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It’s no secret that people often come to therapy to improve relationships. Whether it’s frustrations with family, spats with spouses, or conflict with coworkers, relationship problems can have a major impact on an individual’s well-being.
For busy healthcare workers, relationships can be both a point of pride and an area for growth. You might work long hours because you care so deeply about supporting your family. At the same time, long hours might compromise connection at home.
It’s all a bit of a paradox. For example, marriage has been shown to be a possible risk factor for burnout in healthcare professions. At the same time, working in healthcare has been shown to be a protective factor against divorce.
Clients often come to Marvin because of the strain that their work inflicts on their relationships. Here are three common relationship stressors we notice for healthcare workers—as well as some considerations for what to do about them.
- Irregular or unconventional work schedules
Any healthcare worker (or their partner) knows that scheduling can cause lifestyle difficulties. Whether you’re on call, working the weekends, or staying late with patients, shifting schedules can throw a wrench into any relationship pattern.
How Marvin can help
First and foremost, Marvin makes it easier to accommodate one hour of therapy in your weekly schedule. Completely telehealth, Marvin sessions are available throughout the day, well into the evening, and on weekends. You can easily find a therapist who fits your schedule. Your therapist can help you with stress reduction habits and prioritization skills to make difficult schedules less of a “thing” in your relationship.
"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
— Stephen Covey
- Heightened gender role expectations
Societal gender expectations can make spousal relationships for healthcare workers all the more complex. In heterosexual couples, female physicians have been shown to experience higher rates of depression, burnout, and divorce than male counterparts. This phenomenon could be related to an outsized obligation for women in healthcare to balance long working hours with caretaking.
How Marvin can help
By working with a therapist who is well-attuned to gender norms in healthcare, you can freely explore themes of sexism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. The more you can safely reflect on your own experience with gender, the better partner you’re likely to become.
- Burnout
Burnout—or the ongoing buildup of unmanaged stress, exhaustion, detachment, and lack of motivation to work—is more common for healthcare professionals than it is for the general public. For relationships at home, burnout can exacerbate conflict, financial concerns, and overall intimacy. It’s not always easy to leave work at work.
“Burnout occurs when the distance between the ideal and the possible lived reality becomes too much to bear. That’s true of the workplace, and that’s true of parenting.”
— Anne Helen Peterson
How Marvin can help
Therapy provides the means of strengthening connectedness in couples (even when a client is attending therapy alone). For healthcare professionals, a sense of connectedness is shown to be a mitigating factor in rates of burnout. Discovering the ways in which you feel connected to others can help you stay on track professionally, and be the partner you want to be at home.
