If You’re Dating Someone From These 25 Jobs, You May Want To Consider Therapy

Marriage thrives when partners share roles and divide household tasks fairly. Holding a job and earning an income is part of adult life, but sometimes a career can complicate relationships instead of strengthening them.

This idea sparked an online debate after one Redditor asked, “What professions make the worst spouses?” The thread received a flood of responses, with people listing jobs from cult leaders to engineers. We’ve reviewed the conversation and selected the most mentioned professions, which you’ll find in the gallery below.

#1

Restaurant/Bar manager/owner. They work everyday, often 12-15 hours, every holiday and weekend. The term “restaurant widow” is a real thing. Alcoholism/[illicit substances] are ever present, there’s a high cheat rate and a complete lack of accountability, it’s just “part of the job”.

#2

Police hands down, the DV rates are actually terrifying.

#3

Politicians

They’ll swindle a whole nation to get their way, they WILL swindle you.

#4

The four p’s. Policeman, paramedics, physicians and firefighters. It’s an old joke.

#5

You know who’s not on here? Engineers, because we just make things work.

#6

From my experience dealing with clients… surgeons. The personality type of a surgeon is often a relentless and often sociopathic person with singular interest on one thing (being a good surgeon). They are great at their jobs because of these personality traits but on a personal level they often lack empathy/compassion, reduce everything to clinical and mechanical terms are incredibly cold people and because of their intense competitive streak can be impossible to get along with during any kind of competitive play. When you throw a spouse in the mix and 70-90 hour workweeks you often end up with a toxic stew.

#7

My understanding is that women married to police officers have a higher mortality rate than police officers themselves.

#8

Lawyers. Often married to the job, whether it is for the money or a cause.

Definitely do not put two in the same relationship. As an old, adjunct professor told our class one time:

“Folks, as people who are training to be lawyers, let me give you some life advice. A lawyer becomes you or you were always it. Either way, you don’t want two people trained to argue in the same confined space for that long, much less being forced to make life decisions together.

There is a perfectly lovely nursing university in the city center, a few miles down the street.”.

#9

Anything where you’re a trailing spouse in a foreign country. It can sound cool if your spouse goes somewhere cool but it’s also incredibly lonely and isolating, likely you’re moving somewhere where you know nobody but your spouse and they’re working all day (even more isolating with children) and you’re basically left on your own in a foreign country. Even worse if it’s a country you don’t like. The foreign service divorce rates are through the roof.

#10

Depends what your definition of “worst” is.

Cheating? Bar/restaurant workers or owners.

Domestic violence? Cops (by a country mile).

Lack of financial security? Social workers.

Ego/Emotional detachment? Doctors.

Physical detachment? Truckers/soldiers.

#11

Cult leaders.

You’ll never be their favourite spouse.

#12

Never, ever marry a rock musician. I wouldn’t recommend dating one, either. I spent 17 years on that ride (if you count dating musicians, then meeting and marrying one) and it was a nightmare. You will always come in second to a guitar or a gig (or drink or [substances]). Obviously, your mileage may vary, but for me, it was an exercise in futility.

#13

Celebrities and influencers.

#14

My mind goes to military – away for long periods at a time, often come back with problems (PTSD etc.).

#15

Well based on the death certificates I see at my job, a lot of lawyers get divorced then die of a heart attack in their fifties. A LOT.

#16

Morticians. Unless the spouse is in the industry or is very understanding prior to marriage, the late nights, death calls in the middle the night, dinner, family functions, holidays, essentially putting others before your own, can take a toll if someone isn’t on the same page.

#17

Prison Officer.

You train to dull your ability to show empathy in order to conduct your role effectively.

It allows you to say ‘no’ and challenge poor behaviour while not being emotionally affected by the horrible things you witness.

This, unfortunately, carries through into your real life, and most lose patience quickly on the outside and lose the ability to be tolerant of others.

Alcoholism and cheating seem to be the go-to escapes.

#18

HR.

They consider themselves experts on human behavior and don’t realize that their behavior can be at least part of the problem.

#19

Chefs.

#20

Filmmakers. 14 hour workdays. Sometimes months away working on a film. Inconsistent work hours. and then your partner falls in love with someone else while he’s away and lies about it, so yeah. Never doing that again.

#21

Fighter pilots.

Similar to surgeons in many ways- you have to be incredibly driven and focused to make it to that level, combined with a God complex, and being deployed for months at a time. Also prone to using [illegal substances] and alcohol to manage the highs and lows of launching like a rocket off the side of a carrier, dropping ordinance and then coming down. Navy pilots are definitely the worst of them all. Never again.

#22

Flight attendants

They work away from home for days or weeks, jetlag mess with body, dealing unruly passengers with a smile

Also cheating is through the roof .

#23

Any that the person defines themselves through their profession.

#24

Government employee, particularly high ranking.

I see my wife… twice a month, if I’m lucky.

#25

Clergy. Spouse and kids are constantly under a microscope.

(Cops are worse, but people don’t often put clergy on these lists.).

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.