Time for Us

Neal and Fran Kaufman each work more than 60 hours a week. Pediatricians at different L.A. hospitals, they leave their Brentwood home at 6:30 a.m. and return after 7 p.m. Even then, they bring work home. Neal frequently attends meetings at night; Fran sometimes does hospital rounds on the weekends. But despite what they call “consistently hectic” schedules, the two have been happily married 28 years.

“There will be times when we’re clearly crossing somewhere in the air, though we do work hard to . . . see each other as much as we can,” says Fran, 48, director of the Comprehensive Childhood Diabetes Center for the USC School of Medicine.

Doctors work the longest hours of any profession, with the majority of male physicians logging 55 to 99 hours a week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. While that is an extreme figure, Americans overall are working longer hours. Middle-income Americans, between 1989 and 1996, have increased their annual work time 3.8%, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank.

Increased hours at work diminish time at home, and when couples think their relationships are on autopilot, they sometimes neglect home lives in favor of work. One of the first things to fall by the wayside can be the marriage.

“Men and women are so busy between work and family duties that they’re feeling a sort of drought of their time together, because even when they’re at home on the weekend, she’s taking this one to soccer, he’s taking that one to dance class. It’s kind of like never the twain shall meet,” says Deborah Wilburn, executive editor of Working Mother magazine.

In its November issue, Working Mother ran the results of a reader survey on time. It found that the first thing a busy working mother forfeits is time for herself. Second is time for her spouse. But when asked how she would spend extra time, the majority of respondents said with children, then with herself and, third, with her husband.

“Even though it feels like the sturdiest thing in your life and that there are other things that need more attention, I think that sometimes we underestimate the need to actively nurture and cultivate the relationship with our significant other,” Wilburn says.

The Kaufmans were college sweethearts who met at an antiwar demonstration while attending Northwestern University. They decided early in their marriage to budget at least 15 minutes of each day to talk to one another.

“It sounds compulsive, but it really was lifesaving,” says Neal, 50, director of the division of academic primary care pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “Organization is key, because if you’re inefficient with your free time, you never have it.”

The two now have weekly calendar meetings to review invitations and obligations and to negotiate who’s going where and when. They also keep notes in their individual calendars on where the other is at all times.

“Our goal is to stay together,” Fran says. “That’s the most important thing. If a couple is going to really commit to each other, they’ve got to plan [their] priorities.”

Such was not the case with an art director for a major advertising agency on the Westside. The top priority for Andy (not his real name) had been his work--until his wife left him after only one year of marriage. As a profession, advertising ranks among the top five in weekly hours worked. While Andy and his wife are both in the same field, it was his long hours that caused the two to separate, he says.

In their first year together, it was not uncommon for Andy, 36, to leave the house at 8 a.m. and not return until midnight.

“By that time, she was so upset with waiting that she would be asleep, so there was no interaction a lot of time during the week,” he says.

Eventually, he says, the two became nothing more than roommates.

“Once we get in a comfortable relationship, I think that we feel like we don’t have to be engaging or charming or interesting anymore,” Wilburn says. “If we don’t make some effort to engage our spouse and vice versa, then it can be very humdrum and boring and start to feel like, well, ‘What am I even married for?’ ”

After two years of separation and a lot of analysis of his priorities, Andy and his wife are back together. He has curbed his office hours significantly. Returning from work at about 6 p.m. recently, he took a walk with his wife on the beach--the first time they had ever done that, despite living within walking distance of the ocean.

“I know this sounds funny, but it was like a whole different world,” Andy says, having learned a lesson the Kaufmans long ago realized. “Oh, my gosh! There’s life after work.”

Susan Carpenter can be reached by e-mail at susan.carpenter@latimes.com.