Since it’s what I’m good at, let’s be honest. I completely forgot about this blog. As you could imagine, life as a new RN was over taken by home, family, work, etc. All of a sudden, getting my feelings out just wasn’t as important.
So let me fill you in on a few things.
Nursing can ruin your marriage. I’m not saying that’s what did it, but I’m not saying it helped much. In fact, nurses have one of the highest divorce rates- which would probably be a surprise to anyone who isn’t a nurse (or their spouse). It’s not complicated, if you think of it though. As a nurse, you spend more time with someone else’s family than you do your own. You work long, hard hours where you are underappreciated, tired, and all around emotionally drained. You can rattle off the last EKG strip, the last vitals and lab results, and the diets of 3 of your 5 patients without a second thought…but you can’t remember the last thing you ate with your family. You can’t remember the last school project you helped work on- and if you do, I praise you because I know it’s not easy. I had 2 days off this last month. And although I chose that decision because of my current job position, you can imagine how thrilled my family was.
So, as you can assume, that’s what has happened over the last few years. He and I divorced, although considering we only shared our dogs, it wasn’t a horrible thing. And, to be honest, it was probably best for us both. We have both remarried- he to another nurse with 3 beautiful children, and me to a man that He and I had known and been friends with for years. We now have 2 sons, one I gifted life to (A- 2yo) and one life gifted to me (B- 7yo). He and I are still friends, our children call him uncle, he threw Husband his bachelor party and walked with me at our wedding. We attended his wedding and all has been well.
Of course, life can’t be happily ever after without some work. Husband and I fought to get his son back from Ursula, and after 7 long months won full permanent custody. I’m not sure our hearts had ever been so full than on the day we stood in that court room and heard the Judge say to her “I don’t believe you’ll even follow my rules, so I’m awarding full permanent custody to the father.”
We moved, bought a new house, and started adding on back in October. It’s currently March and we successfully have a hole in the ground for a basement. Welcome to our weather. But as I sit here staring, holding A on my lap and listening to the sound of rain hit the windows and turn our basement hole into a pool again, what Husband is going to do for a job as he lost his 3 year stretch last week, I’m reminded that it’s not that important. In the grand scheme of things, life is good.
And to come full circle, yes. Nursing can ruin a marriage. But you don’t have to let it. You can fight for it if it’s what you want. Nursing can ruin your life if you LET it. But it can also make your life whole. In the last 4 years I’ve been a floor nurse, a charge, floor educator, auditor, and all around anything they needed me to do. It hasn’t earned me much in the way of raises, but it has earned me the ability to make my own schedule. I go in when I want, I leave when I want, and I stay within my scope on all things. The same things that bothered me in 2015 still bother me today, but I work to change that every day. I spend my free time thinking about how to make things better for my fellow nurses- it’s why I’m good at my job. I look for the change and I push to make it. I do not do well with complacency. I am on the same floor I started on and I wouldn’t change it. I have earned the respect of my bosses (at least I feel I have) and the doctor I work with, and every day is a new day to make someone’s life better.