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.

You are sounding crazy. Don't ruin your relationship over this as you are way way way overreacting and quite frankly acting nuts.

If he'd gone into detail about it or even not with a friend, that would have been fine.

If he'd just said, oh my partner's just left her job so we've come out to celebrate, that would have been fine.

He didn't need to say anything. The man hadn't asked about me. By his own admission, then wasn't even listening and didn't care.

If he wants to seek support, he can seek it. But i don't think its unreasonable to expect him to not give an brief, inaccurate acount of something that presents me in a bad light to someone neither of us really know but will see around again.

This man knows absolutely nothing about me other than this.

@OtterlyAstounding He apologised at the time she chewed him out. Says so in the first post. How many times should he have to apologise?

I get it.

A virtual stranger would hardly have asked about your career, and could have been shut down quite easily if he had.
No good reason to discuss anything at all about you with someone you barely know.

Lovely you are completely off balance atm - it happens when you have sunk your heart, mind and soul into building something slowly piece by piece over the years and then you are kicked with hobnail boots in your belly and it's all torn down. All that work of decades, all the love and care you put in.

I hope you can listen when the overwhelming majority here say that while your partner may have been tactless, it was not ill meant and at this point you are lashing out out of raw pain and (gently) at the wrong target.

He may also be grieving for you, and for the price that this terrible situation has extracted from you. He may be struggling a little but too. I hope both of you can find you way, and be there for each other. That this doesn't drive you apart.

You’re projecting your hurt and anger on the wrong person here. Take a big breath. Imagine stepping out of your body and observing the last 18 months as a time line and look at the full picture in terms of how your partner has supported you. From the sounds of it, he’s been your rock, does this one misstep really mitigate all of that? Don’t underestimate how much stress and tension your partner will have absorbed and felt during this hard time too. Yes, it happened to you - but as your partner, they get impacted too.

Instead of focusing on this one misstep, take some time to list and think about all they have done. I fear that if you tear strips of him for this, you’ll make this very difficult time more difficult for yourself and he will feel hugely under appreciated for all he has done.

As for how your work and role became part of your identity, I’d suggest using this as an opportunity to think about who you are outside of work. A job can be taken away (as you are experiencing) but no one can take away your personal qualities and personality, so maybe try making the things that make you ‘you’ your identity and be secure in the knowledge that nothing can take that away from you.

@SoAngryAboutThis clearly you’ve been through such a tough time but the fault for that is not with you loyal and supportive partner. You have no where to direct your anger so you are projecting that onto your partner who honestly objectively has done nothing to deserve it. It will be very destructive if you continue down that path but you do need support and validation to get through what you have experienced and endured. It is never easy.

You have already lost your job, do not lose your marriage too.

Go to the GP and explain how angry you are.
You may be perimenopausal and need medication to rebalance you.

You are at risk of losing the man you said you couldn’t get through the past 18 months without.
He is a good man.
But he will leave you if you carry on.
I would not have stayed at the same house as you last night and perhaps if he’d had somewhere else to go he would have.

You need to stop.

I get why you’re upset but it feels like you’re stressed TF and directing anger at DH that really should be directed at your old employer.

DP messed up but if he’s been supportive etc through this horrible experience I’d cut him some slack.

No. I've already explained the exchange as he described it afterwards.

So you’re not willing to see your DP’s position by even an inch? That’s your prerogative, but do be careful you don’t lose your job and your relationship at the same time.

If he wants to seek support, he can seek it. But i don't think its unreasonable to expect him to not give an brief, inaccurate account of something that presents me in a bad light

You are now sounding hugely uncaring about the man that supported you totally for over 18 months. Shouldn't a relationship be MUTUALLY supportive? If he wants support he has to get it elsewhere?

As for it presenting you in a bad light, if someone said to me they were "let go" I would take that to mean made redundant, which does not present you in a bad light.

The vast majority on here believe you are overreacting but you're not listening to us because you are SO entrenched in your view.

I don't think he should have to, but I know in my relationship, if I was in OP's situation and apologised to him for losing it but said, openly and without anger, that it just hit a raw nerve and really upset me, he'd almost certainly apologise again and give me a big cuddle (and then I'd probably apologise again too!)

He has been supportive but he doesn't really understand.

I feel like, in summarising it in this way, this is how he sees the situation and me.

I've been made to feel like I don't matter for the last 18 months and now he has described it like this, i feel I don't matter to him either.

Sorry you’ve been through such a shit time op

I do think your totally understandable anger and stress about it all has got unnecessarily transferred onto this one comment because of how the comment seems to you - minimising and dismissive, and as such hurtful in the context of the reality you’ve been suffering.

But I can see myself clumsily saying something like this - and the reason would be that when you’re talking to someone you don’t know well and keeping it at a smalltalk level, you don’t want to open up big painful subjects or overshare. So you kind of shut it down with some kind of shorthand for “let’s not go there” or “i’m answering your question but in a way that doesn’t make it sound like a big deal because it is a big deal and {OP} is upset and now this conversation has wandered into an area I don’t want it to becaus It’s awkward/uncomfortable/~[OP} wouldn’t want me sharing all the details.”

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be hurt by it or that ha couldn’t have been more sensitive, he could. But if he’s been supportive and understanding generally, I think it’s a minor cock-up that’s touched a nerve and not something to ha fe a big fallout with him over.

Having said that your sensitivity is real and normal and you probably do need a lot more processing time, self-care and distance to get past this, but you will.

Again as many, many posters are telling you from an objective standpoint based on the facts you’ve provided this is your issue not an issue with your partner.

You can continue to defend your position like a fortress all you want to but this will continue to be your issue not an issue with your partner and his actions.

You need to read this reply @SoAngryAboutThis, and keep re-reading it, because it’s spot on.

Exactly!

I totally get why his comment felt like a gut-punch in the moment, but I think you're being unreasonable to hold onto this, sorry. He sounds like a good man who's been there for you. Why assume the worst of him for one clumsy comment? You're still very much in pain over this and lashing out at the wrong target.

You aren’t being remotely unreasonable & I’d be fucking furious & so hurt too.

It was completely unnecessary for him to mention the subject at all & then he chose to throw in a glib lie and say you’d been sacked! I’d be left feeling my partner didn’t really give a shit tbh.

I partly understand. Partners don't like to see you suffering or to feel that you were unjustly treated, and so they start turning it into a more 'normal' story.

Often, they can't give the moral support needed.

I found IAPTs counselling (or whatever it's called now) to be extremely good in a similar situation.

I completely agree with you. This is your very private, personal business. He should not, whether in detail or not, have been discussing this with a virtual stranger.

If this person had asked how you were your DP should have said "Fine, we're just out with some friends" and left it at that. He over-shared massively and treated your situation as though it was a bit of trivial chit-chat.

You’re right, he doesn’t. And he can’t.

He is doing the best he can but he still doesn’t quite understand how dismissive his summary was.

But you need to say that, say that you are still massively traumatised by it, find a sentence for him to use that doesn’t downplay it and move on.

If he ever needed a 5 second summary, what would you want him to say?

I can’t imagine being this angry at someone that loves and supported me in the way you describe. I think you really need to get over this and quickly.

You are directing your anger at the wrong person

No she doesn't, she sounds like she is having a completely understandable reaction to a traumatising eighteen months of bullying.