High divorce rate among nurses? Why?

Nurses General Nursing

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My husband heard something on the radio about the top 10 jobs for divorce. Of course the obvious ones like entertainment industry folks were on the list, but nurses, especially psychiatric nurses were like number 8 of 10. Can this be true? Why? And if so, why psych more so than other fields?

Specializes in Primary Care Nursing.
Never seen an episode, does Grey's Anatomy count :p My husband is under the impression this is what goes on.:rolleyes:

Yes, it definitely counts. They all have so much time to jump into the on-call room for a quick roll in the hay, but every time I see one of those episodes I ask myself the question, "but do they ever change the sheets between each shag?"

:bugeyes:

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Yes, it definitely counts. They all have so much time to jump into the on-call room for a quick roll in the hay, but every time I see one of those episodes I ask myself the question, "but do they ever change the sheets between each shag?"

:bugeyes:

Hmmmmm should send CSI over with the black lights to investigate, they can merge the episodes!

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derived from the 2000 us census a study publiched in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology by a Michael Aamodt, a professor emeritus at Radford University

both link refer to the study however only the 2nd mentions nurses, and home health aids.

The study aim was to look at the health of police officers, and debunked a myth that they divorce more.

Census Data Reveals Divorce Rate Based on Occupation - Married Life from Hitched - Social network for married couples

Study breaks down divorce rates by occupation

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
the statement that psych nurses are crazy is pretty offensive. in a pretty long career, i have worked in various areas, including psych. i, for one, am not crazy. where does such a stereotype come from? why perpetuate it here, in public? it's no wonder nursing is in such turmoil.

let's try to say good things about our profession. we certainly don't need any more criticism or detractors. please?

i'm sorry you're offended. it was meant to be funny -- it was something my psych nursing instructor announced to our class. the ability to laugh at oneself never hurt anyone!

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

The divorce rate in general has gone up since the women's rights movement because women can afford to leave now more than before. I think a lot of women go into nursing and make good money so they can afford to leave and a large portion of women that go into nursing are already driven and independent. It would be interesting to see what % of nurses that get divorced are male or female and if it makes a difference.

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.
Somehow, I don't see the (presumably male) spouse getting "kid duty" as an unfair thing, at all. Kids have TWO parents, so TWO can do kid duty, even if one of them happens to be the father. :rolleyes: I'm not criticizing you. I am criticizing the Olde Order view that the children are the woman's job. I presume that the (presumably female) nurse takes her turn at "kid duty" when she is home, so what's wrong with the spouse having to do it when the nurse isn't there.

Regarding divorce rates: It may not be a bad thing. I know BSRNs who gross over $100,000 per year all by themselves, in an area where $125k to $160k buys a darned nice home. So, she (or he) doesn't need the spouse's income, and if it's an unsatisfactory marriage, having adequate cash flow sure isn't an impediment to filing for divorce.

kid duty = the more undesirable times. As in you both worked a full dayshift, then non-nurse parent is looking forward to some down time, and so is the nurse, and nurse now accepted staying over another shift b/c they were asked. Now non-nurse parent had a long day of work, and has no break all day- and has dinner duty, homework duty, bath duty, and bedtime duty alone. It is easy to become resentful if that happens a lot. Yes-nurse parent is obviously busy at work. But I see resentment when the nurse parent makes this choice. It "takes away" time from the non-nurse parent. A lot of nurses work overtime. Or maybe non-nurse parent had plans to do something special, and plans were changed b/c nurse parent jumped at the chance to work during this time. Now non-nurse parents plans are changed. I don't think kid duty belongs to one parent over the other at all, I just see the non-nurse parent getting their plans changed a lot due to nurse parent, and not getting adequate down time/freedom to pursue interests other than work or children. There can be resentment with non-nurse parent working a M-F 9-5 job, and then nurse parent working weekends. Non-nurse parent basically has no "free" time from work and children, where nurse parent would have 2 days off during the week where children were at school or daycare. That is all I am getting at- is that the non-nurse parent gets less child free time/down time. Not to mention if nurse parent works 12 hours overnight shift. Nurse parent works at night then sleeps during the day. Non-nurse parent has to keep kids quiet somehow while nurse parent sleeps. Basically, the non-nurse parent ends up with more parenting duties than nurse parent. I can see resentment building in cases like that.

I feel for my dh with this issue. He isn't so thrilled about having to take all of the kids to family gatherings without help from me when I work holidays. The kids are all young and can be a handful. He doesn't get much time off of work, and it is spent kid wrangling without any help during stressful times. It is a lot of stress for him. This doesn't happen to me, since he gets off major holidays. I have help from him. So I can see why he would get resentful.

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Specializes in OB, L&D, NICU, Med-Surg, Ortho.
Somehow, I don't see the (presumably male) spouse getting "kid duty" as an unfair thing, at all. Kids have TWO parents, so TWO can do kid duty, even if one of them happens to be the father. :rolleyes: I'm not criticizing you. I am criticizing the Olde Order view that the children are the woman's job. I presume that the (presumably female) nurse takes her turn at "kid duty" when she is home, so what's wrong with the spouse having to do it when the nurse isn't there.

Truthfully, the "olde order view" is still pretty current today (at least in my region). Sure my hubby can watch the kids and make an edible dinner, but it has taken quite a bit of time to get him there. He isn't the only hubby like this. We joke at work about our spouses saying things like "Well, I didn't do the laundry because I was watching the baby!"

I don't think it is 'unfair' for men to watch their own children, but they aren't "mom". They know it. The kids know it. The old Bill Cosby skit about "Dad is great! He gives us the chocolate cake!" is still true for many dads I know :) I think another poster hit the nail on the head. Nurses give. We are caretakers. We take care of our patients, our children, our friends, and sometimes in all this caring, we put our husbands on the back burner. Often times we put ourselves on the very back burner and don't even turn it on low! I know I've been guilty of this. I'll agree to stay extra (I already work a 12 hour shift with an hour commute each way) or I'll come home and someone from work will call about an issue and I'm on the phone for 30 minutes after I walk in the door. Sometimes it's hard for us to put everybody first and everybody thinks they should be first. I've said it before - I guess I have to wait until I am in the nursing home for someone to take care of me! :) I do all the care-taking!

Don't get me wrong. My hubby is a great guy, and he'll do anything I ask. I have to remember to ask,though. Lately, he has gotten better.

It only took almost ten years to figure out clean kitchen = happy wife. Happy wife = chance of nookie! If I have to clean the kitchen after I've worked 12 hours, no energy for the nookie.

~Sherri

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Specializes in Primary Care Nursing.
It only took almost ten years to figure out clean kitchen = happy wife. Happy wife = chance of nookie! If I have to clean the kitchen after I've worked 12 hours, no energy for the nookie.

:yeah::yeah::yeah:

And that's why we women may not be the stronger sex, but we definitely are the smarter sex!

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

I think it has to do with being so emotionally spent at work that a nurse has nothing left to give to his or her spouse. The spouse of the nurse may think that his or her job is not that hard. After all nurses " Just tuck people in bed, and keep them medicated." Right? You can see how emotional inflammation of the nurse can trigger just as rapidly as an anaphalactic reaction to bee stings.

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In my personal experience it's because nurses take responsibility for the relationship, constantly adapting to make things smoother and trying out more and more different approaches to make it OK around the house.

This is fine. Until...it isn't. One day you wake up and discover you have compromised yourself right out of your life, your children are seeing you in a light you don't like and/or think this is the way relationships are supposed to be, and you realize it's not doing you or them any good and will be hard on your grandchildren one day.

(Voice of experience) (Now with the world's most wonderful man x 25+ years, and the grands are doing great :) )

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Specializes in M/S, Tele, Sub (stepdown), Hospice.

One thing I find hard on my relationship is working nights. I don't sleep w/ my fiance hardly at all anymore...unless I manage to switch to a day schedule on my days off but sometimes that's hard. We have opposite schedules...it's tough :unsure:

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Specializes in ED.
In my personal experience it's because nurses take responsibility for the relationship, constantly adapting to make things smoother and trying out more and more different approaches to make it OK around the house.

This is fine. Until...it isn't. One day you wake up and discover you have compromised yourself right out of your life, your children are seeing you in a light you don't like and/or think this is the way relationships are supposed to be, and you realize it's not doing you or them any good and will be hard on your grandchildren one day.

(Voice of experience) (Now with the world's most wonderful man x 25+ years, and the grands are doing great :) )

This is what happened to me. As nurses I think many of us think we can "fix" everything. Also, nurses tend to put up with being dumped on. (Think about short staffing, patients and family being abusive to us. How many really ever stand up for themselves?)

For me it was like waking up from under a blanket, lifting it up and saying, "What the hell is going on around here?" I got out of a bad marriage and learned to stand up for myself. I learned that confrontation isn't always a bad thing.

I think we all start out as nurses this way, but as we become more experienced, we learn to stand up for ourselves more both personally and professionally.

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