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.

OP, please, give yourself time. Massive feelings will lead you down the wrong path.
Tbh OP, ..the words your partner ended up saying is what thousands of people experience every day somewhere. It was probably actually better for him to describe it that way than get into the whole thing. Especially if it was going to be said without enough explanation.
This of course is assuming that he was even able to think this fast on the spot but after all just made a neutral enough sounding comment to a stranger he sort of knows.
No one will be able to think, feel and understand the situation at every point in time in the exact same way you do when it's your own situation. I don't say this to frustrate you, I say this to highlight why we can get upset even though the other person has been nothing other than the rock to you and understood enough to have been a rock to you. He proved it time and time again.
Of course his intention was not to erase the pain of the whole thing.
But on a very emotional day for you he didn't sound like as if it was reflecting any of it. Do try to meet him half way. It'd be unfair otherwise.

Also - and to be frank I’m completely shit at practising what I preach as I’d feel the same as you - there’s not a job on this planet that’s worth you feeling like this over. If you can, try and get some therapy to help you deal with this as it’ll be important when you go into another job

havw you thought about talking to ACAS about constructive dismissal?

You sound like you’ve been through some trauma at work and are completely over reacting!

Sounds like you don’t like your partner OP.
Seems a huge fuss over not much. If you don’t like him, leave him, otherwise move on. Life is short.

Massive over reaction. You need therapy and should apologise to your partner. Based on your many, many responses, you seem to be obsessive and struggle to let things go or have perspective.

I don't mind people.standing up for him because he has been supportive but two things can be true at once - that he has been incredibly supportive and was also hugely insensitive about it when talking about it unnecessarly to a stranger.

I am taking on board the sensible.comments

How about you show your partner this thread @SoAngryAboutThis as he can then read exactly how what he said last night made you feel and what you think of him? I'm sure that would make things very clear for him and he can take the necessary course of action?

It would be interesting to know exactly what happened - whether OP was made redundant or managed out or sacked with cause. Each one traumatic in its own way, but each would throw a different slant on what her DP shared and the anger she’s feeling.

So what do you want the outcome to be?

Had anything been discussed beforehand? I believe a person's triggers and discomforts are their responsibility.

So if you'd said, "Look, this has been so hard for me, in social situations, I'd rather you didn't mention anything about this, please just keep it bland," and he went ahead and said what he did anyway, then yes, I think a lot more people would be critical of him.

Like you said. Small talk. Does he have to run all conversations by you?

Massive overreaction from you.

OP, you are taking on board the comments that support your viewpoint and distancing yourself from the vast majority of the people that are gently suggesting that you are being unreasonable.

I would hazard a guess that folk will start to get frustrated, and then post in a less supportive manner, so it might be best to step away now, and consider what else, other than apologise, you actually want your partner to do.

This is a big overreaction. Your workplace made you feel dismissed and belittled, getting fired has given you an identity crisis, your partner made a simple remark to an acquaintance that you've seized onto to bring all that rage into your personal life with him as a target. You've put him in the place of the people in your workplace that made you feel that way.

Analyzing every casual remark that comes out of his mouth is going to make him feel he has to walk on eggshells around you.

I think if you feel so much rage it's spilled into your personal life, you should take some space in the relationship and work on this with a trauma informed therapist.

I will say that just because you're not currently working as an x doesn't mean you're not an x.

I agree with everything you've said but he didn't need to say anything at all. The man didn't ask anything. He could have saod absolutely nothing about me and the conversation would have continued as it had.

It was dropped in like an aside. An irrelevance. And that hurt. When he knows how traumatic it has been for so many of us and how devastating it has been to so many.

It just felt so dismissive and he didn't need to say it.

You're being completely unreasonable probably because you are clearly very angry still about your situation. It sounds like what he said is fine. I've been through an experience probably not dissimilar to yours and the words "don't get mad, get even" should resonate - legally get even I mean. But don't take it out on your DH who was just trying not to give it undue headspace when talking to a near-stranger who doesn't need intimate detail of your life.

A job is never worth making your entire identity. Especially a corporate job where every single person is replaceable and could be made redundant from one day to the next. Capitalism doesn't discriminate between effort, seniority or loyalty. Most people genuinely don't "get" how much a job can mean to someone since they don't treat it with the same passion. So once you leave a job, it's technically not wrong to say you were "a __" and now it's just the next phase of life.

Okay, but he has said it, he can’t take it back, it’s the verbal equivalent of the genie being out of the bottle.

The question now is: are you willing to forgive him this one indiscretion and move on?

If your gut feeling is no, you’ll never be able to forgive him, you know what the answer is - the relationship is over.

Sounds like he was being vague as

1. He didn’t really know the person very well and
2. He was trying to protect your privacy with all thats gone on.

Your partner was purposely not gossiping about you or the situation it could be that the acquaintance asked your partner what you were up to work wise? Gently, I think you’re being unreasonable and understandably angry at what has gone on but please don’t let yourself take it out on your partner and let bitterness seep into your personal live especially if he’s being supportive and as you said you couldn’t live through the last 18 months without him.

You are clearly hurting but your anger is misplaced. If you can’t let this go you risk losing your partner over a few misjudged words just the very time you probably need him most.

"Betrayed" is a massive over-reaction to a passing comment to someone who is such a non entity in your life, particularly to someone who seems to have been exemplary in their conduct throughout this.

What you've been through sounds horrific and life defining. It sounds like (in true Mumsnet form) you need some therapy to unpack this, not to lash out at someone who won't have lived it the same way you did but was still with you every step of it.

You're traumatised and not thinking straight. It's totally understandable. In 6 months time you will be thinking more clearly.

I hope you have better times ahead.

Sorry OP, I agree with other posters. Gently, your emotions are so very heightened at the moment. It sounds like your DH had a momentary foot in mouth episode. I don’t think he was being reductive. Small talk with acquaintances is always awkward and it sounds like he was just clumsily bumbling through one of those. I understand why it was inappropriate to land on that topic in the way he had but that was a mistake not a malicious or callous reduction of your situation.

I don’t think you are unreasonable for having so much anger and upset in you but I don’t think the level of anger you’re directing at your DH is proportionate

He may not even have used those exact words. If you heard the name of the company mentioned, he might have asked what you do and H says 'oh she used to work at x but got let go'. Either way he was saying a very brief summary of a few words rather than telling the whole painful and presumably private saga to this acquaintance.

So I really would try not to take it to hard. It's fine to correct him and say firmly you still are a xyz by profession and that hasn't changed just because you no longer have an employer.
But I hope you don't blow it out of proportion.

The man he spoke to is a nobody, a nothing, like your DP said he was barely listening. He will not have given this conversation a second thought. He doesn’t know your name. You don’t know his. Let that sink in. Your DP has just hit a massive nerve, but he’s done nothing wrong. You will not feel this strongly about it tomorrow or next week.

I could understand if he had said this to a future employer or the CEO of a competitor but it’s small talk on a busy bar. It’s just means nothing.