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So, How's It Going?


Gonzo

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Well, about a month ago was nearly bottom. We officially hit bottom after The Funeral/My Birthday (LITERALLY THE SAME DAY, WHAT IS UP SECOND WORST BIRTHDAY (don't ask)), when my mom very casually pointed out that my grandmother was the last of the "easy" deaths and it was all going to be horror for us all from here on out.

worth pointing out my mother's favorite movies are Long Day's Journey Into Night, Blue Velvet, and Lust in the Dust. Our direct family has always been reliably grim as hell and horribly out of place at family gatherings.

Anyways! Today was the first time I noticed that I was very, very happy in... fuck, like, a year and half? Which means that I'm capable of feeling things strongly, which means clouds are breaking and things are starting to level out around here for me. Phew!

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I went outside and saw a buzzard tearing into a pheasant on our picnic table in the backyard. The buzzard looked up at me and I swear to the heavens it balled up its talons into a fist and shook it at me, in that, 'If you come any closer, I swear I'll fuck you up' manner.

I went back inside.

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On ‎2017‎-‎05‎-‎17 at 9:43 AM, Dewar said:

Not nearly as heavy as everyone else's concerns, but online dating sucks. :D

Self quoting is terrible, but here we are.

While online dating does suck, I did meet someone recently that's pretty great, and we have hit it off big time. I have to stop saying bad things about online dating, at least until we figure out what is wrong with each other. :)

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Interesting coincidence...

I came here to vent or to try and calm my nerves or something over my current girlfriend/future wife. I say future wife because we know we'll get married at some point. Anyway, we met on OK Cupid over 3 years ago. Our first date was in February 2014. I was going through my divorce at the time and met her. She's been amazing. Basically everything I could ever want in a person.

It's been an exciting, but stressful time for us though. She completed college and became an RN in the last couple weeks and already has a job lined up. Until now, she had been working at the hospital as a PCN and essentially worked 7 am to 7:30 pm. Now that she's an official RN, she's going to start out by working the night shift from 7 pm until 7:30 am. I was worried about this at first, but the feelings of fear, anxiety, etc. all really ramped up in the last couple days because she starts nights this week. It's 3 days a week, but this is going to be such a drastic change for us.

All I've worried about lately is that she'll be in this night shift bubble with her co-workers, will develop friendships, and will wind up inadvertently falling into an emotional affair. Mind you, she's never done anything to make me question her trust or loyalty or dedication to me and my daughter. However, I can't get the worst that could happen out of my head. In my head I feel like I'm just ripe for losing her. I don't work this night shift, I won't work with other cancer patients like her co-workers will, I won't know what it's like to lose a patient, and I just keep thinking that someone else will be there because we'll be so detached here at home.

Everything I've read says that you have to really work hard to make this type of dynamic successful, but I can't stop worrying about the loss of spontaneity and how she'll become more familiar with the people she works with and will grow closer to them while she grows apart from me. Maybe some of these fears come from being cheated on in my previous marriage, but it just feels like even the most dedicated and trustworthy people can fail their partners and stray.

We talked about this together and she's reiterated that I'm her life, my daughter is her life, she wants to marry me, she wants to grow old with me, etc. I hear her and want to believe her. It's just that nagging voice in my head that keeps saying that even the most loyal people like her can stray.

Maybe none of this happens. Maybe she switches to days in the fall and that will be one fear gone (not to mention fears about what the night shift can do to your health), but there will still be that presence of basically working in an entirely different world where you're in a totally separate bubble than everyone else. 

Anyone here married to or have a girlfriend, boyfriend, or partner that works a night shift or is a nurse? Am I just worrying over nothing and thinking of stupid shit like Grey's Anatomy too much? For as much as I think about that, I also tell myself that show is probably as far fetched as it gets and I've seen maybe one episode of it. Should I not sweat the whole night shift thing as much as I am? Am I overthinking the connection she'll have with her co-workers and the potential loss of connection here at home?

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I have some experience with 12 hour shifts and being around nobody but your coworkers during them, so let me offer this:

Oh good lord this is not a thing you have to worry about. At least not anymore than you would if she worked a 9-to-5 office job. Working 12 hour shifts means you're too TIRED to carry on a workplace affair. Especially at night. Shit if I had the spare 10 minutes to pull off a quickie on a break I'd rather take a fucking NAP. And the LAST thing I wanted to do was spend MORE time around co-workers. After 12 hours I didn't want to look at, listen to, smell or think of anything that reminded me of work.

Obviously YMMV here, and certainly one CAN stray, but if she wasn't likely to before, I don't really think the likelihood has increased.

And no, Grey's Anatomy is not a realistic portrayal of the working environment of a real hospital, just like How to Get Away with Murder is not a realistic portrayal of homicide investigations, and Scandal isn't a realistic portrayal of Washington DC, (though I'm a bit less certain on that last one since Trump.)

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My wife worked overnights at Waffle House for a time and she was practically a zombie even on her off days (and she doesn't drink coffee either)  She basically was a different person in that it was hard to have a lengthy conversation with her dozing off a lot.  Thankfully she found a much better job and has tons of energy now so it's all good.  Craig, I wouldn't worry about her straying, the way it sounds everything will work out.  And shows like Grays and ER are hot garbage when it comes to realism anyway.

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16 hours ago, Dewar said:

While online dating does suck, I did meet someone recently that's pretty great, and we have hit it off big time. I have to stop saying bad things about online dating, at least until we figure out what is wrong with each other. :)

It's kind of like exercising, in that the process is awful a lot of the time but the end result can be great.  The difference with online dating is that you can actually get to a point where you never ever have to do it again.  Here's to hoping you are at that point.

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I had one marriage fail and I don't wasn't to go through that again. The person in with now is someone I love being with and vice versa. I ultimately got over my divorce pretty quickly because I was with a terrible person. My girlfriend is the exact opposite in every way. I just never want to lose that or have that connection challenged in any way. 

So I do the one thing I do any time I feel like something I love could potentially be pulled away. I worry. It's just part of living with anxiety I guess. If it's not my relationship, it's the government, or the weather, or my daughter, or my job, etc. Just how I'm wired.

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I'm a nurse and I've practically lived at the hospital for extended periods of time. I can't say I ever felt remotely interested in one of my co-workers in a romantic way, and I can't recall any affairs going on between others either. Relationships between co-workers, yes, but not them cheating on their actual significant others. I certainly don't think it's more prevalent in this line of work than in nine-to-five office jobs.

The one thing you might want to keep in mind: if she comes home and seems unusually quiet and doesn't want to talk about it, don't press it. That was something the missus and I had to work on at first as well. It happens that you see extremely horrible shit in hospitals (I work on a burn unit, so...) and, like you said, we find comfort in our co-workers. They go through similar things as well, so we all want to be there for each other through those really tough moments. I don't talk to the missus about it at all. I don't want to disturb her with tales of children burned to a crisp and what have you, and I don't want to linger on those issues any longer than I absolutely have to either. It's not about being quiet because you're angry, or being quiet because you don't want to accidentally blurt out you're having an affair, or being quiet because you don't trust your partner or think 'they won't understand'; it's mental self-preservation. The missus found that difficult to deal with at first, but she understands and, heavens bless her, accepts it now. If your girlfriend seems to be in that kind of mood (even if it lingers on for days or weeks), just try to accept it and be there for her. That, at least, has worked best for me, and it seems to work well for many of my colleagues too.

(Also: nurse role-play.)

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Thanks man. That's good advice. It'll take some work to not equate silence with "ZOMG SHE CARES MORE TO TALK TO SOMEONE ELSE AND THEY'RE MORE IMPORTANT TO HER THAN ME!!!" but I'm hoping I can get there. For the sake of our relationship, I need to get there. 

And it's not as if this is the only thing I worry about. I worry about her health too and seeing what being a shift worker does to you. For women especially, it's a possible carcinogen because you're not getting the melatonin you need and the risk for ovarian cancer increases. If it isn't that, it's the damage you're doing to your serotonin levels. Until now, I didn't consider that the impact from being a shift worker extends beyond just being tired or having your circadian rhythm thrown off. So yeah, I'm worried about a lot right now and the clock is ticking. Two days away now. 

I wrote down a list of things I feel like I need and want to do. I'm already having flowers delivered on Thursday, but my to-do list consists of making sure the bed is made everyday, keeping the kitchen clean, keeping the bathrooms clean, doing the laundry, planning meals, and making sure clutter (toys, games, my own work stuff since I work from home) is picked up. My thought is to do everything I would do in addition to what she would take care of to ensure that the home she comes back to is one where she doesn't need to see a messy kitchen or messy bed. She's big on things being organized so if she walks in the door and can take that sigh of relief, like "this is nice, there isn't a thing for me to worry about" then she won't ever dread coming home from a hard day of work. And then there's all of the scheduling stuff. Planning out date nights, I've already discussed stargazing on one of her days off if she's awake at an awkward hour, finding fun things to do here at home, finding fun and affordable things away from home that won't exhaust her further, etc. Again, perhaps I'm overthinking all of this and maybe it will turn out that she'll still want responsibilities to take care of here, but in my head if I can take away any stress from here at home then that will maybe balance out any stress from work or the schedule she'll have. Does that make sense?

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You're definitely overthinking it. If you've already looked up the carcinogenic effects of night shift work, you're thinking too much. But you're also trying to be really thoughtful and that's great. 

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Let's see....how's it going?

Job...amazing. Number one jock in the market and got a raise. Second in three years.

Podcast...fun. A wrestling podcast based in Idaho. Not a lot of local material but always fun to talk wrestling.

Band...always a blast. We put out our third album last month. Prog rock in Idaho...not the easiest sell but we don't do it to get rich.

Stand up gigs...looking better and better. I may very well have my first casino gig in the pipeline right now.

Family? The most important thing in my life and my clan is great right now.

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I narrowly escaped death yesterday. A bottle of Patio Gas fell off a shelf through the space where my head had been half a second earlier. Missed me by a couple of inches.

It's been really hot here, thanks for asking. Luckily, the air com at work was desinged for a much larger building, so it's super effective in our small one.

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17 hours ago, AxB said:

I narrowly escaped death yesterday. A bottle of Patio Gas fell off a shelf through the space where my head had been half a second earlier. Missed me by a couple of inches.

It's been really hot here, thanks for asking. Luckily, the air com at work was desinged for a much larger building, so it's super effective in our small one.

That's awesome that you aren't dead, but allow me to ask: Patio gas? Is that English for propane? If it is, I think I like it a lot more than propane. Super excellently descriptive. I might have to try to get it to catch on in the States.

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There's three types of bottled gas over here, Propane, Butane, and Patio Gas. I'd tell you the sizes they come in, but they're all in Kilos.

EDIT: OK, it seems Patio Gas is just Propane with a different name.But the valves on the bottles are different too. I think the thing with it is, if you're a guy who sells Gas Barbecues and Patio Heaters, you sell them a Propane one if they know the difference between a spanner and a screwdriver, whilst you sell them a Patio Gas one if it's someone who has no knowledge of any type of mechanical engineering.

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I too figured Patio Gas was propane, but I didn't want to ask. Still, that's awesome you dodged that bullet. Holy shit. I wouldn't want any part of a propane tank, full or empty, normal or half-sized falling on ANY part of me, let alone my head.

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