Dear Prudence,
My husband was a rural primary care doctor from 2012-2021. I was overjoyed when he took a position in an underserved county near my extended family. He’s gentle and hardworking, and I was the primary earner to make it work financially (Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements are garbage). But with the pandemic, he got burned out hard. Everyone brought politics into medical appointments. A neighbor screamed at me in the grocery store for “being part of the vax conspiracy.” Parents were weird to our kids. Most of our county health department was so intimidated or demoralized that they quit. He felt like patients didn’t trust him.
We moved to a small city and have been much happier. We both got better jobs and are chipping away at school loans. Our marriage is so much healthier, and so are we. Our kids are getting a better education, making friends and there’s better support for us as parents. We’re going back to visit my extended family several times this summer for funerals, a wedding, and helping move my aunt into assisted living. I love my family and the land but I’m dreading it. They still haven’t permanently filled his old job and everyone blames us for leaving, acting like we took an easy way out. An old neighbor told me she blamed my husband for her husband’s suicide the last time we visited, because there was no doctor for him to see. It’s horrible and we’ll be seeing lots of these people this summer. My husband usually freezes, and I usually get angry. How do we handle this?
—Tired Wife