Hi imperfect mum's, I was wondering how much do you vent to your partner on a day to day? I mean telling them about your frustrations and challenges with the kids mostly. For example it is frustrating me that my five or two year olds comes in and wake the newborn baby every time he just falls asleep. Another example is my eight year old has a bad attitude and says things that frustrate me.
My partner sayings I am always negative and does not want me to talk to him anymore unless it's not a complaint.
If you don't vent to your partner about things like this that bother you then what do you do?
8 Replies
When my partner starts venting about work too much it does get frustrating and that doesn't even have anything to directly do with me. I can imagine it being that he wants to come home to you and the family after being gone all day and feel happy and like there's positivity to come home to.
Are you saying positives too? As in "well it was annoying that the baby woke up, but we got to do some baking today and the kids loved it".
I vent to my partner about everything, he does the same to me. Your partner is meant to be your go to person when something is on your mind. Unless you are a super negative person and never positive about anything I think he go being a bit of an arse
When my friend and her husband did marriage counselling they were challenged when hubby gets home for there to be nothing but positive comments between them in the first 10 minutes he was home - they gradually increased the time to until after dinner and she swore by it and I try really hard to do the same. The bad days one of us will usually say "I had a really bad day" and the other will give them that space and usually keep the kids away too just to allow a breather. Yes we vent but usually later in the night and the kids see more positive interactions between us than negative and hubby gets to come home to a more positive household even if most of my day was shit
My partner is a venter, I love him to bits and i try and be supportive but sometimes it just shits me to tears, especially if he's really relentless about it as soon as he gets in the door! Most of the time, he either doesn't want advice he just wants to whinge - which i do get, we all need to decompress but we need to remember our spouses aren't our emotional dumping grounds as well.
So maybe it's just that he feels a bit bombarded with negativity and complaints lately.
I think the way the need to vent is communicated is important too, for example:
If my partner got home from work and said to me "I've had a tough day, could we sit down and have a cuppa and a chat about it shortly?"
I'd be much more inclined to sit down and fulfil that that need for him.
But if he gets home and it's immediately -
"Oh my god, what a day. Train was late, Bob didn't show up so i had to find his replacement, HR was a nightmare, investors are dropping out, had 3 meetings back to back, coffee machine broke, blah blah blah".
It's quite jarring to be on the receiving end of that and i find myself struggling to be sympathetic.
Does that make sense?
When someone vents a lot it’s exhausting, and draining.
It’s important even when things are absolutely at there worst (and I’ve been there more times than I can count) to be mindful of venting. It often just becomes this cycle of negativity. So the people around me will know I have an issue, but they won’t hear about the same issue over and over again.
I also make time for laughter and fun.
I can take a bit of venting, but people who are always negative drain me.
I've taken a step back from people that vent a lot because it stops me from being able to switch off myself,especially after work. Being available for the big stuff is really important, but learning to let go of the small stuff is too.
My husband and I are both in the same profession but different workplaces so we often vent to one another about work and kids and life etc. However a few years ago I realised that my husband was doing a lot of venting about the same things over and over and it became exhausting. So I started challenging him on what he was doing to try and improve the situation and I found that he had never actually considered that he could make changes to fix it. Since then I have noticed a dramatic decrease in his venting and when he does its usually for a very good reason. My point us sometimes it's worth considering if you are venting or whinging and if we can make a change to improve the situation so we don't need to vent so much.