Venting after work

Hi all!

I'd like to get everyone's opinion on this, if you would be so kind. This is by no means a big deal and probably easily resolved, but I'd like some input.

My boyfriend usually comes home from work and after our initial greeting he'll start venting about his day at work. This is by no means a problem, if it weren't happening almost every day, and if I wasn't so exhausted at that point. I usually come home from work, get my daughter fed and ready to sleep and get about 30 minutes or so afterwards to myself before he comes home.

I love chatting with him when he's home and he definitely asks me about my day too. I tell him about it but won't go into the annoying details about work so much, because I want to give him a break and honestly don't really feel like "bringing my work home" all the time. He tends to talk quite a lot about his day and lots of it is venting. I told him once that I don't think I have the capacity to listen to all of this work related stuff at the moment and would love to just relax. He was perfectly understanding.

I want him to feel comfortable and trust me with his problems, and I'm concerned that by making this a regular occurance I'll somehow stifle his need to talk. I'm not wanting him to turn inward, but I'm not a fan of too much work talk. What's a considerate way to go about this? Anyone else feel me or am I being selfish?

You say you told him once that you didnt want to listen to him, maybe you need to tell him that again. How about a time limit? He vents for 15 mins. or whatever your limit, then the topic gets changed.

I'm confident he'd be totally fine dropping it if I asked him again. I'm just concerned he'll start holding it in and not feel like he can ever share his day with me. Probably overthinking. I like your idea of the time limit.

What would I say? "I always want you to feel comfortable talking about your day, and sometimes it's a really bad day, but there's something I noticed that happens to me when I regularly rehash the bad stuff. It's like living it all over again, and all of those bad emotions come to the surface. I'm wondering if that happens to you, too. Some days, it's good to get bad stuff off of your chest, and other days, it's sometimes good to talk about something that will lift your spirits instead, like what's on your bucket list for a future vacation, or what we want to do for fun on the weekend."

Actually, it sounds like role reversal. Usually it's the girlfriend who wants to tell her boyfriend about her day while the bf just wants to read the newspaper or drink a beer. Is there a way you can get him to the point quicker, like saying, yeah, I know what the boss is doing, what did he do today? Try to have him cut through the clutter and get to the important parts.

Don't allow this practice to continue. The occasional news at work or tough day is one thing but chronic emotion dumping will deteriorate your relationship. So will playing therapist or being this docile about it when in fact it is having a detrimental effect. Ask him if he's thought about seeking counselling to manage stress or updating his resume and seek other employment if he starts up again. Put the ball in his court to seek solutions. Listening to him everyday is inhibiting him from addressing this and finding better solutions. It's a band aid.

happening almost every day, and if I wasn't so exhausted at that point.

What would I say? "I always want you to feel comfortable talking about your day, and sometimes it's a really bad day, but there's something I noticed that happens to me when I regularly rehash the bad stuff. It's like living it all over again, and all of those bad emotions come to the surface. I'm wondering if that happens to you, too. Some days, it's good to get bad stuff off of your chest, and other days, it's sometimes good to talk about something that will lift your spirits instead, like what's on your bucket list for a future vacation, or what we want to do for fun on the weekend."

Love it, thank you!

Don't allow this practice to continue. The occasional news at work or tough day is one thing but chronic emotion dumping will deteriorate your relationship. So will playing therapist or being this docile about it when in fact it is having a detrimental effect. Ask him if he's thought about seeking counselling to manage stress or updating his resume and seek other employment if he starts up again. Put the ball in his court to seek solutions. Listening to him everyday is inhibiting him from addressing this and finding better solutions. It's a band aid.

Thanks! Didn't know the effects were so detrimental. I think it's not quite as bad as it may have come across to you in my OP. Appreciate the insight though!

Actually, it sounds like role reversal. Usually it's the girlfriend who wants to tell her boyfriend about her day while the bf just wants to read the newspaper or drink a beer. Is there a way you can get him to the point quicker, like saying, yeah, I know what the boss is doing, what did he do today? Try to have him cut through the clutter and get to the important parts.

True! I'm not the type of person to enjoy talking about my day all that much tbh. I love having conversations about different topics (we do have those as well), but recapping my day has never given me much of an outlet, unless something worthwhile happened.

I'll be completely honest. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I work as an interpreter, and during peak season, my active listening is almost completely exhausted when I come home, and to have to invest the little energy I have left into listening to someone else gripe is the very last thing on my list of desires. But I also keep my mundane whinging to a bare minimum. It'd be selfish if you were offloading on him for 15 minutes and the immediately turning on the TV without giving him a chance to do the same. It's another if you'd prefer a standard wherein you're both expected to exercise healthy internalization techniques to avoid a daily power hour of whining.

And to actually relate, this was a minor issue in the beginning of my current relationship. It got to a point to where my eyes would just kinda gloss over or I'd keep my focus on whatever chore I was doing at that moment. She commented on it and I just went and said something along the lines of, "Look, babe. I know your work is particularly stressful and that it would be for anyone, and if you gotta vent just so you can feel better having said it out loud, by all means feel free. But it's emotionally exhausting me to listen to it and to be as responsive as you'd like me to be." I'm sure there was a better way to go about it if I'd given myself time to think and to come to her with an explanation, but I don't think there's any way you could say it that has your partner wearing an understanding smile in that moment.

She kept on for a bit, but it scaled back and scaled back. She'd occasionally bring up things that I would actually engage over, and I think she did come to realize that I am actually fine if there's something exceptional that happened that she's gotta let loose and would like me to give my attention to. Now I'd say she's actually really good at internalizing the more regular and relatively minor hardships and spilling her guts on a more as-needed basis. Which isn't to say I'm rolling my eyes if there does happen to be an off-day where a regularly incompetent fellow clinician affected her more than usual. I've noticed she comes home much, much happier than she did years back (though I'm sure much of that has to do with us having been together nearly 5 years and having emotionally matured along the way).

My whole thing is I am very firmly against telling or even suggesting my partner what to do or what not to do when it comes to behaviors, and I mean that to a relative extreme, not to be hyperbolic in suggesting a partner asking their partner to complain less is some kind of red-flag controlling behavior. So it's not that I think it would be inherently wrong to do so, but something like setting a 15-minute limit on complaining isn't a strategy I could adopt. For this, I felt I had to let her do what she felt she needed to do, but that I had to let her know what I'll need to do in order to emotionally tolerate it. In this case, it was being frank about simply not being able to actively listen to it on a regular basis.

My hubby complained about his nutty job for years really. Then, he just started a new job last month, getting paid double, and no complaint in sight. So, I don't know. There were a few years before that I droned on about my work, and now no need to since things resolved over time. Sometimes it helps if your partner is a sounding board. Eh, he and my hubby are pretty full-on family mode at the moment, so we love a good gossip and talk about work issues. But the major difference is, we talk about them so we can figure out a resolution, or how to handle it. And it helps me 100%.

I think as a redirect, you could say, "ugh, tough day? Maybe some foot rubs (insert other stuff, sauna, back-rubs, make some food together, yoga, quick walk together)...it helps them to decompress. It is very hard to switch gears as much as we want to.

j.man, as usual, great advice. Thanks a lot! I agree, I don't want to tell him what to do, so I think I'll be using your strategy here.