eagle

Hello,

How do you guys deal with your spouses and how they bring the work stress home? My wife's work/company is not a pleasant environment so all that happens during the day i get to hear it through a few minutes venting when we chat in the night.

How does one deal with it, as the other spouse? Sometimes this venting is self-inflicted (i.e. it could have been avoided if she did not bow down to requests) and other times they are just normal conditions. Work for my wife is very essential to her being.

Any comments etc. would be appreciated.
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moonangel

My husband brings work home and I've gotten down on him for that. When I worked and things got stressful, I never complained...I'm just not the complaining type and have never been so it gets annoying when he does it.

I've learned to listen to his complaints since after telling him I didn't like it when he complained, he stopped complaining to me for awhile and only talked to his guy friends about it. Since I've started listening to his complaints without getting overly mad, he's been complaining to me again. It's not so bad I guess. Some people just deal with stress differently than others.

lime

I definitely bring work issues home with me. I'm a waitress and deal with way worse than most people lol!

I do complain, but I try to at least make it entertaining--as in, instead of cursing/ranting/raving, I try to make it into a funny story with a tinge of bitterness.

But anyway...One thing to do is let her rant, and listen politely, at least for a few minutes. Don't start with her about how it's her fault for getting into the situation (she probably already knows it)--many women rant when they feel self-loathing as well. It's a way of dealing with it and cleaning the slate in a way.

But you can make it more lighthearted, joke around about her evil boss or evil clients, show that you support her, but don't let her go on and on. My boyfriend is pretty good at this now, he'll jump in and make fun of the customers or "help" me vent with exaggerating etc. This often turns into me forgetting about the venting and just having a good time.

Pandakiss

husband works either in food or retail, sooo i know some crazy stories...lol

we keep in touch during the day with texting, he can say this thing just happened, and i can tell him how bad his kids are..

we send maybe 10 or less during the day, and if hes haveing a aggraviting day he will post on facebook, and i will comment to it.

so when he gets home i already know what went on at work and he knows whats happeneing at home.

we also send silly messages back and forth. if i ask about a certain thing that happened at work, we can talk about that, and it wont go into a 3/4 hour rant.

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nicolelord2

Is depression is common in women, I mean Are women especially vulnerable to depression?

mc75

I'm going to throw this out there because I am in the process of re-examining career, doing lots of reading, and suffer from burn-out. Maybe rather than venting, your wife can start to plan for a career move that can get her to a job she wants to be in? It may not occur right away, but maybe the planning itself can be good. In the meantime, might her job let her telecommute once a week - get lots of work done and don't have to deal with co-workers!

I see so many people older than me dissatisfied with their jobs but keeping on going. I also figure if my wife and I have been able to survive on one salary (mine) for so long, what if my wife and I both worked part-time - say 4 days a week? I think life has a lot more to offer. Maybe its easier said than done, but if we make this our goal, can we accomplish this in a few years?

Where I used to live, the cost of living and attitudes were a bit different and many couples lived with one-and-one-half jobs and seemed very happy. Where I live now, people seem to work themselves into the ground so they can have "enough" square feet in their house or live in the right neighborhood. As an economist, I ask myself, does the value of what we buy with the money make up for the personal cost of the work we do to earn the money? If the answer is no, I have to look for a different way of doing things ...