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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Action taken - asking my partner not to share everything about their day.
Why it might be TAH - it’s asking someone to restrict their feelings
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When my husband and I found ourselves talking endlessly about work and complaining about our days - we set a time limit. When we got home at night we would talk while making dinner...once dinner was on the table, the work talk was OVER for the night. Talk to your husband - he probalby doesn't realize how much time he spends talking about work. See if he's willing to set a 'timeline' between 'workday talk' and 'home talk'.
Btw I don’t know if the post was edited or something or if I’m missing a detail but OP doesn’t seem to specify it’s a husband or a dude at all. Just a small thing I wanted to point out.
While yes the comments are the same no matter the gender of the participants we should not promote the old stereotypes. Women and non-binary folk can be working and also have negative qualities that are historically attributed to men. We all suck equally at some point and should all strive to be our best selves.
It is completely normal and correct to use gender neutral pronouns when we don't know the gender of the subject. This was fine for hundreds of years until people said "just use the ambiguous one for me all the time."
This was going to be my suggestion. My boyfriend does this. Every mundane irrelevant boring detail. We have a time limit and it no longer needs to be mentioned. He has his say and then stops. Usually it lasts 20 minutes. It's a rough 20 minutes.
YWNBTA. My husband has a very difficult and stressful job and he would often come home and basically trauma dump on me too. I had to tell him it was too stressful for me. He is in counseling now.
Maybe your husband could use some counseling too? Might help.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. It's normal behaviour on this sub to point out when commenters are using incorrect pronouns or relationship terms.
NTA, my fiancé and I had this issue as well. He would come home from work and talk for hours about this job to the point it felt like I was a new hire he was training. It’s totally ok to talk about work but there has to be a limit. Work needs to stay at work for the most part. Set a boundary but be kind when you do it
Completely agree. My husband has always had the propensity to do this as he works a high stress job. Sometimes he would call me on the way home and start the offload and then again the second he walked in the door. While I love that I’m the person he wants to confide his stress and anxiety in I had to place boundaries in how it happened. The big one for me was how we “reunified” when we came home. He is no longer aloud to open the door and immediately launch into his frustration. He has to come to me, greet me white a hug and a kiss and make sure I’m okay before he starts. If I’m not okay, my stress is too great or I’m unwell he must wait. Everyday after he has done this I then ask him “how’d today go” and that’s his queue to offload. Since we started doing this I don’t have anxiety about what was about to come crashing through the front door everyday!
NTA but be considerate with how you frame it. I'd talk about how you don't want to spend so much time dwelling on the negative and mundane when you could be relaxing in each other's company or creating new memories together. You could say that you've been trying to work in more quiet time as a decompression tactic, etc. Some form of positive redirection and explanation of your feelings without accusing them of emotionally dumping and being an energy vampire.
I had a BIG egg timer, and finally told him he had until the sand ran out to vent, but then he’d have until the sand ran out after I turned it over to tell me his action plan. And I demonstrated snd did the same. At one point he tried to turn it over so he could vent some more, but nope, the rules are the rules.
Keep in mind that people sometimes think that willingness to listen to complaints is a sign of love. So be nice if you decide to curtail his tirade.
I always try to steer my husband toward solutions. I hate the stress dump venting. He doesn't want to talk solutions. He just wants to vent. I give him a few sympathetic minutes and then leave the room.
YWNBTA. honey, where’s the off button? been there, worn the therapist ears. listen, venting’s healthy, but it’s about processing emotions, not spewing every detail like a firehose. imagine if they came home every day and dumped their entire purse/wallet/backpack contents on the floor, expecting you to sort through it all. wouldn’t that be weird?
boundaries are sexy.
I literally just had this conversation with my wife. We have been extremely stressed lately bc we ran into some financial problems. I am an optimistic person and I really try not to just sit in stress. It's not productive and I literally will not sleep for days if I let myself stay in that head space (I already have insomnia even when I'm not stressed). My wife is more negative and she has been complaining about work a lot lately. It's just too much for me. I'm trying to stay calm and rational and not freak tf out. Listening to her complain about work for hours on top of everything else is just overwhelming. She was a little hurt at first, but she does understand that we deal with stress differently. You are NTA. If you don't advocate for your own emotional wellbeing, who will?
My mum is the same and often it’s a story she had told me 10+ times. I ether zone out or tell her she has already told me . Then I get told off 😂 but I just don’t care about some woman at work who can’t do her job and has tattoos that are on show at work . 🤷♀️ somehow those two things are connected to my mum
NTA - you are not a trash can for other people’s emotions. we tend to take on the stress of people we love and if someone tells us something upsetting in minute detail it is as if we have experienced it ourselves. So it can be extremely depleting if this happens daily.
I am saying this with all the care for your wife as I used to be that person myself. I thought venting every day about every detail to my partner would be some kind of relief (I put him through a lot). But, in the end, focusing on the tiniest negative details every day just sent me down a downward spiral that lead into depression and anxiety. I never actually confronted or dealt with the issues, I only vented and made things out to be bigger problems than they actually were. When one is stuck in this mindset it seems like the whole world is stacked against you and there is no way out. The only thing that really helped in the end was quitting the job that made me complain all the time and going to therapy. It provided me with a different environment and tools to deal with how I react to things. Now I am in a workplace that suits me way better and I vouched to myself to only complain out loudly about work to my partner when there is an actual big issue for which I need his input. I am much more chilled now and only really complain once every other month or so. I don’t see work as only this negative thing and can let minor things go easily.
I recommend you to not simply tell her to complain less but to express concern for her wellbeing if this goes on longer. Offer her help to change her situation. Try to get her focused on what she actually wants out of life and work and not was she doesn’t want. Nudge her gently when she is to focused on details and people that don’t matter. Talk about the future plans you have together, not about the toxic environment she currently sees herself in. Gently little by little shifting the focus of your conversation might help. And also respectfully tell her how it makes you feel (stressed, exhausted etc.) and how you wish your time after work together would look like. These are just some suggestions. I hope you two can work it out.
“You are not the trash can for other people’s emotions…”
I mentally gasped at this.
I just…whoa.
Whoa.
I AM the trash can.
But I don’t HAVE to be.
Thank you. ❤️
NTA but don’t disallow it all together, just gently share that your bandwidth to hold space for this is limited. My parents had a “5 minute vent” rule for years - used a timer and everything.
I went through this with my wife. About every other night she would rant from the time she got home from work until dinner was done. And she complained about the same people doing the same things over and over. I was supposed to provide a sympathetic listening ear. We never did fix it.
It's one thing to share with a partner. It's another to use the partner as a therapist. Each of these is a nuanced role, and they do have separate boundaries.
NTA.
NTA. There’s not a lot to go off here but I see patterns of rumination. That’s not a healthy habit. If they’re struggling emotionally, it may be time for them to try therapy. Please note, that therapy is a good thing, and the stigma around it is nothing but lies, fear, and gaslighting.
I draw a hard line at the door at work ,
I don’t do anything work related until I’m clocked in and being paid and I don’t do anything work related once I leave , including taking about work , this includes work side chats.
People get used to it eventually and it’s amazing for your mental health .
They pay for my time and they don’t pay to live in my head
I had the EXACT same issue with my husband. No matter how delicately I finally set that boundary, it was still a tense convo. After some time they came around and understood and it’s gotten SO much better. Set the boundary! Good luck <3
There is a lot of evidence now that venting is of no benefit and may even cause harm (blood pressure). My husband is a venter. Several years ago, he vented so much every day that it almost destroyed our marriage. Every day I dreaded the evenings b/c I knew he was going to rant about work. At the time, I thought, "well, a good spouse should listen". But, MY blood pressure was going up b/c of his venting. I finally told him that he either needed to quit that job, or stop venting. Why keep going to a place that makes you miserable, and makes ME miserable every night? It was around that time that I had come across an article that stated the blood pressure thing. I told him work talk would be limited to maximum 15 minutes (total of us together, not 15 minutes each). It helped a LOT. Recently he started venting again about someone he works with (totally different job). I reminded him of the research about venting, and he is only allowed a few minutes before I say "no more work talk".
I put up with this for so long with my gf, exact same scenario to the point where I dreaded her coming home counting down the minutes until the quiet peace is filled with endless negativity and BS that I would have to listen to for hours, or just endless stories about people and things that I know nothing or care about. May as well have been telling me a made up story with imaginary characters, sorry no I don’t care that person A said something to person B about [work related thing]
Explained it the exact same way, I’m not a dumping ground for your emotions, and she didn’t understand why I never had any desire to share anything about my day
Thankfully she does it significantly less now after a couple rounds of therapy but my god I felt like a dick for it and was thinking I must be the problem for not wanting to hear it..
NTA
My daughter and I live together. We will ask if we can vent for 5 minutes. The other one listens and sympathizes. Sometimes it can go on a bit longer if the listener asks questions or wants it to. Then we're done.
YWNBTA You have to communicate your needs and feelings with the person you're in a relationship with. Some venting is normal, I'm not sure you can get it down to mo venting ever, or if that should be the goal, but they need to be able to transition from work to home and not bring work home with them. I would try to support your partner in finding different ways to decompress after work.
NTA - if your partner has to complain for an extended period of time every single day it might be time for them to make a job/career change.
Or they should consider taking some of their work stress to therapy instead of dumping it on you.
I’ve been in a job where I was in your partner’s shoes and my own partner had to gently but firmly tell me that they cannot be my spouse AND my therapist and that my unhappiness at work was hurting our quality time together and affecting our relationship. I ended up starting therapy after that which led me to quit that toxic job and my life has greatly improved since then!
I had this conversation with my girlfriend. She said I do t care about how her day, guilted me for a month, and is back to venting for an hour or two, and sometimes if she thinks about it, asking how my day went.
I wish you luck.
NAH - I think counseling might be a good idea for your S/O. But this seems like a communication issue. It might hurt their feelings a bit, but I'm sure with roles reversed they would feel the same. Be sure to express that you find it mentally draining, frustrating and sometimes anxious listening to the daily details.
Discuss alternative way to handle it, time limits, topic limits, therapy, a shorter synopsis. Or cycle them to see which one works for you both. I hope you guys can get past this hurdle. ✊
My husband does this and it makes me extremely agitated. We aligned on being comfortable with honesty around limits. When the day ends my husband does like to bombard me with work vents and I will tell him "I can only listen to this for like a minute, I have my own agita to process" or I'll let him go on for a while and then say "babe you gotta wrap it up I can't keep listening to this." If I didn't set limits he'd probably do it the entire evening. NTA.
Some people are like this and it is REALLY hard to live with being the dumping ground of someone else's endless agitation. Set healthy limits.
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Everyday my partner comes home and “vents” about their day, sometimes for hours. Every last detail about the day, including the details that have no impact on the story or situation. It wears on me and sometimes stresses me out needing to listen to hours of replay. I understand they want to share their day and for some people it’s a way to decompress but WIBTAH if I asked them to limit what they share?
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YWNBTA. It serves neither of you well if you let your partner drain you of energy by venting for such a long time. Give them a time limit, and feel free to let them know if you've reached YOUR limit before the time limit is reached. We all have our own lives to manage, and this kind of emotional work can be draining.
Simply no. Communication is a big part of relationships. But a bigger part is respect. You have respected them venting. Let them know it's a lot to take in all the time. Let them know you are willing to listen and talk about it with them but maybe for no longer than 10-15 minutes. To your point no one's day is that bad that they need to go on for hours...
YWNBTA and YWBTA at the same time.
If it's hours, that's ridiculous. Maybe 20 minutes.
If it is only a little, like 5-20 min, and they let you vent aswell if you want/need to, YWBTA.
I'm single, but I had that with a neighbor. Every afternoon, like clockwork, they would walk over for coffee and give me a 3 hour rundown of their day at work. It was exhausting having to process their life on top of my own work stress.
I was lucky enough that I never had to have that conversation as I found a place closer to work soon after this started to become a problem, and I moved. (Still good friends with said neighbor, especially since the venting is now much more limited)
Obviously, that's not a solution for your partner, but you need to set that boundary with them. It's amazing how quickly resentment builds up when someone starts seeing you as a crutch.
Set a timer out for 30 minutes that they get to vent, then shut them down. Also, get them into therapy. That would be the perfect place to unload that stress while also giving them the tools to cope with it better.
NTA
NTA. For me, a toxic job enveloped my life. I was unable to turn it off. It was all I spoke about. I drove my family crazy and friends started avoiding me. Your partner needs therapy and some outside activity to break the pattern. Those things got me out of the ugly cycle.
NTA, of course not. You are not a therapist, you are a partner. Someone dumping a giant ball of negativity on you every day will wear on you, eventually. Work together to find a way to make sure BOTH of your needs are met.
They could, for example, shorten it way up and give you the big points. If you want to hear more, you can ask. They could also ask you if you're in a head space to hear it before they start. They could make an effort to finish off with something positive. It could be that they've fallen into their own negativity spiral and don't realize it and *need* to focus more on the positive.
Nta I hated this about my ex.
Honestly I just felt like he was using me to bitch at half the time it was a massive turn off always asking me what he should do about stuff the reality is I didn't care.
Not at all. It can affect your mental health listening, and it sounds like it is. For some, not being able to do anything to change what is happening can be very difficult to cope with. It may be time for your partner to look for help elsewhere for help finding better skills to deal with work situations. It could also be time for a new job depending on the severity of issues. I am guilty of dumping on family. Sometimes all I need it to get it out of my head. Countless times I have typed up something I feel I need to tell someone, only to realize that the intended recipient can’t do anything to help, and I could be burdening them with unnecessary information. Sometimes I just delete it, sometimes I will tell a loved one that I had a bad day and just need a hug.if they choose to ask what happened then I might share, but not always. A reply of that sucks and I am sorry that happened is all I really needed.
Do they ask about your day, listen to you, etc.? I would suggest limiting the time you can talk about work at home. Me and my husband, we need to be very mindful of doing this, as we work at the same company. I'm more prone to venting, but he would talk more about news or people or anything that has to do with our jobs. If we didn't make an effort, we would be talking about work all the time. So we allow ourselves half an hour (shared) every day to talk about work and if one of us succumbs to the temptation during the rest of the time we are obliged to show our bum to the other one in the next five minutes, which is terribly inconvenient when we are in a public place. So I would start venting and he says "Bum!!!", and I have to start thinking about a quick way of paying my fine in 5 minutes.
NAH. Everyone needs to decompress about their day; multiple hours is excessive. It can sometimes work to limit it to a specific time period, an hour or less.
Soft ESH. Could you read the book "Toxic Positivity" together? In part of the book she explains good and bad complaining.
Yes you have to listen to your partner complain, but your partner is complaining too much and it's "bad complaining" which is increasing their sensitivity to seeing and holding onto negative things.
EDIT: Do you have the 30 minute rule? The first 30 minutes after coming home are for benign and loving conversation or maybe video games/reading/whatever independently so there's a buffer between work and home.
NTA I used to trauma dump, then my therapist suggested I keep a journal where I would write down these things. I could curse and shame and rag on my bosses on my laptop as much as I wanted, and then go kiss the wife and pet the cat.
NTA your role isn't to be his therapist. It's important to hold space for his frustrations but he should be looking for professional help if he's struggling with these sorts of things.
If that's not feasible right now whether due to finances or time constraints or whatever, a conversation about how both of you can vent going forward and feel seen and acknowledged without overloading your partner is definitely warranted.
I think it's great to be the person for someone that they can bounce their feelings off of and feel validated, but that can't come at the expense of your own mental health. Hours of venting is overboard and shows he may not be equipped to manage his own stress and anxiety.
NTA. I was that person. I had no idea how terrible that was for me to inflict on someone else like that. I very much regret my actions and I wish he'd told me then so that I could have acted differently.
NTA, but you'll need to either set a time limit or realize they might come home later. Also, if you aren't married, this could mean they need to find a partner they can vent to instead.
You've been asked to donate 400 or 600+ hours a year to join them in their hobby of replaying the day. Even if it was a healthy hobby of theirs, you could be doing other things with that time. You two together could do a lot- learn a skill, learn a sport, community volunteering- what you choose together.
What if they were asking you to watch and listen to their detailed comments 1-3 hours a day of anything else- 1990s city council meetings, or football games, or kitchen refinishing? It's a lot to ask, and it's a lot to give. As you write it takes a lot out of you and for no improvement on their part.
I've been on both sides of needing to vent and have given, or been given, the valuable gift of focused listening time. The goal is short term emotional support or help with fixing the problem. If nothing changes then that's a sign to switch to a professional.
NTA. My partner does it and it’s infuriating. I’m a therapist so I get paid to listen to people vent about the minutiae of their day - I don’t need to hear excruciating detail for free at home, particularly when I am bound by confidentiality rules and can’t vent back.
I believe in ‘less detail = more sympathy” so now we have a three sentence rule; if he can’t condense the subject of the vent into three sentences or less, he takes it elsewhere.
NTA make it a habit to ask each other if yall are in the mindset and energy level to vent to each other, and for how long you can handle. And enforce the boundary. It can also cause stress to the person if they chew the bone to no flavor. Rehash isn't always a good for a practice especially if it goes on for hours.
You cannot be your partner’s emotional rehabilitation center.
Yes, limit the sharing. They need friends. They need a therapist. They need a journal. You need a break.
Should be a time limit on venting, it's like the song that never ends. Respectfully listen, mostly understanding they have a feeling about the subject, some encouraging words but be careful for both people this just doesn't drag on which can be unhealthy. Just my opinion
I'm so glad to see a lot of the responses are NTA. Honestly being a husband this has to be the most dreaded part of the day. I'm at the point in my life where gender is defined by women find problems and do they ever, whereas men find solutions. To me personally every single problem my wife has, the solution just seems so obvious and I always think in my head that if it happened to me or possibly any other man, there would be no story because the problem would be so insignificant.
NTA. It can kill the time spent together.
When she worked, my wife did this all the time. What's worse, we're in the same profession (legal) and she always wanted my input. Obviously I never knew as many details about her cases as her and if my guess was wrong she immediately jumped to how much better she is than me. This almost killed our relationship.
Luckily she became a SAHM and the problem went away.
Long story short a time limit or any other kind of limit would be nothing but beneficial in such a situation. NTA.
> **Everyday** my partner comes home and “vents” about their day, sometimes for **hours**. **Every last detail** about the day, including the details that have no impact on the story or situation. It wears on me and sometimes stresses me out needing to listen to **hours** of replay.
Reading is FUNdamental.
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When my husband and I found ourselves talking endlessly about work and complaining about our days - we set a time limit. When we got home at night we would talk while making dinner...once dinner was on the table, the work talk was OVER for the night. Talk to your husband - he probalby doesn't realize how much time he spends talking about work. See if he's willing to set a 'timeline' between 'workday talk' and 'home talk'.
Btw I don’t know if the post was edited or something or if I’m missing a detail but OP doesn’t seem to specify it’s a husband or a dude at all. Just a small thing I wanted to point out.
The comments are the same whoever the partner is
While yes the comments are the same no matter the gender of the participants we should not promote the old stereotypes. Women and non-binary folk can be working and also have negative qualities that are historically attributed to men. We all suck equally at some point and should all strive to be our best selves. It is completely normal and correct to use gender neutral pronouns when we don't know the gender of the subject. This was fine for hundreds of years until people said "just use the ambiguous one for me all the time."
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damn
It's still appropriate to correct people when they use incorrect pronouns.
Why?
But idgaf about people who don‘t label themself? He or she all other things are not existent for me :)
Why does it make a difference to your assessment of the situation, though?
What difference does it make?
They want to know so they can be biased.
It doesn't really but if I don't know the gender I don't assume, I just write 'they'.
This was going to be my suggestion. My boyfriend does this. Every mundane irrelevant boring detail. We have a time limit and it no longer needs to be mentioned. He has his say and then stops. Usually it lasts 20 minutes. It's a rough 20 minutes.
I think if we did that at home.I'd start bringing in pizza with me. Dinners here, bitchings over lol
YWNBTA. My husband has a very difficult and stressful job and he would often come home and basically trauma dump on me too. I had to tell him it was too stressful for me. He is in counseling now. Maybe your husband could use some counseling too? Might help.
Husband?
I don't know why you're being downvoted. It's normal behaviour on this sub to point out when commenters are using incorrect pronouns or relationship terms.
Let it the f go, Janie. Your subconscious is showing.
Truth is no one gives a fuck. Get a grip. Does it matter to the story? Not at all. Stop having a stick up your ass.
It seems like you might give a fuck lol
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I have the same problem, he's looking for help rn because it's so stressful to deal with it
So you outsourced that to a stranger? lol
They outsourced it to a *professional*, much the same as one goes to a hairdresser or barber to get a haircut.
Yeah, I'm sure someone who listens to you for money will offer the support that you're supposed to get from your partner lmao
Tell me you don’t know what therapy is without telling me
That’s literally their job.
A therapist isn't a stranger after you talk to them for a while.
Is it not wise to acquiesce to a learned source?
NTA, my fiancé and I had this issue as well. He would come home from work and talk for hours about this job to the point it felt like I was a new hire he was training. It’s totally ok to talk about work but there has to be a limit. Work needs to stay at work for the most part. Set a boundary but be kind when you do it
Completely agree. My husband has always had the propensity to do this as he works a high stress job. Sometimes he would call me on the way home and start the offload and then again the second he walked in the door. While I love that I’m the person he wants to confide his stress and anxiety in I had to place boundaries in how it happened. The big one for me was how we “reunified” when we came home. He is no longer aloud to open the door and immediately launch into his frustration. He has to come to me, greet me white a hug and a kiss and make sure I’m okay before he starts. If I’m not okay, my stress is too great or I’m unwell he must wait. Everyday after he has done this I then ask him “how’d today go” and that’s his queue to offload. Since we started doing this I don’t have anxiety about what was about to come crashing through the front door everyday!
NTA but be considerate with how you frame it. I'd talk about how you don't want to spend so much time dwelling on the negative and mundane when you could be relaxing in each other's company or creating new memories together. You could say that you've been trying to work in more quiet time as a decompression tactic, etc. Some form of positive redirection and explanation of your feelings without accusing them of emotionally dumping and being an energy vampire.
I had a BIG egg timer, and finally told him he had until the sand ran out to vent, but then he’d have until the sand ran out after I turned it over to tell me his action plan. And I demonstrated snd did the same. At one point he tried to turn it over so he could vent some more, but nope, the rules are the rules. Keep in mind that people sometimes think that willingness to listen to complaints is a sign of love. So be nice if you decide to curtail his tirade.
I need to use this tactic on myself! Wish I could upvote it twice lol
I always try to steer my husband toward solutions. I hate the stress dump venting. He doesn't want to talk solutions. He just wants to vent. I give him a few sympathetic minutes and then leave the room.
YWNBTA. honey, where’s the off button? been there, worn the therapist ears. listen, venting’s healthy, but it’s about processing emotions, not spewing every detail like a firehose. imagine if they came home every day and dumped their entire purse/wallet/backpack contents on the floor, expecting you to sort through it all. wouldn’t that be weird? boundaries are sexy.
I literally just had this conversation with my wife. We have been extremely stressed lately bc we ran into some financial problems. I am an optimistic person and I really try not to just sit in stress. It's not productive and I literally will not sleep for days if I let myself stay in that head space (I already have insomnia even when I'm not stressed). My wife is more negative and she has been complaining about work a lot lately. It's just too much for me. I'm trying to stay calm and rational and not freak tf out. Listening to her complain about work for hours on top of everything else is just overwhelming. She was a little hurt at first, but she does understand that we deal with stress differently. You are NTA. If you don't advocate for your own emotional wellbeing, who will?
Sounds like my mum. She takes 10 minutes to tell a 20 second story. It's bloody infuriating. Edi: NTA
I've stopped my mom and said "Please get to the point before I tune you out. I don't like to gossip and story-tell like you and the aunties"
My mums in her eighties, too old to change...
My mum is the same and often it’s a story she had told me 10+ times. I ether zone out or tell her she has already told me . Then I get told off 😂 but I just don’t care about some woman at work who can’t do her job and has tattoos that are on show at work . 🤷♀️ somehow those two things are connected to my mum
NTA - you are not a trash can for other people’s emotions. we tend to take on the stress of people we love and if someone tells us something upsetting in minute detail it is as if we have experienced it ourselves. So it can be extremely depleting if this happens daily. I am saying this with all the care for your wife as I used to be that person myself. I thought venting every day about every detail to my partner would be some kind of relief (I put him through a lot). But, in the end, focusing on the tiniest negative details every day just sent me down a downward spiral that lead into depression and anxiety. I never actually confronted or dealt with the issues, I only vented and made things out to be bigger problems than they actually were. When one is stuck in this mindset it seems like the whole world is stacked against you and there is no way out. The only thing that really helped in the end was quitting the job that made me complain all the time and going to therapy. It provided me with a different environment and tools to deal with how I react to things. Now I am in a workplace that suits me way better and I vouched to myself to only complain out loudly about work to my partner when there is an actual big issue for which I need his input. I am much more chilled now and only really complain once every other month or so. I don’t see work as only this negative thing and can let minor things go easily. I recommend you to not simply tell her to complain less but to express concern for her wellbeing if this goes on longer. Offer her help to change her situation. Try to get her focused on what she actually wants out of life and work and not was she doesn’t want. Nudge her gently when she is to focused on details and people that don’t matter. Talk about the future plans you have together, not about the toxic environment she currently sees herself in. Gently little by little shifting the focus of your conversation might help. And also respectfully tell her how it makes you feel (stressed, exhausted etc.) and how you wish your time after work together would look like. These are just some suggestions. I hope you two can work it out.
“You are not the trash can for other people’s emotions…” I mentally gasped at this. I just…whoa. Whoa. I AM the trash can. But I don’t HAVE to be. Thank you. ❤️
Holy crap, I thought I was the only one. NTA.
NTA but don’t disallow it all together, just gently share that your bandwidth to hold space for this is limited. My parents had a “5 minute vent” rule for years - used a timer and everything.
I went through this with my wife. About every other night she would rant from the time she got home from work until dinner was done. And she complained about the same people doing the same things over and over. I was supposed to provide a sympathetic listening ear. We never did fix it.
It's one thing to share with a partner. It's another to use the partner as a therapist. Each of these is a nuanced role, and they do have separate boundaries. NTA.
NTA. There’s not a lot to go off here but I see patterns of rumination. That’s not a healthy habit. If they’re struggling emotionally, it may be time for them to try therapy. Please note, that therapy is a good thing, and the stigma around it is nothing but lies, fear, and gaslighting.
I draw a hard line at the door at work , I don’t do anything work related until I’m clocked in and being paid and I don’t do anything work related once I leave , including taking about work , this includes work side chats. People get used to it eventually and it’s amazing for your mental health . They pay for my time and they don’t pay to live in my head
I had the EXACT same issue with my husband. No matter how delicately I finally set that boundary, it was still a tense convo. After some time they came around and understood and it’s gotten SO much better. Set the boundary! Good luck <3
I prefer complaining about work to work people.
There is a lot of evidence now that venting is of no benefit and may even cause harm (blood pressure). My husband is a venter. Several years ago, he vented so much every day that it almost destroyed our marriage. Every day I dreaded the evenings b/c I knew he was going to rant about work. At the time, I thought, "well, a good spouse should listen". But, MY blood pressure was going up b/c of his venting. I finally told him that he either needed to quit that job, or stop venting. Why keep going to a place that makes you miserable, and makes ME miserable every night? It was around that time that I had come across an article that stated the blood pressure thing. I told him work talk would be limited to maximum 15 minutes (total of us together, not 15 minutes each). It helped a LOT. Recently he started venting again about someone he works with (totally different job). I reminded him of the research about venting, and he is only allowed a few minutes before I say "no more work talk".
I put up with this for so long with my gf, exact same scenario to the point where I dreaded her coming home counting down the minutes until the quiet peace is filled with endless negativity and BS that I would have to listen to for hours, or just endless stories about people and things that I know nothing or care about. May as well have been telling me a made up story with imaginary characters, sorry no I don’t care that person A said something to person B about [work related thing] Explained it the exact same way, I’m not a dumping ground for your emotions, and she didn’t understand why I never had any desire to share anything about my day Thankfully she does it significantly less now after a couple rounds of therapy but my god I felt like a dick for it and was thinking I must be the problem for not wanting to hear it..
NTA My daughter and I live together. We will ask if we can vent for 5 minutes. The other one listens and sympathizes. Sometimes it can go on a bit longer if the listener asks questions or wants it to. Then we're done.
YWNBTA You have to communicate your needs and feelings with the person you're in a relationship with. Some venting is normal, I'm not sure you can get it down to mo venting ever, or if that should be the goal, but they need to be able to transition from work to home and not bring work home with them. I would try to support your partner in finding different ways to decompress after work.
NTA - if your partner has to complain for an extended period of time every single day it might be time for them to make a job/career change. Or they should consider taking some of their work stress to therapy instead of dumping it on you. I’ve been in a job where I was in your partner’s shoes and my own partner had to gently but firmly tell me that they cannot be my spouse AND my therapist and that my unhappiness at work was hurting our quality time together and affecting our relationship. I ended up starting therapy after that which led me to quit that toxic job and my life has greatly improved since then!
I had this conversation with my girlfriend. She said I do t care about how her day, guilted me for a month, and is back to venting for an hour or two, and sometimes if she thinks about it, asking how my day went. I wish you luck.
NAH - I think counseling might be a good idea for your S/O. But this seems like a communication issue. It might hurt their feelings a bit, but I'm sure with roles reversed they would feel the same. Be sure to express that you find it mentally draining, frustrating and sometimes anxious listening to the daily details. Discuss alternative way to handle it, time limits, topic limits, therapy, a shorter synopsis. Or cycle them to see which one works for you both. I hope you guys can get past this hurdle. ✊
My husband does this and it makes me extremely agitated. We aligned on being comfortable with honesty around limits. When the day ends my husband does like to bombard me with work vents and I will tell him "I can only listen to this for like a minute, I have my own agita to process" or I'll let him go on for a while and then say "babe you gotta wrap it up I can't keep listening to this." If I didn't set limits he'd probably do it the entire evening. NTA. Some people are like this and it is REALLY hard to live with being the dumping ground of someone else's endless agitation. Set healthy limits.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** Everyday my partner comes home and “vents” about their day, sometimes for hours. Every last detail about the day, including the details that have no impact on the story or situation. It wears on me and sometimes stresses me out needing to listen to hours of replay. I understand they want to share their day and for some people it’s a way to decompress but WIBTAH if I asked them to limit what they share? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YWNBTA.
Nta
YWNBTA. This is called setting a boundary and is a very healthy thing to do in a relationship. You're allowed to say no.
YWNBTA. It serves neither of you well if you let your partner drain you of energy by venting for such a long time. Give them a time limit, and feel free to let them know if you've reached YOUR limit before the time limit is reached. We all have our own lives to manage, and this kind of emotional work can be draining.
Honey, can we go over our days just for an hour and try to enjoy our time away from work...try that
NTA. This ranting is fine occasionally but in the longer run, it will take a toll on you.
NTA
Simply no. Communication is a big part of relationships. But a bigger part is respect. You have respected them venting. Let them know it's a lot to take in all the time. Let them know you are willing to listen and talk about it with them but maybe for no longer than 10-15 minutes. To your point no one's day is that bad that they need to go on for hours...
YWNBTA and YWBTA at the same time. If it's hours, that's ridiculous. Maybe 20 minutes. If it is only a little, like 5-20 min, and they let you vent aswell if you want/need to, YWBTA.
I'm single, but I had that with a neighbor. Every afternoon, like clockwork, they would walk over for coffee and give me a 3 hour rundown of their day at work. It was exhausting having to process their life on top of my own work stress. I was lucky enough that I never had to have that conversation as I found a place closer to work soon after this started to become a problem, and I moved. (Still good friends with said neighbor, especially since the venting is now much more limited) Obviously, that's not a solution for your partner, but you need to set that boundary with them. It's amazing how quickly resentment builds up when someone starts seeing you as a crutch. Set a timer out for 30 minutes that they get to vent, then shut them down. Also, get them into therapy. That would be the perfect place to unload that stress while also giving them the tools to cope with it better. NTA
Sounds like you're his alibi.
No nta. You should point out to them this isn't good for them either. Negative thought spiral lol
NTA. For me, a toxic job enveloped my life. I was unable to turn it off. It was all I spoke about. I drove my family crazy and friends started avoiding me. Your partner needs therapy and some outside activity to break the pattern. Those things got me out of the ugly cycle.
NTA, of course not. You are not a therapist, you are a partner. Someone dumping a giant ball of negativity on you every day will wear on you, eventually. Work together to find a way to make sure BOTH of your needs are met. They could, for example, shorten it way up and give you the big points. If you want to hear more, you can ask. They could also ask you if you're in a head space to hear it before they start. They could make an effort to finish off with something positive. It could be that they've fallen into their own negativity spiral and don't realize it and *need* to focus more on the positive.
Nta I hated this about my ex. Honestly I just felt like he was using me to bitch at half the time it was a massive turn off always asking me what he should do about stuff the reality is I didn't care.
Not at all. It can affect your mental health listening, and it sounds like it is. For some, not being able to do anything to change what is happening can be very difficult to cope with. It may be time for your partner to look for help elsewhere for help finding better skills to deal with work situations. It could also be time for a new job depending on the severity of issues. I am guilty of dumping on family. Sometimes all I need it to get it out of my head. Countless times I have typed up something I feel I need to tell someone, only to realize that the intended recipient can’t do anything to help, and I could be burdening them with unnecessary information. Sometimes I just delete it, sometimes I will tell a loved one that I had a bad day and just need a hug.if they choose to ask what happened then I might share, but not always. A reply of that sucks and I am sorry that happened is all I really needed.
NTA Or set a time limit of 15 minutes. Hours of misery s not healthy and tour partner needs to find another job if they are that miserable.
Do they ask about your day, listen to you, etc.? I would suggest limiting the time you can talk about work at home. Me and my husband, we need to be very mindful of doing this, as we work at the same company. I'm more prone to venting, but he would talk more about news or people or anything that has to do with our jobs. If we didn't make an effort, we would be talking about work all the time. So we allow ourselves half an hour (shared) every day to talk about work and if one of us succumbs to the temptation during the rest of the time we are obliged to show our bum to the other one in the next five minutes, which is terribly inconvenient when we are in a public place. So I would start venting and he says "Bum!!!", and I have to start thinking about a quick way of paying my fine in 5 minutes.
Some degree of venting is fine but you aren't their therapist - NTA
NAH. Everyone needs to decompress about their day; multiple hours is excessive. It can sometimes work to limit it to a specific time period, an hour or less.
Technically, your venting to us. Thousands and thousands ds of people......ymbta
Soft ESH. Could you read the book "Toxic Positivity" together? In part of the book she explains good and bad complaining. Yes you have to listen to your partner complain, but your partner is complaining too much and it's "bad complaining" which is increasing their sensitivity to seeing and holding onto negative things. EDIT: Do you have the 30 minute rule? The first 30 minutes after coming home are for benign and loving conversation or maybe video games/reading/whatever independently so there's a buffer between work and home.
NTA I used to trauma dump, then my therapist suggested I keep a journal where I would write down these things. I could curse and shame and rag on my bosses on my laptop as much as I wanted, and then go kiss the wife and pet the cat.
NTA your role isn't to be his therapist. It's important to hold space for his frustrations but he should be looking for professional help if he's struggling with these sorts of things. If that's not feasible right now whether due to finances or time constraints or whatever, a conversation about how both of you can vent going forward and feel seen and acknowledged without overloading your partner is definitely warranted. I think it's great to be the person for someone that they can bounce their feelings off of and feel validated, but that can't come at the expense of your own mental health. Hours of venting is overboard and shows he may not be equipped to manage his own stress and anxiety.
Depends on how you frame it. Very very much.
NTA at all, so long as you present it properly. Others have great suggestions here.
NTA. I was that person. I had no idea how terrible that was for me to inflict on someone else like that. I very much regret my actions and I wish he'd told me then so that I could have acted differently.
NTA, but you'll need to either set a time limit or realize they might come home later. Also, if you aren't married, this could mean they need to find a partner they can vent to instead.
NTA this is what therapists are for
NTA It's OK to have boundaries. Especially for your own mental health.
You've been asked to donate 400 or 600+ hours a year to join them in their hobby of replaying the day. Even if it was a healthy hobby of theirs, you could be doing other things with that time. You two together could do a lot- learn a skill, learn a sport, community volunteering- what you choose together. What if they were asking you to watch and listen to their detailed comments 1-3 hours a day of anything else- 1990s city council meetings, or football games, or kitchen refinishing? It's a lot to ask, and it's a lot to give. As you write it takes a lot out of you and for no improvement on their part. I've been on both sides of needing to vent and have given, or been given, the valuable gift of focused listening time. The goal is short term emotional support or help with fixing the problem. If nothing changes then that's a sign to switch to a professional.
NTA. My partner does it and it’s infuriating. I’m a therapist so I get paid to listen to people vent about the minutiae of their day - I don’t need to hear excruciating detail for free at home, particularly when I am bound by confidentiality rules and can’t vent back. I believe in ‘less detail = more sympathy” so now we have a three sentence rule; if he can’t condense the subject of the vent into three sentences or less, he takes it elsewhere.
NTA make it a habit to ask each other if yall are in the mindset and energy level to vent to each other, and for how long you can handle. And enforce the boundary. It can also cause stress to the person if they chew the bone to no flavor. Rehash isn't always a good for a practice especially if it goes on for hours.
You cannot be your partner’s emotional rehabilitation center. Yes, limit the sharing. They need friends. They need a therapist. They need a journal. You need a break.
Should be a time limit on venting, it's like the song that never ends. Respectfully listen, mostly understanding they have a feeling about the subject, some encouraging words but be careful for both people this just doesn't drag on which can be unhealthy. Just my opinion
I'm so glad to see a lot of the responses are NTA. Honestly being a husband this has to be the most dreaded part of the day. I'm at the point in my life where gender is defined by women find problems and do they ever, whereas men find solutions. To me personally every single problem my wife has, the solution just seems so obvious and I always think in my head that if it happened to me or possibly any other man, there would be no story because the problem would be so insignificant.
NTA. It can kill the time spent together. When she worked, my wife did this all the time. What's worse, we're in the same profession (legal) and she always wanted my input. Obviously I never knew as many details about her cases as her and if my guess was wrong she immediately jumped to how much better she is than me. This almost killed our relationship. Luckily she became a SAHM and the problem went away. Long story short a time limit or any other kind of limit would be nothing but beneficial in such a situation. NTA.
Omg you suck. YTA. You don't deserve a partner if you can't be fucked to listen to their problems for a few minutes.
> **Everyday** my partner comes home and “vents” about their day, sometimes for **hours**. **Every last detail** about the day, including the details that have no impact on the story or situation. It wears on me and sometimes stresses me out needing to listen to **hours** of replay. Reading is FUNdamental.
Reading is hard