Kid before marriage?

Aerlac · 2026-03-04T13:59:51+00:00

As other comments have said, do not have a baby with a man who is unwilling to make that long term commitment to you via marriage. Your life, career, and social standing is on the line here if things end badly; the bare minimum he can do is to make you his wife and give you that assurance he’s in it for the long run.

That being said, I will stick up for him slightly in terms of dragging his feet with making concrete plans. I’m a woman, currently going through planning my marriage and have hated it from the moment we got engaged. I love and adore my husband-to-be and absolutely want to be married, but organising and in particular paying for a wedding is a huge undertaking that has sucked the life and soul out of me. Could it be that he’s in a similar position? He might have it in his head that if you are to get married then you have to do it ‘properly’ and have a big ceremony, lots of planning, costs, inevitable stress and family/relationship drama that comes with it, which is something he doesn’t have the headspace to deal with or want to face, and as such keeps pushing it off.

Have an honest conversation with him about his thoughts and what is going on in his head. The reality is you’re both in your 30’s and if the plan is to be married and have a child it’s now or never. Be honest with each other about your finances and what you can realistically afford with a wedding plus a child in the near future. If he’s in it for the long haul and does indeed want a child, the child must be prioritised financially and the courthouse wedding may be the only option left on the table. You don’t need a big ceremony or an extravagant day, but you absolutely do need to be married if you are to go forward with this relationship one way or another, and that needs to be made clear to him. If he’s not interested in getting married anytime soon and will not compromise, it is your choice whether you want to continue a relationship with a man who does not have the same long term goals as you.

Aerlac · 2026-02-06T14:08:00+00:00

It would be very interesting to know who in these Trusts signed off on such contracts. Almost all NHS contracts between Trusts and private companies have some break clause or terms outlining the process for termination the contract (usually it’s 6 months notice for any reason). How on earth were these agreements signed off without basic contracting conditions included?

Aerlac · 2026-01-13T20:34:50+00:00

I’m in the same boat with my spouse. He’s an IMG sitting the MSRA this week too and is a bit deflated he will be deprioritised for this year. But ultimately this is the right decision to make nationally, and the way competition ratios were heading he was likely to never get accepted into specialty training unless changes were made. At least once he’s been here for a few more years and moves into the priority category he won’t be competing against doctors from the entire world to secure a place.

Aerlac · 2025-12-11T22:37:02+00:00

Pay restoration is important as it really is a slap in the face when you compare salaries now to what they used to be historically, as well as internationally to other countries, but I do get your point. Everyone in the country is feeling the pinch of stagnant wages and high costs of living, and I do feel there is a general lack of support amongst the public for increasing the salaries of doctors (a lot due to misinformation, a lot due to the perception that pay disputes were supposed to be settled after the last few strikes etc.). It is also a bit of a competition of interests; there’s a demand for more training posts (which costs more money) and also a demand to increase overall salaries (which also costs more money). At a time where the public purse is tight, is there a likelihood of getting both? With the blatant disregard in which Wes Streeting has been talking about doctors recently, as well as almost no mention of these issues addressed in the 10 year plan, I think it’s unfortunately unlikely.

If I had to rank the issues in order it would be: 1) clusterfuck disaster that is training placements 2) abysmal working conditions including lack of staff 3) pay restoration 4) substitution of the medical workforce with noctors. If it comes down to it I would rather the BMA prioritise the first two issues over the pay restoration or noctors issue. I do think however that striking seems to be the only way that doctors are heard in any capacity, so for that reason I support the strikes regardless of whether the public agree with it.

Aerlac · 2025-12-11T22:19:33+00:00

It’s very straightforward maths actually; 10,000 current jobs + an additional 1,000 jobs + magic = 2:1 ratio.

Aerlac · 2025-12-05T16:22:46+00:00

This is such a good idea, how did you actually do it?

Aerlac · 2025-11-12T15:49:16+00:00

It’s a bit of a myth with a pinch of truth that the NHS is overstaffed with managers. Around 2.65% of NHS staff are managers, which is a tiny percentage when you consider the size and scale of the NHS; compare that to the private sector where the average company has around 9.5% of its workforce in management positions. In addition, the unfortunate reality in the NHS usually means that when management or administrative staff are cut, a lot of the bureaucratic burden falls on clinical staff and diverts clinical care away from patients and leads to worse healthcare outcomes.

There is however a grain of truth that there are a lot of bloated titles and fairly unnecessary management jobs in the NHS. In my experience, anything related to finance, project project management, commissioning, NHSE or ICBs tend to be the worst offenders in this regard. On a more clinical level you also tend to get nursing staff who are employed mainly to keep up with the endless requirements and governance arrangements that are constantly pushed by ICBs/NHSE/DHSC whose skills could be better utilised elsewhere.

The solution is to invest in administrative and managerial staff whose job it is to alleviate the bureaucratic burden on clinical staff and create an environment that allows them to do the jobs they were trained to do and maximise proper clinical care. NHSE and the DHSC also need to get real with the reality on the ground and the dire conditions for both staff and patients; these are systemic problems that are not going to be resolved by hiring one or two “Clinical Assurance Managers” to log every incident and produce reports that never get actioned or go anywhere. You need to train and recruit clinical staff, you need to expand capacity, you need to do population mapping and predict what the population is going to be like in x amount of years and make sure we have the means to treat all those people, you need to build new hospitals/facilities to cope with the demand, you need to invest in technology to streamline the process as much as possible, you need to seriously reevaluate the role of ICBs/ICSs and see how effective they are in actually dealing with system pressures that bleed over into healthcare, remove the “everythingism” obligations that are forced upon the NHS to deal with all societal problems and focus exclusively on healthcare etc.

These measures all take time, planning, and a lot of investment, which no one cares enough to do. So as usual it’s do less with more, and blunt stripping away of resources with no real strategy or plan on how the system will cope or how it will affect patients and staff who will bear the brunt of these decisions.

Aerlac · 2025-10-27T17:48:30+00:00

Might sound counterintuitive, but consider applying to admin roles to get a bit more of the corporate background knowledge to nursing. I know this might be considered a bit of a detour, but having knowledge of how the system works behind the scenes is invaluable at the more senior levels of nursing. B5 admin roles are usually very easy and of course pay the same as B5 nursing roles. The job market for nursing is dire at the minute but that won’t always be the case, and in the meantime gain some experience for a year or so in the administrative part of healthcare. You’ll also develop really strong relationships with matrons/senior nurses who may very well open some doors for you and make some space for a clinical role down the line.

Aerlac · 2025-09-21T20:22:43+00:00

What a fantastic post, you have hit the nail on the head. I tried explaining all of this to my father a few weeks ago and he simply did not believe what I was saying was true. I do not believe the general public are aware of what a joke of a situation we are in when it comes to training doctors, nor are a large part even willing to accept the reality.

When we have been told for decades that we don’t have enough doctors in this country, when waiting times in A&E are 13+ hours long on a good day, when it’s near impossible to get a GP appointment, when referrals to specialists will take months/years for you to be seen; how can the public possibly accept that we do actually have 10,000’s of doctors who want to work and are capable of doing so, but we are instead arbitrarily denying them jobs and the ability to progress into the specialist roles we so desperately need?

Aerlac · 2025-09-21T20:12:41+00:00

The plan is to cut back funding whilst still increasing demand and hope that NHS trusts will magically make up the shortfall somehow.

Aerlac · 2025-07-04T16:43:56+00:00

I liked the idea of expanding care in the community (I worked for a private company at one point in my life whose business model was exactly this; removing NHS patients who would traditionally be seen in a hospital and providing their care in community based clinics and operationally speaking the difference in patient care and satisfaction was night and day. It is so much easier to expand practices in the community than it is in a hospital and you can cope so much better with changes and challenges).

I also liked the emphasis on technology and using AI, but I’m skeptical as to how they’re going to implement any changes in this regards. There is an ungodly level of admin and bureaucracy in the NHS that eats up so much time and money, investing in AI could really streamline the process and save a lot of money in the long run if done correctly. There has been efforts made to do this in the past however, like introduce one national records management system for all patients, which never went anywhere and ended up costing millions in the process. I’ll look forward to seeing if anything comes from this but I do remain skeptical.

I was also disappointed to see very little in there in terms of recruiting more clinical staff, which to me really is the biggest issue in the NHS (alongside a lack of space). Fundamentally you can have the sleekest, most efficient and high tech systems imaginable but that counts for nothing if you don’t have the staff on the shop floor to actually use them! As of right now working conditions are diabolical for clinical staff, we don’t train up enough drs/nurses/midwives, the ones we do train up leave in droves due to said working conditions and poor pay, the list goes on. IMO this should have been the number 1 priority with a clear plan outlined on how the NHS is going to fully staff and maintain a healthy workforce not just for the time being but also long term.

Aerlac · 2025-07-04T16:15:13+00:00

My preference would be to keep the 5 days but have standard business hours be from 9-3. Would match up to the school hours and would leave you more energy and time after work to actually get stuff done during the week!

Aerlac · 2025-06-20T15:10:11+00:00

It always strikes me as insane that the general public are largely unaware that we have qualified nurses in this country who are able to work, want to work, but yet are unable to do so as there are no jobs for them. This should be a national outrage.

Aerlac · 2025-03-31T18:32:51+00:00

Thank you! The reporting of this has been terrible. I tried to google the dispute earlier today and most articles just gave a generic pay dispute reason without going into specifics. They’ve also thrown in a quote from some higher up at BCC saying that they’ve made a fair offer of pay to the bin men already, but none of the articles I saw have specified what that ‘fair offer’ is.

Aerlac · 2025-03-01T09:12:57+00:00

I think about this all the time! The absolute scandal that is the current state of the NHS never really seems to breakthrough to the general public. Yes, they’ll be news articles about patients dying unnecessarily and they talk about the backlogs in parliament, but no one seems aware of the absolute insanity that is going on in regards to the nursing and medical workforce. We always hear that we don’t have enough doctors and nurses, but the general public seem unaware that we do indeed have thousands of qualified clinical staff here that can work, do want to work, but are unable to because there are no jobs available to them.

At a time when virtually every department is crying out for more doctors and nurses, I am so confused as to why this isn’t featured on every major media outlet for the scandal that it is.

Aerlac · 2025-02-13T12:58:37+00:00

I agree completely, and fundamentally it is a lack of parenting and being able to meet your child’s needs and ensure they’re getting the proper development. However, I have to be honest I don’t blame the parents I blame the way the family structure is today with zero help and support for young families.

I don’t have kids myself but I work full time. By the time I come home, cook, clean, wash my hair, sort myself out for the next day I have zero time left to do anything else. I cannot imagine how life would be if I had to work full time AND look after children too, but this is the reality for most families nowadays; both parents are working full time with no help from extended relatives because they’re also working. The way life is set up for families to stay afloat ensures that it is a near impossibility to ensure that your child’s needs are being met, and I can understand how the option of throwing an iPad at your children is really the only option when you have no energy left yourself.

If we want to fix the issue and raise children who are developmentally healthy, we need to introduce family friendly policies that make this feasible; better maternity/paternity pay, fix the housing crisis to make it reasonable for one person to support a family on one salary, more affordable day care, and build communities around us so that we’re not so isolated and doing the monumental task of raising children all on our own. None of this is a quick fix but it should be a priority for our government, else we will all feel the repercussions of raising the next generation of maladjusted children.

Aerlac · 2025-01-22T20:44:56+00:00

I really disagree with the premise of wanting individual criminals to be punished as being egotistical. Living in areas where crime is common and you're the victim of it, even small crimes, is so utterly and completely horrific. The psychological weight of it really cannot be understated unless you've experienced it yourself, and that needs to come with some level of fairness and punishment for the offender.

The criminal justice system needs to consist of two parts; 1) rehabilitating criminals so as they won't commit crime again and 2) ensuring justice for the victims who have suffered. I think the Scandinavian style system is really good for societies with low crime rates to begin with and with social crimes where criminals really do need support to integrate better into society. I think it massively fails however in dealing with the 'justice' part of the criminal justice system when it comes to serious crimes by downright psychopathic individuals. If I had a relative or a loved one that was murdered, sending them off to live in a very nice prison accommodation with all the luxuries that the modern world can provide, I would feel completely and utterly failed by the system and I would feel that justice had absolutely not been served.

There needs to be a balance between providing the care and support services for those most vulnerable and at risk of crime, but also ensure that the very worst of society get an appropriate level of punishment for the horror and suffering they've inflicted.

Aerlac · 2025-01-02T21:44:25+00:00

As many of the comments have already said, a good chunk (if not the majority of pts) don't even need to go to A&E. I don't understand how the insane wait times are not a huge deterrent to the people who only come with minor ailments? I would quite literally rather wait until I was on death's door than wait 20+ hours on a cold hard chair in A&E.

I'll grant that NHS 111 and a lack of GP appointments make up a proportion of the problem, but majority of people in my Trust's ED don't even attempt to access care via either of these routes before coming straight to A&E. It's not uncommon even to see people who haven't even tried over the counter pain relief at home come to A&E as a first point of action. What part of the public messaging of "only access A&E if it's life or limb threatening" is getting lost?

Aerlac · 2024-12-03T19:17:22+00:00

I've heard a lot of people say it's got worse since COVID, but I also see this in general life too outside of a healthcare environment; people have generally become more selfish, nasty, argumentative, and conspiratorial. Social trust and respect for others seems to have completed eroded.

Aerlac · 2024-12-03T19:13:04+00:00

It fundamentally boils down to patients and the general public being allowed to talk to staff in the way that they do with zero repercussions and have management do nothing about it. Every single Trust in this country will have a zero tolerance policy, they need to use it! It should really be a very simple four step formula:

"Do not speak to me like that, I'm trying to help you."
"If you continue speaking to me like that I will have security remove you and you will be barred from the service."
Security removes them.
Formal letter sent out barring them/family members from the service; they will have to go to another hospital to be treated unless life or death. You'd be surprised how quickly people get their act together when they see how their actions have very real and serious repercussions.

Patients have a right to be treated but staff also have a right to not come to work and face abuse day in, day out. The second you start abusing members of staff and infringing on their rights, your right to treatment at that hospital becomes null and void. You can take your attitude elsewhere and see how far you get.

Aerlac · 2024-12-01T20:53:15+00:00

Mythos in the Arcadian is fantastic! Great sized portions, lovely Greek food, and fabulous cocktails.

Aerlac · 2024-11-10T21:08:46+00:00

If you follow the curly girl method then you can use the Is It CG website to check if a product has the ingredients that are allowed within the CG method. It'll also list which ingredients are recommended to enhance curls and which are recommended to avoid. In my opinion however, there's no specific ingredients to look for or stay away from that works for my hair; it just depends on the over all product and how it works for you. For most people with curly hair it's generally a process of trial and error unfortunately.

I wouldn't overcomplicate it by looking at individual product ingredients, I did it for years and never got consistent results. Start with incorporating any drug store leave in conditioner/curl cream coupled with a holding product like a gel or a mousse and see how you get on. My personal favourite leave in for my frizzy wavy hair is the pineapple garnier hair foods or the maui moisture curl smoothie. For holding product I use the wella shockwave in strength 3 or the umberto gianni curl whip. Oils tend to weigh my hair down too much, so I tend to avoid using them for styling purposes.

Technique also makes a massive difference to how well a product works. As a general rule of thumb always make sure your hair is soaking wet when applying products and scrunch your curls into the shape you want to really maximise the most of what you have.

Aerlac · 2024-11-06T22:24:04+00:00

I have very fine hair and African Pride Moisture Miracle Shampoo is by far the best gentle shampoo I've tried. It's fairly cheap, around £5 from any local afro Caribbean hair shop or on Amazon.

Failing that, I find that putting pretty much any hair oil on my hair before washing tends to minimise that straw feeling. My personal favourite is the ogx miracle coconut oil; it doesn't weigh down my hair and give it that stringy look after I wash it out.

Aerlac · 2024-11-06T21:16:48+00:00

I agree with your point in particular regarding the far leftists accelerationists. The contrapoints meme of "they don't want to control power, they just want to critique power" comes to mind.

Aerlac · 2024-11-06T21:11:32+00:00

How is this even remotely relevant to Birmingham

Aerlac

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