I am so angry with and feel so hurt by my partner.

[SoAngryAboutThis]

I'm just so angry about this that I can't work out how to address it.

I have had the worst 18 months of my professional life and it culminated with me leaving my much loved employment two days ago. I'm not going to go into detail about that because I'm not looking for opinions or advice on that.

And it would be instantly recognisable to other colleagues and stakeholders if i did. Suffice to say that I'm devastated about what and in the way things have been done. And I'm not alone in that. It is not something I deserved or have caused in any way.

This isn't just 'a job'. It is something I've done for 20+ years, it's not just what I do, it's a core part of who I am. Even if I never stepped foot in that environment again, it's still how I would describe myself or at least would until I choose I no longer want to describe myself in that way.

My partner knows this. He has listened, he has supported not just me but my colleagues too (I'm not the only person who has been targeted), I couldn't have got through the last 18 months without him. Frankly, it's been traumatic.

On Friday (my last day at work), he and I went out with a couple of colleagues (who have become very valued friends). I saw my partner talking to someone we both vaguely know. I mean so vaguely that we recognise him to say hello and briefly pass the time of day with but neither of us could remember his name and I don't imagine he remembers ours either - just a face we recognise in the crowd.

I overheard him mention the name of my previous employer.

When he came back to sit with us, I asked what had been said and he glibly replied, "Oh I just told him you used to be a _ but they let you go,"

Used to be a _? Let me go? I was lied about, disregarded, undervalued, overlooked and sidelined for 18 months because my face no longer fit. I was sent to A&E with a suspected heart attack earlier this year through stress. I've cried and felt a sense of loss akin to when my marriage ended.

And he's minimised it to I used to be be a _. I didn't used to be anything. I still am.

I am so angry that he not only reduced the last 18 months to such a simple sentence but that he reduced one of the most devastating and painful periods of my life to chit chat outside a pub to someone whose name he doesn't even remember. I was so angry, I said this in front of my friends. He did apologise and then said, "It's OK, he wasn't even really listening."

That does NOT make it OK.

I am still so angry. I'm angry that he said it, I'm angry that he minimised it in that way. I'm angry that he shared my personal information with a stranger. Angry that he gave this incredibly painful and personal part of me and my life to someone else who didn't even care that he was hearing it and on my last day when he knew how upset I was. And it's also made me feel that I don't want to share personal things with him. How can I give him anything of myself when he treats it with such little care?

He doesn't treat me with little care and it doesn't reflect what he thinks or feels about me but to be so careless with his words...

I need to speak with him but I need to get it clear in my head what I'm going to say and to process the anger here so that I can communicate it effectively.

I am also aware that some of my anger is related to.the situation but I just feel so betrayed by him. I've been made to feel that I don't matter at work for the last 18 months and this has just compounded it.

Some of the posters are treating the relationship as the 'real' attachment and the career as 'just a job'.

The OP hasn't actually said she is a teacher. It could be another sector, one where there just won't be another job available, so it's a more permanent loss.

Losing a genuine vocation can mean losing a whole version of yourself. It's genuine grief.

She wants her partner to take her pain seriously, and his comment suggested, in the moment, that he hadn't.

"Keir Starmer has had it worse" has my nomination for comment of the thread ⭐️

Sou everyone is telling you that you're over reacting and being angry at the wrong person and yet you are still ranting on. I think you need to take a long hard break and then think about how supportive he's been recently.

Yes perhaps he was a bit tactless but let it drop

I do see what you mean, but if your DP had tried to explain what "let go" means in the context of schools to make it clear you hadn't done anything to deserve it, that would've been worse, no? He'd have gone into far more detail and it might've sounded like he was trying to come up with excuses to justify you having to leave. So he was clumsy with his brief wording but he did stop his mouth running away.

Hi OP, I’m so sorry for your situation and the related stress. Your DP didn’t need to discuss your personal life with this apparent stranger at all and had no business doing so. He betrayed your trust. My DH is exactly like this (he disclosed details of some gynaecological treatment I’ve been having to his family despite agreeing not to discuss it with anyone) so I have some understanding of how you feel. He needs to acknowledge the hurt that he’s caused and give you at full and sincere apology.

OP hasn’t said it’s a teaching job. It was mentioned as a ‘for example’.

You are very understandably extremely upset, devastated and angry. I do understand having been through something similar.
However please don’t get angry/lash out at your H - yes it wasn’t the right thing to say but it was a pretty accurate statement that he just didn’t think about to someone in a bar - in fact it was ONE sentence.
I’m sure that doesn’t mean he’s taking all this lightly and not supporting you.
It will be very tempting to take it out of others in your anger and frustration but in the long run it won’t really help you at all.
Try to let it go for both your sakes.

You are over-reacting and looking at it the wrong way.

Your DH was, and here to support you. He did a one-line summary, which I am sure is public information if you have any online presence.
And even if not, it's not a secret what your job was?

He didn't gossip, it's just a factual comment not entering into a chat about it.

Just ask him to reply "she works in xyz field" if someone else ever asks, but you are focusing on the wrong issue. It's not really fair on him.

I do know how you feel and it’s very hurtful. Once my husband told someone that I used to be a translator but I don’t do anything now?! I asked him afterwards not to say that in future. He was instructed to say, she’s a translator but taking time out to be a sahm for a few years while the children are little! It was very dismissive as though I’m a nothing! It was not nice! I’m now working as a translator again and I notice he hasn’t told anyone! Go figure?! You’re right to pull him up on that. Tell him what you want to be said next time. Was there any need for him to clarify that you’re not working right now?! Talk to him.

But this is my point. Whether people agree with my feelings about it or not, I really don't understand why any one else is justifying what he did say by saying the other person was a stranger and wouldn't have wanted to know or been interested in the details.

That's my whole point.

He didn't need to know and wasn't interested in any of it. He didn't ask and he didn't need to be told anything.

The person your partner was talking to might have asked "what are you all out for tonight" or something if he saw you in a big group - your partner would presumably respond with something like "my partner's last day in her current job". The other guy would then of course ask what your job was etc and it would just have been difficult for your partner to make up something else on the spot.

It's obviously still very raw and upsetting for you and completely understandable that you'd prefer it not to be discussed with semi-strangers. Maybe you need to agree some wording you would feel comfortable with your partner using if a similar situation arises again?

ETA sorry OP I've read some more of your comments and seen you've said you don't think it came up in conversation. Though from the way you've described it it sounds like it did in a roundabout way to me.

Why is that pp miserable? They don’t seem miserable to me.

So what do you want to happen now?

Its your dp’s life too though. Its not just your story.

You feel what you feel but your partner did not violate some well accepted taboo. He said something you would have preferred he not say, in that way, on that night, to that person. It was at worst a blunder —but not a crime (to coin a phrase.)

Your problem is not how to get agreement from randoms on the internet but how to come to peace with a horrible, devastating, life situation. Your partner’s statements that night are neither hete nor there. You are complaining that the soup is cold while the waiter is trying to help you leave a burning building.

This. Especially since this stranger has probably forgotten most of this interaction already.

OP you're understandably angry, but don't take this out on your husband.

He wasn't "reductive" or "dismissive", he was just being private.

Your job title IS small talk. There's no private information, no judgement, it's just a very small fact.

He used to be Prime Minister might hit him hard.

Whatever job you had OP it sounds like it was a big part of your life and it must have been a very important one. I’m very curious to know what it is but obviously you’re not going to say and I understand that. My curiosity isn’t out of sheer nosiness as such, it’s more I’ve never had a job that became part of me. I quite envy anyone who has experienced that (even though it ultimately caused you grief).

Love that last line and it feels spot on.

"He used to be Prime Minister might hit him hard."

.....and?

And what?

OP, gently, could this be misplaced anger ? This is the person who has supported you through this and it could easily be that he was batting away any further questions by a simple statement. The alternative would have been to share details that you may not have been amenable to. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt - otherwise what happened in your professional life is going to spill over into your private life, potentially with unintended consequences.

Nasty and unnecessary

OP as many have already said, your DP has his own needs. He hasn’t completely dismissed what happened, he has been supportive. So give the guy a break about a random comment in a bar.

You are obviously and it seems justifiably angry about what happened to you. Your partner has made one mistake, after being supportive and kind. You are throwing this mistake in his face after all that. No one is perfect.
I think you are being very very unreasonable, and its almost understandable because your fury about the other stuff has nowhere else to go. Almost. Maybe he could have been more discrete but its splitting hairs as he hardly said anything.
You don't need to address this remark -you need to address your massive fireball of barely suppressed emotion that is desperately looking for an outlet, and somehow you need to deal with all these feelings and emotions without laying waste to your relationship. Maybe counselling.