Woman asks husband to stop 'dumping' about his day, he says 'I don't feel listened to.'

Every marriage is different, but one of the most common aspects of marriage is the daily recap.

Living with someone long-term usually means they're in for updates on the most mundane work drama, small ongoing frustrations, and stress-induced info dumps. The primary challenge in this dynamic, is making sure both partners feel equally heard and are also to give space when the other is too burnt out to be a sounding board.

This dynamic took the center in a popular post on the AITA subreddit, where a woman asked if she's an AH for not wanting to hear about her husband's day.

She wrote:

AITA for not wanting to listen to my husband recap his day?

My husband and I are both in our early 30s. The moment he gets home, he starts talking about his day. He's a surgeon and he starts to talk about his surgery in detail and it's pretty technical. I'm here trying to destress from my day and deal with our one-year-old boy and he just basically describes his entire day in detail.

It sounds like 'Then I opened the right arm, harvested the radial flap by myself, and the nerves were hard to identify so that took an extra 30 minutes there, then I had to suture the vessels under the microscope and it kept fogging up...' (Except in even more detail).

I got annoyed and I told him I don't really want to listen to his medical cases and it stresses me out because then I feel like I'm back at work. When I'm done with work, I want to be done with work and not feel like I'm in the OR still. I have told him this multiple times before. He continues to do it.

So about once a week, he forgets and will go on and on about his surgery for 30+ min until I get fed up and I tell him to stop talking about surgery. He recaps daily but usually under 30 min, but once a week he decided to recite his “surgical textbook.' After this argument, he says he doesn't feel supported and feels like he can't talk to me.

I feel like an AH as well because I don't have the mental capacity to listen to him recap his entire day in detail without being mentally draining on me. I feel like a horrible person but I don't know if this is normal or if I'm just being an AH.

————-—————- Edit for detail (if you care)

He doesn’t talk about his day as “oh this crazy thing happened”. He talks about it as if he’s giving me a lecture and I’m a med student.

If I did it, it would sound like this:

“Today, I went to see my patient at 7 am. But she wasn’t in her gown yet so I had to wait 10 min for her to get dressed. Then the nurse had trouble drawing her blood and place an IV so that slowed my start of the day and I had to do the IV myself.'

'Then I had to use a translator because she only spoke Spanish, and that meant we started the case 15 min later than expected. Then I rolled the patient into the OR. Then I placed the pulse ox, ekg, and bp on the patient. Then I had her breathe 5 deep breaths and then I started to give 2 mg of versed, then I gave her 70 mg lidocaine and 75 mcg of fentanyl, but when I pushed propofol, she still had pain.'

'After she went to sleep, I checked to make sure she can be masked. Then I gave 50 mg roc, then I bagged some more, then I used a miller 2 blade to get a view of the vocal cords, then I intubated the patient…”

That would only describe the first 30 min of his day. Then he would continue to describe the remaining 9.5 hrs of his day in detail as if he is teaching a med student. I’m not a surgeon for a reason. And even if I was, I don’t want to mentally do surgery when I am off.

It’s not like “Oh, a bunch of my cases got delayed so I’m back late. Oh, that nurse was on my nerves. Oh BTW I did a crazy surgery case today, here are the quick highlights.”

The internet did not hold back.

youpewted wrote:

I’m going with NAH. OP also works medical (OR as well.) They both want to destress in different ways. That would definitely be exhausting to ‘take your work home.’ Maybe allocate a short time for shop talk (ie 30 mins) and then agree with no more for the night and talk about something else positive going on in your lives.

ClauzzieHowlbrance wrote:

ESH - Hear me out. You suck because he obviously needs to share his day with you. It's a pretty common aspect in many relationships. You're not supporting him in this, and it's understandable why he feels like he can't talk to you.

It blows to have the one person you want to talk to the most tell you over and over again they don't want to listen to what you have to say. He sucks because you've articulated how much and why this frustrates you, and he's not taking you into consideration when he continues to do so. You're setting a boundary and he's not being receptive. So he's also not being supportive of you in this.

It sounds like a compromise is the best solution here. He can still talk about his day, but not in so much detail and not for longer than a determined amount of time. He could even ask you if you'd be up for him talking about it. If he begins to go deeper into detail to a point that it's bothersome for you, have a codeword ready that can neutrally remind him to keep shop talk to a minimum.

This way, you're still supporting him and listening to him, but he's also respecting your boundary of not wanting to feel like you're at work. It can be difficult when partners are on opposite sides of a situation, but as long as both of you actively practice patience, clear communication, boundary setting/respecting, and the understanding that sometimes even the best-laid plans have hiccups, it'll work out.

mitsuhachi had a suggestion:

Buy him a rubber duck. Not a joke. My partner used to do this when the baby was little and it made me crazy. He didn’t want to have an actual conversation, did not care at all about my thoughts on the topic, did not want to hear me at all, just wanted to talk through whatever he did and what he thought about it.

Eventually, we had to have the talk that I am a whole human being and his partner, while what he needed in that instance was something to rubber duck to and a therapist to help him deal with stress. Helped him get both, helped a lot, and we could go back to actually talking WITH each other instead of 100% him AT me. One of the things that saved our relationship.

And OP responded:

Someone else said this too. Maybe I should try it. I’ll also suggest he debrief with the baby. I’m sure our son doesn’t really mind listening to why he picked silk over nyleon threads.

bloopbleebah wrote:

NTA. 100% understand having boundaries about bringing work stuff home. If you’re at this point I imagine it’s been pervasive and relentless and you’ve bought it up before which has been ignored many times. Encourage him to get a work crew for social support/debriefing. Or set timers where you both concisely summarize your day and have a conversation not about work.

fwork_ wrote:

NAH. My bf and I used to work together and still work in similar fields so work talk happens. We agreed to put a cap to 30 min of work talk. If someone goes longer the other one is allowed to tell them to stop/hurry up with the venting and no hard feelings. Gives us a chance to vent but also makes sure we don't get overwhelmed.

PeanutGallery10 wrote:

NTA. You and your husband both work. He's marginalizing your job and your parental contributions. If it were a two-sided conversation it would be different, but it sounds like he's monopolizing the conversation.

You have every right to be able to destress after work and child care. Hopefully, he is taking responsibility for your child too. Suggest he tell your child about his day while you relax with a glass of wine or agree on a list of topics for a post-work chat like the weather or your time off plans or your child.

People are pretty divided on this one, which makes sense given the nuance of a couple that works together and has a small child. What do you think about the situation?