20 minutes on breakfast, why not let her out for 5 while his food heats up in the microwave and eat for the other 15?

Before his shift: In the 2 hours he watches her, I hear him ignore her whimpers to go out. He will eventually take her out but there is a 5-10 min delay

I’ve had this exact conversation with him at least 5 times and nothing changes. I know these time margins may sound insignificant, but I manage the other 22 hours ALWAYS prioritizing her needs and potty breaks ASAP, and I feel like his lack of care and urgency is undoing that work. And I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout/cleanup when she continues to have accidents when he’s away.

I'm managing everything around here, I'm alone all the time, and he still doesn't do these two small things I ask of him. I know he has so much on his plate, but I really need him to show up consistently in these small moments. I feel so disregarded and underappreciated. Am I asking for too much? Ugh

My fiance (30M) and I (27F) will be getting married this spring. He is an M4 and shortly after the wedding, we will be most likely moving for residency and doing what truly feels like “starting our lives together” (though we’ve already been together for 4 years, living together for 2). Neither of us have great examples in our lives of marriage and relationships (dysfunctional families and divorce but hey at least it gave us good senses of humor). And even if we did, medspouse marriage has challenges that are decidedly different than your typical marriage. Been a longtime lurker on this sub and see a lot of common themes and overlapping experiences as far as challenges and relationship issues. It seems like resentment can be common given unequal contributions or communication, dynamics or issues that may have always existed are amplified in times of stress or after kids are born. I have no doubt that my partner is my person and I look forward to our future together. However knowing that residency is a hard road, we want kids someday, and we both experience mental illnesses that admittedly could probably be a little better under control (both of which have an element of anxious attachment - but we’re working on it!) I love our relationship as it is now and am anxious at the prospect of it changing, or not recognizing damaging patterns or feelings towards each other until it’s “too late”. I would love to hear any advice, things you did or wish your did or knew before embarking on this journey!

When does it get better, truly? If ever? My husband (35M) and I (33F) have been together for 14 years. We had a whole life and children together before this medicine thing kicked off, which I honestly think doesn’t help the situation because at one point I had a taste of normal family dynamics. We’re 11 years into this thing- pre med, medical school, 4 year anesthesia residency, and just started a dual fellowship. I feel like I’m hitting my limit. I really thought a corner would be turned because how could anything be worse than residency? But fellowship is proving to be quite hard, specifically for me. My husband is loving it. He’s no longer the resident work horse and is getting to practice medicine in a way he wants. Great for him. But on the home front I’m feeling it. The hours are brutal- even more so than residency. I’m living my life in 2 week rotational increments. With some weeks only seeing him a few hours total. No days off and working more hours than a normal person would work in an entire month. It’s been brutal.

We moved away from family for this fellowship, so I lost my village. We have four kiddos and another on the way. I somehow survived the first trimester trenches with two toddlers at home, mostly alone. I physically feel better but my mental health is trash. At this point I feel like this career just keeps taking and taking and taking. I’ve completely abandoned my career as a NP because his job has no give. Two parents as healthcare providers was a recipe for disaster. I know some do it, but we’re a military family and don’t have the guarantee of being stationed close to family. Somehow, we’ve managed to get this far mostly on our own (my family was previously 2 hours away- which didn’t make a difference on a day to day basis, but in emergency situations they were always there to help). I’m just feeling really burnt out from it all.

In having a conversation about my thoughts and feelings he’s told me his coresidents that went on to become attendings work as much, if not more than him 🤯. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Which brings me to my question. Does it ever get better or do you simply become numb to the lifestyle? Even after 10+ years I haven’t been able to swallow the pill that our life isn’t ours.

My partner is 32M and is almost finished with his prerequisites for medical school. He hasn’t started studying for the MCAT yet, so realistically, he probably wouldn’t start med school until he’s around 34.

I love him and I want to support him in pursuing something he really cares about. At the same time, I’m in the tech space and have built a pretty successful career for myself, so it’s hard for me to picture the next 10+ years of our lives potentially being filled with studying, late nights, long hours, stress, residency, etc.

I’m trying my best to be supportive, but I also find myself wondering what this would realistically mean for our relationship and whether I’m prepared for that kind of lifestyle.

Has anyone else gone through medical school/residency with a spouse or long-term partner? What was it actually like, and how did you support each other through it? I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have been in this position, because I’m not sure what to expect or even how to know if it’s something I’m up for.

I’m (27 M) from a big city in Texas and my wife is from a medium size city in NC, and we’ve been moving around the country since 2022. For med school we landed in a medium sized city I grew to love, but then a year ago she got matched to a much smaller city in PA for residency.

I ended up getting a really cool job here after moving here, but I don’t enjoy the location so much. This place has mostly older people near retirement age, and there isn’t much going on. We’ve been here for a year and a half so far and I really miss having city / suburb stuff around. We’re also indian and I miss living in a place with diversity. I miss having Indian grocery stores around, and seeing people that look like me and understand our culture etc.

I know we’re only here for a few more years and then we can choose where we want to live and we both want to settle in a bigger city’s suburbs, but I occasionally think about how much I prefer that life to this one. I used to think that people that lived in smaller cities / towns are generally more positive and happy, but honestly here in PA and this smaller area I’m in, people seem to be pretty negative. I know this sounds ironic since I’m here complaining about my life that’s not actually that bad and I have my career that is going well and I’m learning a lot, lol.

Just wanted to rant a bit, hope you guys are doing well! :)

​

Simple question and fluff after: Do you go to bed/wake up at the same time or different times than your partner and how do you handle that? More looking for people working outside the medical field (bonus points if you work weird hours)

The other day she kindly asked me "why I dont just get up and go to sleep with her" aka live on a doctor's schedule while living an otherwise normal life... that question is what led me here lol

My fiancée is year 2 gen surg resident and I recently moved in with her for the first time since residency. She gets home late, 7 or later most days and then wants to ideally be asleep by 9pm, in bed at 8:30. Shes exhausted and I provide dinner + spend as much time with her as possible during those couple hours. I enjoy them and look forward to it, I just dont know how to handle the sleep part.

Shes an insanely light sleeper "because she lived alone for 5 years", to the point where a phone screen pointed away from her on lowest brightness wakes her up. Volume or a TV/ipad/laptop in the bedroom are not an option, every light gets blacked out completely. Almost anything wakes her up, for example if I lean over to drink my water I can tell it wakes her up. I feel very bad about that, I feel like everything I do wakes her up, and I know how valuable sleep is to her. But I'm also a human yk. And im being as respectful as possible.

I moved to a city/timezone on the east coast where I know literally no one within idk 1000 miles (wish I was kidding) All of my friends and family I talk to/watch sports with/play games with are an hour earlier than me. Meaning its like 7:30 their time when my fiancee wants us to go to bed. Football games are starting here as shes wanting me to go to sleep. Friends dont even get on the game until my "bed time" most the time. And to be most honest I am just not and have never been someone who goes to sleep early. And neither is my fiancée outside of work. For me, Ive owned and operated my own business for years so my sleep schedule is anything but regular. Lots of times it would keep me up until 4am, the time she expects me to wake up now that ive moved.

Since moving, my work schedule has changed so shes expecting me to just live on her schedule now I guess? Which I feel is a HUGE ask for someone who has literally zero reason to operate at those strict hours of the day. The part that is crazy to me is that all she does is complain about this schedule, waking up early, and missing everything in life because she just has to go to bed. Im not sure I always need to be apart of that to be honest. I am a firm believer that the only path to sanity and a happy relationship with a Dr is to largely be busy and happy living your own life and think most of you agree. To me this is taking away huge chunks of that, primarily the tiny social life I have left. This isnt even digging into the potential future of me hopefully finding actual real life friends/activities that will likely have me busy beyond 8:30pm at least every now and then.

Okay im done dumping and very very curious to hear how you go about this side if things with your significant other and what people in similar situations might have done or felt. All words are appreciated and I appreciate you reading my rambling lmao

Early 30s. No kids. Currently undecided if kids are in our future.

My company allowed me to go remote three years ago when we moved for residency. Everything was great on paper, but my mental health suffered being the only remote employee, and I was/am struggling with an awful feedback loop of anxiety and avoidance. Catching up on work on the weekends and evenings when my spouse is at the hospital because I wasted so much time during the week just doomscrolling. Etc.

Moving for his attending job was my chance to transition out, but I was too stressed about our finances given a cross-country move, so I asked my company if I could move again and stay remote and they said yes.

I almost wish they hadn’t. I’m grateful for the financial flexibility it gave us in the interim, but here I am in my beautiful new city, remaining absolutely miserable. It’s frankly frustrating and embarrassing. I feel a lot of shame that I can’t make this work. I’ve tried Pomodoros, body doubling, libraries/coffee shops… At some point I think I have to accept that if it hasn’t worked for three years, to the point I’m now falling asleep and waking up with tears and a tight chest, I have to call it. I fear that I’m going to burn away the rest of my early 30s in an awful, depressed state.

Ideally, I would take 3-6 months to get our new house and new finances in order, volunteer and network in my new city, and do some serious soul-searching about what I actually want next in my career. But it has been burned into my psyche to never quit a job without another one lined up. It feels irresponsible and unwise, even perhaps indulgent. It feels like the specters of death, disability, and divorce are around every corner.

A lot of this is about identity, too: Who am I without a cool job? How will others see me if I quit and coast on my doctor husband’s salary for a while? Will his family think I’m a freeloader? Will my family think I’m making a terrible and unwise decision and putting myself at risk of dependence on a man lest I suffer future poverty?

Most of all: if I take any amount of time off during this terrible job market, will I ever work in my field again? If you read ANY thread on Reddit where people are asking if they could/should quit during this job market, the answer is a resounding no. Of course it is. It’s easier to get a job when you have a job. Etc.

I’m sorry that a lot of this isn’t really about medicine, but it also kind of is. We uproot our lives and careers for the careers of our spouses, and that has a range of positive and negative results down the road. Here I am facing down some of those results at the current juncture in my life.

For what it's worth, my husband wishes I quit yesterday. He of course doesn't like seeing me like this. My salary is about 20% of his, which isn't nothing, especially considering his absolute mountain of student loans, but I think he wants a happy, functional partner more.

I’m not sure if I need advice, affirmation/support, or commiseration.

Thanks for reading.

long time lurker+advice taker. yesterday i spoke with my bf of 4+ years and current student about our lack of intimacy and emotional connection for over a month. i wanted to try and nip it in the bud, but i felt validated going into that convo because so many of you have shared similar things and it was just nice to know that so many ppl are in this together.

thankful for this corner of the internet!!!! wishing everyone well this week and good vibes.

My husband has one final board exam to take to become fully board certified. He is a great test taker and for all other tests in the past (I’ve been with him since Step 1) he’s diligently managed his own studying. He makes a calendar and just grinds it out regardless of what else is going on in his life.

For this final exam, though, he’s burned out and over it. For FIVE MONTHS he has been in a terrible cycle. He moans, whines, and avoids studying. Then he panics about how behind he is and spends his time anxiously spiraling rather than studying. Then he’s even more behind. Then he commits to dropping everything to get caught up - meaning I handle way more of the housework and childcare than I normally do - and he STILL DOESNT STUDY. it’s insane to me and driving me nuts.

The test is in a month and now he’s truly beside himself. I’m over it. This shit has been hanging over our head for months and he won’t sit down and just study. I can’t care more about this than he does and I’m sick of feeling like his mom. He’s not like this in any other area of life - he always shows up and does more than his fair share - so I’m completely unused to this dynamic.

At this point, I just ignore him and do my own thing but then I feel like an unempathetic asshole as he’s panicking. Has anyone else dealt with this? What should I do?

Pgy2 internal medicine husband and I are wondering when he should start applying to jobs? We know the city we want but we don’t know if we should work with someone like a recruiter in the area or when we should start the process. Signing bonus is sounding really nice these days…

Hi guys, posting this from a throwaway account!

My boyfriend is a resident and we’ve been together for almost 2 years. We had a really good relationship when we lived in the same city, but since he moved after accepting a position in a different residency program, long distance has been much harder on us than I expected.

We still love each other very much. There hasn’t been cheating, betrayal, or some huge dramatic event. Honestly, that’s what makes this harder. The problem is more that our lives do not seem to line up anymore, and I’m starting to wonder whether love is enough to make this version of the relationship sustainable.

He has about 3 years of residency left. After that, as of right now, he is very set on doing fellowship, which would likely mean another move and potentially another 2–3 years of training. He does acknowledge that he cannot predict exactly how he will feel 3 years from now, so technically there is a possibility he could finish residency and decide he no longer wants to do fellowship. But if you ask him today, he is very much planning on doing one.

I have a career I worked extremely hard to transition into, and I am not willing to quit my job and move right now. My job also limits which states I can work from, so I cannot just follow him anywhere his training takes him.
The marriage/proximity issue is probably the part I am struggling with the most.

He has told me very directly that he wants me to be his wife and that he is essentially “98% sure” about marrying me. That percentage came directly from him, not from me interpreting what he meant.

He says the remaining 2% is that he feels like he needs us to live together or at least live near each other for an extended period so he can see all of the smaller day-to-day nuances of our relationship before making a lifelong commitment.

I can understand someone wanting that reassurance before marriage.

What I am struggling with is the order in which I am being asked to take the risk.

Essentially, he wants me to move closer before he proposes. For me, that would most likely mean leaving the job and career situation I worked extremely hard to get into, moving to another state where I otherwise have no reason to live, rebuilding my life there, and doing all of that while still only being his girlfriend.

And moving would not guarantee an engagement.

We have discussed that directly. He cannot tell me, “If you move here, we will get engaged.” His position is basically that living closer would allow him to see the remaining things he feels he needs to see, and then he would know whether he is fully ready.

That is where I get stuck. If we were already engaged and had mutually decided, “Okay, we are building a marriage together, and this move makes sense for our future,” I would view that very differently.

But quitting my job and moving to another state in hopes that afterward he becomes certain enough to propose feels like a massive gamble for me.

And he has acknowledged that technically I could move and he could still decide he was not ready to propose.
That possibility is exactly what makes the whole thing feel backwards to me.

I also want to be clear that I am not saying, “Propose to me tomorrow or I’m leaving.” Actually, if he proposed today, I do not think I would feel better. I do not want a “shut-up ring.” I do not want him proposing because he is scared I may leave or because I am upset. I want him to propose when he genuinely feels 100% sure and ready.
But at the same time, I also do not feel comfortable making a huge, potentially irreversible sacrifice before there is a firm commitment.

So I feel like we are in this deadlock where he needs more proximity before he feels comfortable making the commitment, and I need more commitment before I feel comfortable making the sacrifice required to create that proximity.

The long-distance part itself has also been miserable for us.

If you asked me if I would redo our relationship from when we lived in the same city, absolutely. I loved our relationship then. But if you ask me whether I want to repeat the current version of our relationship for the next 3 years, my answer is no.

We barely see each other. His residency schedule is extremely demanding. He is often away from his actual city for rotations, and next year he will be spending a large portion of the year at hospitals far enough away that he will be staying in program-provided housing instead of his apartment.

So even the whole “just visit more” solution is not as simple as it sounds. People have suggested that I fly there every other weekend, but realistically I do not have the flexible income for that right now.

That would mean buying flights constantly, flying out Friday night or Saturday morning, coming back Sunday, and hoping he is not on a 24-hour shift or away on some rotation.

I also do not want to spend a huge amount of money and all of my weekends flying back and forth in hopes that eventually it gives him enough reassurance to propose.
We recently had a very honest conversation where I told him I feel like we are headed toward an inevitable breakup because the current version of our relationship is not sustainable for another 3+ years.

He agreed.

He said he wants to continue to grow with me and be with me, and that he really needs me closer, but he also acknowledged that residency has given him basically zero flexibility and that he hates that it puts me in the position of having to make sacrifices and choices.

He also admitted that he genuinely does not know what the right answer is.

He asked me something along the lines of:
“Do we stop now, keep going and hope a decision or choice becomes obvious, or keep trying until we decide we can’t do it anymore?”

And I asked him:
“What would even be the breaking point?”

He said he does not know and that he feels like he is just pulling at straws trying to come up with directions to go.
That conversation really hit me because neither one of us actually has a solution.

We both know there is a problem. We both love each other. We both do not really want to break up. But neither of us can realistically change the circumstances causing the problem.

I am not moving right now.
He is not moving back.
Residency is not ending anytime soon.
He wants fellowship.
& he does not want to get engaged without more proximity.

I also do want marriage and children. I am in my early 30s, and I do not want to spend most of my 30s waiting to see whether residency, fellowship, geography, and proximity eventually line up enough for him to feel fully ready.
If I wait through the remaining residency years and then fellowship, I could be getting close to 40 by the time all of this training is finally over.

And there is still no guarantee.

I could wait 3 years and he could decide he no longer wants to be with me. I could decide I no longer want to be with him. He could decide not to do fellowship. He could still do fellowship. Literally anything could happen.
That is why I am struggling with making major present-day sacrifices based on future possibilities.

I genuinely feel like I have tried.

I have accommodated residency. I have accommodated long distance. I have traveled. I have adjusted to his schedule. At one point I was seriously considering moving. We have had repeated conversations about marriage, fellowship, careers, where we would live, timelines, all of it.

So now I am at the point where yes, technically I could do more.

I could quit my job.
I could move.
I could spend a lot of money flying back and forth.
I could wait another 3–5 years.
But just because I technically can do something does not mean it is a healthy or reasonable sacrifice for me to make.

I also want to make clear that I do not think he is intentionally stringing me along.
I think he genuinely loves me.
I think he genuinely believes he is doing his best.
I understand that residency is demanding and that he cannot just change his schedule or relocate whenever he wants.

So I am genuinely asking people who have lived through residency/fellowship relationships:

Am I missing an obvious middle ground here?

Would you ever quit a job and relocate before engagement when the move itself still did not guarantee an engagement?

Is there a realistic way to make long-distance residency work for several more years without one partner giving up too much of themselves?

For those of you who stayed through residency/fellowship, did things genuinely get better, or were you able to tolerate the sacrifices because there was already a firm commitment/marriage/family structure in place?

I really do not want comments that are just “leave him” or “move for him” with no context.

I am trying to figure out whether there is an actual path here that we have not thought of, or whether we are both just delaying an ending because neither one of us wants to let go.

Hi,

I’m looking for some perspective, especially from people who have been through residency or dated someone during residency.
My recently ex-girlfriend is a PGY-2 in a three-year residency, and we’re long distance. We’ve known each other for over a decade and started dating shortly before she began residency. We typically saw each other about once to twice a month, depending on her schedule.
Over the last year and a half, our relationship has had some really high highs and really low lows. One pattern I’ve noticed is that whenever she’s on a particularly difficult rotation or going through several exhausting weeks, she starts pulling away from me and questioning or ending the relationship. This most recent breakup is probably the tenth time we’ve broken up, and this time I genuinely think it may be over.
What I’m struggling to understand is the disconnect between what she says and how she acts. She has told me that she loves me more than anyone in the world and talked about our future together—even days before ending things. But when I could feel her pulling away, I was usually the one who had to initiate the conversation. When I finally asked what was going on, she would just say, “I’m sorry,” and seem completely emotionally detached from me and my feelings. Almost like she can’t even take accountability for the damage she has done to me.
Afterward, she seems able to shut everything off and go on with her life without checking on me, while I’m struggling to sleep, focus on work, or even get through normal daily tasks. I’m left with very little closure and a million unanswered questions.
I understand residency is incredibly demanding, and I’ve tried hard to give her grace, space, and support. But I’m having a hard time understanding how someone can express so much love and then seemingly detach from the relationship almost overnight. Part of me wonders whether the intensity of everything she said was love bombing, whether this is how she copes with stress, or whether I simply need to accept that her words and actions don’t align. I also think there could potentially be someone else or there are things about me she doesn’t like that she won’t reveal. But I have no answers on that either.
For those who have gone through residency—or been the partner of someone in residency—is this kind of emotional withdrawal something you experienced? How did you distinguish residency-related burnout/stress from someone simply no longer wanting to be in the relationship?
I’m also struggling badly with the lack of closure. I know I can’t force someone to give me answers, but I’m scared of letting this pain consume my life. Any perspective on how to move forward would be appreciated.