My wife has had a low key partime job the last year, she's switching now. She routinely comes home and goes on forever about the job & all the intricate details of the various players.

I think it's just the nature of the average woman, go on & on, always making the mountain out of a mole hill. Our kids got sick of hearing the same over & over.

I'd keep a partial interest, but we all have limits.

After 38 years this still occurs in my household. We even went to counseling about it. She just cannot seem to drop work. Getting up and walking out of the room didn't work. Telling her I don't need her work crap on top of my work crap made it worse. Even saying maybe its time you found another job would not work. Our children avoid the dinner table. They have been more vocal than I about her rants. I feel no matter the job she is going to come home and rant about it. It would be great if it was a two way street but its not. If I start talking about my work she will just cut me off and talk about hers. What minimizes it is to just listen. Any response will just make her talk more. Let her rant for a couple minutes.

I feel for you. I really do.

Ephesians 5: 21-33 is good advice. As Ephesians 5:33 points out, "Nevertheless, each one of you must love his wife as he does himself; on the other hand, the wife should have deep respect for her husband."

It's hard to love your wife despite obstacles to your happiness that she brings to a marriage. But this is a small part of the marriage due that you are responsible for. Likewise, it can be a challenge for your wife to respect you. This too, is part of the burden a woman must live up to.

After that, try some buttsecks.

H&K-Guy

Do you bring work home? Maybe the solution is that our home is refuge from the grind and/or idiots of work. We don't bring work home or talk about it.

A husband's role is to be a support for his wife. If she can't talk to you, then who can she?

If you tell her you don't care about her day, you are telling her you don't care about HER.

Complain if you want; it is the way things are.

"Honey, I know you want to vent about what happened at work. Sometimes hashing over it again just freshens the problem in your mind. Maybe it is better to leave work at work. Also, when you do this every work day for 45 minutes you put your problems on me, and since I can't do anything about them, that makes the end of my days stressful. Can we figure out a way to limit that?"

Or some such variation.

Venters (mostly women) will complain that "I just need you to listen to me." Non-venters (generally men) can just as validly complain that they need not to have it dumped on them. Neither is wrong and neither is right, but each needs to consider the needs and personality styles of the other. Neither one of you should have to totally bend to the other's wishes. She needs to complain sometimes, you need to not hear it sometimes. Compromise.

quote:

Originally posted by H&K-Guy:
After that, try some buttsecks.

H&K-Guy

A bargain - 1.5 hours of kvetching equals buttsecks, if she isn't inclined otherwise. But if she likes it, then you'll have to find another trade.

My wife is very similar. First time I broke it to her via text since she likes to keep me up to date on how horrible the day is.

I just said, dude you're bringing me down. She got mad, played the never complain to me game and it went away.

We both still complain but we moderate it and it works pretty good.

Find a middle ground so you still have some vent space too.

Ask her what she wants, or what she wants from you from her talking about this.

1. Does she want advice?
2. Does she want a solution?
3. Does she need to vent and not expect advice or solution?

(The above is for brevity)

You are in IT, so you are a problem solving, action oreiented and likley not much on talking about the issues/problems as you are about "getting shit working again, before anothe person asks me "what's wrong/how long will it take", or worse, "I need X so I can do my important thing!"

Yeah, you already know that, and that is why you do the job you do...

Anyway, if your wife is not looking for #1 or 2, and you are focused on #3, you both are going to be frustrated.

And you do care, cuz you brough it to "the fixin' place"...

Good luck!

Be careful what you wish for. Go ahead and tell her you don't care about what happened to her that day - and every other day, and maybe she'll stop telling you everything.

In her mind, she probably sees it as bonding, and spending time with someone she loves.

Do you remember the face your parents made when they said "I'm not mad, I'm just disapointed"? Just wait until you see your wife's face when she gets home from work and stops herself from spending time with you because you told her to piss off.

You could try the "hi honey,how was your day,
in fifty words or less."
Never had the guts to try it myself.

Listen and work with her on it. Massage it into something mutually positive. Do not do or say anything negative that you will regret. Try to repeat and condense her dialog into a shorter version in review. She might pick up on brevity.

Before my wife changed jobs a couple of years ago, she was a high school drill team director. You wanna talk about wanting to slit your wrists? Listen to stories about hormonal teenage girls all evening and on weekends after football games. Having been a paramedic for a decade I came so close to saying "sweetheart, let me tell you what actually constitutes a bad day..". But I didn't. To the OP, you'll be the first male in history to pull off telling you wife to "be quiet" and live to tell about it if you succeed. Good luck

My opinion:

You're not her therapist and you're not her priest.
Help her find one of them to vent to. That's the extent of your responsibility for her feelings.

Luck,

Bruce

I don't miss that at all. I come home to a dog and a teenage daughter every night. The GF does it sometimes but rarely and she lives 30 miles away.
Seriously though, you're going to listen or say something that will hurt her. That's pretty much it.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Ask her what she wants, or what she wants from you from her talking about this.

1. Does she want advice?
2. Does she want a solution?
3. Does she need to vent and not expect advice or solution?

(The above is for brevity)

You are in IT, so you are a problem solving, action oreiented and likley not much on talking about the issues/problems as you are about "getting shit working again, before anothe person asks me "what's wrong/how long will it take", or worse, "I need X so I can do my important thing!"

Yeah, you already know that, and that is why you do the job you do...

Anyway, if your wife is not looking for #1 or 2, and you are focused on #3, you both are going to be frustrated.

And you do care, cuz you brough it to "the fixin' place"...

Good luck!

Sigmankey is wise

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
"The nail" is hilarious. That just warmed my soul for some reason.

It just flat cracked me up.

Ear plugs.
Mutter "uh uh", or "i see" when her lips stop moving.
Problem solved

A long time ago someone at work told me, "Never complain to someone who can't fix the problem. It is just useless negativity and doesn't result in anything getting fixed." That's a rule I've tried to live by.

Had issues early in our marriage and can totally relate to the nail. She would want someone to just listen to her and I was always trying to fix whatever problem she brought. Somewhere along the line we figured out that's kinda how we're wired. It isn't quite at the level of, "Don't bring me a problem unless you want me to solve it.", but it is close.

I agree that you want to respect, validate, and love her, but you don't want to drag the two of you down with all the negativity. Maybe you could ask her about some of the good things that happened at work, (to combat the negativity), or redirect her to other non-work things, like the kids or some fun thing that the two of you (or the whole family) are going to do.

I wish I had a great answer on how to communicate with a woman, but I sure don't.

My wife used to be terrible about this. Not only would she want to rant to me for an hour after work every day, I'd have to hear it again while she called and talked to her mother for another hour about the same things, followed by hearing it yet again for another hour while she called and talked to her sister or best friend.

I ended up discussing it with her. Her first reaction was to be upset of course, but she eventually admitted that it was a bit much.

I also started dropping not-so-subtle hints to her when she'd get 20 minutes or so into complaining about her day by making comments like "So, what went right today?" or "Tell me something good about your day now."

She's gotten significantly better about it over the past few years. And I've had to work on being more patient with her as well. I think we've finally gotten to a happy medium, where I can suck it up and listen long enough to be supportive, and she in turn keeps it to a reasonable length and stops before I get to the point where I'm ready to gouge out my eardrums.