DP's attitude to work doing my head in

[Presidente]

Sorry if this is a bit garbled. I’m not sure what I’m after here, just a bit of a rant really

DP doesn’t like his jobs (he has two jobs - a 'main' one and he runs a company). It’s not really the jobs themselves. He just hates working. Fine – I agree, I’m retiring the second I’m able to. But, for now, we still need to work. We both have very flexible, autonomous jobs without much pressure. There are times of stress and there can be lots of negatives (a lot of peer assessment/review and rejections) but that’s any professional, well-paid job.

But DP is really mopey about work. It’s like having a bloody teenager sulking around the house. For example, he'll finish an online meeting, come into my office and vent about how much he hates meetings, what a time drain it is, how he could be doing something enjoyable instead. Yeah, fine, but meetings are just part of work, right - show up, sit through it, move on with your life.

It does my bloody head in. I try and be supportive and kind. But I want to tell him to pull his bastard socks up – everyone has to work, just shut up, get on with it and count your blessings that you’ve got a nice job.

I don’t really have anyone to vent to IRL, sorry, so I’m offloading onto MN.

pull his bastard socks up – everyone has to work, just shut up, get on with it and count your blessings that you’ve got a nice job.

I would literally tell him just this hahahahahaahaaa

Yep snap

And get a lock for your office door!

hear hear

Its fine to have a little moan! I'm sure you do at times. Just maybe add some boundaries like ok here's your 5 mins, get it off your chest and then shut up. Does he have techniques for decompression after work so that it doesn't spoil your evening too?

"pull his bastard socks up – everyone has to work, just shut up, get on with it and count your blessings that you’ve got a nice job"

I have told him this. It leads to a back-and-forth which I CBA with every bloody time.

We both absolutely moan about our jobs. That's fine. Everyone does. I came out of a meeting yesterday and bent his ear for ten minutes about how all my colleagues are dicks . But then I moved on, it didn't get me down, I didn't sulk about having to go to the meeting - I went to the meeting, I got pissed off, I vented, I moved on.

But DP sees work as such an imposition on his time. It is, of course. But we have to do it.

I just can't get into his mindset at all. I'm an optimistic person. I approach work like "Okay, I have to do this, what's good about this?" but DP approaches work like "I have to do this" so everything that follows is inherently bad because he's being forced. If that makes sense. Like I said, a bloody teenager!

We are good at decompressing in the evenings - we do a dog walk (taking it in turns but sometimes we go together), then we cook and eat, then we read, then TV. Work doesn't slip into our evenings or weekends at all. But during work hours, it just feels like a bloody black cloud over him.

I'm making DP sound like hard work - he's generally not. We have a great life. But he is hard work on this issue. The irony is too that we're planning early retirement - we're not looking at another 30 years of work at all.

Why doesn't he give up one of his jobs? Then he'd have more of the free time he values.

If everything else is good, then I think the solution to this is relatively easy; you tell him you are not listening to his moaning about having to work for a living any more, he'll have to find someone else to whine to about the imposition of earning a salary. And then enforce that by getting up and walking away when he starts it.

I hate to break this to you but I have a DH like this. He early retired and now moans about the housework and how busy he is doing nothing...

Nip it in the bud now. Suckers of joy are really no fun.

Have you told him that continually moping about work actually makes your working day harder, and if he's comfortable in contributing the the arduousness of your working day?

Does he actually want his job to make the day worse for both of you?

Have you told him that listening to him eats into your working time and disrupts your schedule?

My point is, he doesn't seem to realise that this impacts you. If he does, and still carries on, you have a different problem than him talking about work. If he doesn't, you need to make him realise, in no uncertain terms. You're not supposed to have to 'vent' about stuff like this. This is 'When you do x, it bothers me', 'Oh, does it, love? Sorry, I'll rein it in' territory. I.E. basic respect.

In a fashion I've told him this, yes. I've told him that his misery about work is like a black cloud over our otherwise great life, and that it brings me down too.

But he'll just deflect this. In the fairly recent past (like the last two years) there've been a few occasions (three that I can think of) where work has piled on top of me and I've had a bit of a breakdown. I mean like crying, needing a few days away from it, needing to talk myself/be talked into being rational. If I say that his moping gets me down, he'll say "You're allowed to have a breakdown over work, why aren't I?" <eye rolling hard>

It's not really about the amount of free time. We do get a lot of free time. It's that he has to do anything. Even if he had a contract for two hours work per day he'd still complain

He can't really give up either of his jobs. He can't walk away from his company - the legal situation would be really complicated and he'd potentially lose shares.
And his 'main job' is his main income so we can't lose that.

OK, well that sounds like he really doesn't listen to or respect your needs. What's he like otherwise, when there are conflicts in your relationship? Does he listen to you then? Respect you? Take care of you? Prioritise you? Do you feel, generally, that your needs and wants are a priority of his, and that he cares about making sure you're happy, or at least ok?

Outside of this, he's absolutely amazing.

There are honestly no other conflicts in our relationship. I can't remember the last time we had a row or argument.
He respects me, he takes care of me when I need it, he treats me as an equal, he cares about making sure I'm happy. I wouldn't necessarily say he prioritises me but I don't see that as an issue. I wouldn't say I prioritise him either - we both just say what we want and negotiate.

I think you're going to struggle to get him to voluntarily change this behaviour OP, so I would focus on finding a way to stop him coming into your office instead, it sounds like that should solve the bulk of the problem.

How you do that is going to have to be up to you, you could be upfront and just tell him the moaning is stressing you out and distracting you from work so the door will be closed from now on, or invent some sort of change in working practices from your employer, or a reason why you suddenly need to wear headphones, whatever you think might work. You might also have to avoid venting to him about your work for a while, just until the habit is broken and you can hopefully have more normal conversation about work issues.

He needs a physical boundary setting if he won't respect the verbal ones you've tried to put in place though, he's offloading all his stress onto you and just leaving you stuck with it as things stand and that's really not fair, or sustainable for you.

Ok. If he genuinely is absolutely amazing outside of this, then I would reframe it. You've said it bothers you. What about it does that? Is it the interrupting you mid working day? is it that you don't like being in a conversation about problems that you can't fix? Work out what can be changed about that. If it's the first thing, then it might be a case of telling him you need to do X urgent thing but that on the dog walk tonight you'll make time to listen. It may be that you resign yourself to listening and making sympathetic noises but stop short of getting involved as you know it's just venting. I don't know. But that's what I would do if, honestly, every other aspect of the relationship was great.

The thing is, I don't at all mind him venting about work. We both do it. We share the load. We help each other with tricky emails. We ask each other's advice on stuff. We help each other to navigate difficult situations. That kind of 'acute' stress and support is totally fine. We work in the same sector so we can support each other because we broadly know what each other is going through.

What I find difficult is the more 'chronic' misery around work. Acute stress is just a normal part of having a well-paid professional job. It's the chronic misery around having to work AT ALL (i.e. not just in his particular job, but just working full stop) that I can't get my head around or get onboard with.

There are some behaviour changes needed but I also think its just a total change of mindset he needs. Or, rather, that I would like him to have!

Ah, I get it now, it's his fundamental attitude to working then, has he always been like this? Harder to put the kind of physical barrier I mentioned in place if it's his overall mindset to it but I still think you can create some boundaries around his behaviour and it's effects on you.

I would start with an honest conversation, explain that you obviously have different approaches to work in general and that you're finding his approach difficult to be around. Talk about how it's making you feel rather than slinging accusations or blame and say that you want to find a balance where he feels supported without making you feel drained. And then figure out some strategies where you can effectively stop him before he starts, he's entitled to hate working but he's not entitled to make you miserable because of it.

Ultimately you can't change his character though and he has to be willing to work with you. If he's not then he's risking his negativity gradually chipping away at your feelings for him.