NurseWeek: Nurses in Love: Couples find shared career strengthens their relationship

Nurses in love
Couples find shared career strengthens their relationship

By Michelle Paolucci
September 25, 2000
Photo: Photodisc

With a profession in common, nurse couples have a heightened understanding of the pressures each partner faces.


	You've read the article. Now tell us what you think. Related sites History of Marriage Marriage Builders Counseling Center Women.com For free relationship advice and tips, visit Marc Sadoff’s Web site A counselor’s advice "Nurses are saddled with an unbalanced ratio of responsibility to the actual amount of respect and recognition they get in return on a daily basis," says Marc Sadoff, MSW, a board certified diplomate in clinical social work. "If they take that home with them, they may have too-high expectations for their partners to fill in the hole that is left by a feeling of lack of appreciation at work. So, there could be problems with resentment if nurses don’t take care," he says. Sadoff suggests that nurses safeguard against resentment by making sure that each partner takes the time to create their own personal private time. "But, that doesn’t mean that they have to always do things apart from each other outside of work. Couples can still do things they both enjoy together and make it work," Sadoff says. Resentment isn’t the only issue that can come up in a nursing relationship, but it is the most likely, he says.

Finding the love of your life and making it work isn’t that easy for anyone these days. But nurses seem to have more obstacles than the average Joe or Jane, according to some Web bulletin boards and offline conversations.

"It’s hard finding someone who understands what shift work is like," was the No.1 complaint. "It’s hard enough to find someone who wants to meet for coffee at 11 p.m., let alone someone who understands what it is like to confront life and death every day," was another comment.

But what happens when a nurse finds someone who can relate? Can relate exactly, in fact? What happens when a nurse falls in love with another nurse?

Here’s a look at three couples in which both partners are nurses:

Jennifer & Kerwin
The Dagarags, the youngest of the three couples, have been married for three years. She has been a nurse for three years; he, a year and a half. They met a few years before they started nursing school.

"I met Kerwin through my brother. My brother was actually my husband’s best friend at the time," said Jennifer Dagarag, RN, a pediatric intensive care nurse at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange. "And we’re still friends!" joked Kerwin Dagarag, RN, an intensive care nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital, also in Orange.

"I always knew I wanted to be a nurse, but Kerwin didn’t. He knew he was interested in a career in medicine, but didn’t decide on nursing as a career until I was already in school," Jennifer said.

"We carpool, so we see each other every night, and the first thing we discuss is how our night went," Kerwin said.

"It helps to know there is someone there who understands what you are going through when you have a hard night, like when you lose a patient or are yelled at by a doctor," Jennifer said.

"But we make sure that once we get home, we don’t talk about work too much," Kerwin said.

"Being on the same shift also really helps because we are on the same rhythm. It’s not like one of us is a night person and the other isn’t. We stay up late together," Jennifer said.

Suan & Jacob
The Changs have been working in the San Francisco General Hospital Department of Psychiatry for the past 15 years. "Jacob and I met through mutual friends while we were training to be nurses in England," said Suan Chang, RN.

"We moved to the states 20 years ago and took classes for a couple of years at local community colleges so we could work at San Francisco General. We’ve been there ever since," Suan said.

"We are on opposite shifts, which really helps, because we have a 3-year-old son. It also helped when our daughter, now 21, was younger," Suan said.

"Jacob is on the night shift, so he takes care of our son during the day. He’s also been able to take classes that interest him during the day over the years," she said. "Plus, I like hearing good things about him from other staff members that know us both.

"When we see each other on the weekends, we make sure that we limit our discussions about work to a little advice one might have for the other on a case," Suan said. "We really have fun together; we love to travel," she said.

Mary & Emilia
Mary Hood, RN, and Emilia Guerra, RN, met while working as staff nurses on the oncology unit at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. They still work on the same unit and sometimes even the same shift. Mary has been on the oncology unit for 15 years and Emilia for the past three.

"We just started hanging out after our shifts more and more. I don’t remember when it became obvious that there was something more there than just a friendship," Mary said.

"The hospital knows about our relationship and has worked with us to make sure we are never working at the same station on the unit at the same time," Emilia said. "Sometimes, I will work as the charge nurse on the unit while Mary is on the same shift, but she is at a different station," she said.

"We like it when we work on the same days, because even though we see each other at work a lot, it’s not really spending time together," Mary said. "I get to see how Emilia works, which is really nice. She’s a really good nurse. She’s really talented," she said.

"We support and encourage each other, and that’s a bonus, because we really do understand what it [nursing] is like," Emilia said. "Mary really loves what she does, and the patients really like her, too," she said.