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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

New job has changed dp - WWYD

2 replies

FlyMeToTheRingsOfSaturn · 10/05/2023 17:48

Dp lost his business after Covid and it was a really stressful time. He tried for ages to get it going again but it's been slow and he needed to take an office/corporate job. He kept saying to me that when he does not work for himself, I won't like it very much. I kept asking him what he meant - he said he couldn't explain it but other people had said this to him. We are both in our 50s and have been together 5 years.

Well roll forward 6 months and I can see what he means. It's hard to describe but it's like he's giving his life up for this job. He allows himself to be on calls from 7am in the morning till 9pm at night. He has absolutely no boundaries with work whatsoever and when I gently mention this, he gets v defensive. It's almost like he's allowing himself to be bullied by them. He rants about work all the time. He swears he's told me stuff about arrangements but I know he hasn't and then he gets annoyed. he also arranges stuff relating to both of us without telling me but insists he has. He's obsessed with podcasts relating to his work, so much so that I caught him trying to sneak his headphone into one ear so he could listen to a podcast rather than talk to me in the car. It's almost as though he has tunnel vision for work and absolutely nothing else. In the last 4 weeks, I can't actually recall when we had a normal non work conversation. Even this morning, I went downstairs to go to work, and he accidentally turned his podcast on before I had left the house, he literally couldn't wait for me to go!

I have tried to speak to him but he can't see what I'm explaining. Has anyone ever seen this before?

OP posts:
Londontoderby · 10/05/2023 17:58

Sounds like he has found something his interested in again, brought spark back into his step. The same happened to me, own business that dropped due to covid, couldn’t get it back to where it was before and now I’m back in work it’s like a new lease of life and I have purpose again.

Im sure it will wear off in time, it’s just still novelty at the minute.

tribpot · 10/05/2023 18:17

This is how some people behave with their own business, less so (but certainly not unheard of) as an employee. What was he like before the pandemic started? Was it a very well established business and he was somewhat hands off? Or was he like this? Can you speak to any of the friends he mentioned to see how long he was like this last time he was an employee?

If I had to guess, I would say he's trying to get promoted as soon as possible - back to a position where he has more managerial control like he's used to?

That said, it sounds miserable to live with. He knows he has these traits, because he warned you about them. I would ask him to stop ranting about work, and to make some time for the two of you. If he's not able to do that, I'd set a deadline (even just to yourself) where if things haven't improved you consider moving out, so you don't have to deal with it all the time.

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