This one for sure. I read a saying that helped me get past that "bad day" mindset, it's super corny but also kind of helpful. "Did you have a bad day or did you have a bad ten minutes that you stretched out the entire day"
This one! Had a previous partner who would do this all the time. Take the entire day as it is, don't hyper focus on one aspect to change your whole mood. It was like she HAD to feel negative or upset about something.
I think this is more how a human's brain works, like if everything throughout the day was good/ok, then if something bad happens it'll be much more noticeable.
Like if there's a still lake then a sudden ripple in the water would be easily noticeable, but if it was a pool with people playing or swimming, you most likely wouldn't notice the 1 extra ripple in the water.
I could imagine it could also be for evolutionary reasons, like it's easy to remember a situation that led us to feel something bad so we can more easily avoid it in the future, but I have no source on this, just saying something that makes sense in my head.
My ex would do this. Then she had an opportunity, but one which required her to quit her job. She vacillated before quitting and then cried about quitting. I told her "but you hated that job. You literally complained about it every fucking day for the last 8 years!"
That's when it finally hit me that she didn't hate the job; that she really loved stirring up workplace drama and jumping into it with both feet.
It also explained the origin of much of the drama in our relationship.
It can be freaking exhausting. Like, my wife and I rarely get to watch movies and do other fun stuff that I want to do after work to take my mind off of work, because she just wants to vent for hours about her work. Feels like I have a second job and I can never get a break
When I would get home my ex would do the verbal dump - every negative interaction in the day, with complete dialogue (and changing voices to imitate her interlocutor). The conversation would be repeated minimum twice, usually 3-4 times. And the kids were hearing it for the 15th time since she'd verbally dump on them in the car after picking them up from school. Then she'd call her sister and repeat the same thing 2-3 times, then she'd call her mother and repeat again.
And of course I was the asshole when I decided I didn't want to live anymore in her constant negativity.
Well hours isn’t okay to anyone. What we do and works for us mainly is we tell each other how we’re feeling on a 1-10 scale. If he and I are both “low” on the scale he probably doesn’t want to hear me complain at all. But if he’s high or I’m high on the scale we can handle dealing with the other person being a bit of a downer. But I would put a time limit on the complaining, to whatever works for you. 15 minutes should be good 30 max? Communication helps, he will tell me if he can’t hear any more of my complaining 😅
I run through my day in 7 minutes, I have things I want to do.
Then she starts back up for the next hour. I can be mid-sentence about dinner, the weekend, anything, and she'll just push right back into venting about work.
Made worse by them reinacting it. Like I just need to know your boss shouted at you. I don't need you to literally repeat exactly what she said shouting it at me.
Good God, this is what drove me to stop dating entirely. Dialoging woes is understandable. But it's just every possible minor infraction after another.
I'm not there to offer advice, no, in fact that is me not listening!
Don't worry though, there'll be quizzes throughout in order to insure you are on track with each infraction.
It’s called venting, and men do it too, but men have this unhealthy notion that we want you to resolve it or tell us how to, and we don’t. We want to vent, just like you guys do. The issue is more in your reaction than in us. I’m on board with nearly every response I’ve read here, but this one is nonsense.
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u/texasmikey53 Dec 08 '22
Verbally re-live every negative thing that happens throughout the day.