Married couples, how to avoid bringing your stresses home?
The stress can be from work or school. When I was young, my dad and mum would occasionally come home in a bad mood because of work or other reasons and they would argue heatedly. Being the only daughter, I didn’t really understand what was going on since I didn’t have an older sibling to seek advice from.
I stepped into the working world several years ago and I realised that it is indeed hard to leave my emotions and stress at the door. Just fought with my hubby over reasons unrelated to him (I told him that I just want to be left alone). I explained to him that it is not his fault that I am upset but he is finding it hard to accept
How do you avoid bringing your stress home? Also, how do you deal with a partner who is extremely stressed from work?
Netizens’ comments
- Both of us are the type of people who need to vent. So I will complain to him and he will complain to me. For me, I’m the kind of person who must let it out so I will complain and complain and complain and then I’m ok already. He knows he just needs to sit there and listen and let me vent.
As for him, he also needs to vent. Sometimes I will ask him if he wants me to provide a solution or he just wants me to listen. If he just needs to vent then he just vents and I just make comments that I agree with what he’s saying. But sometimes he wants advice so I will give my perspective.
Personally I think most people cannot just let go of work the moment they go home, for Singaporeans it’s a big part of our lives so just need to see what your spouse wants from you? To vent and then be calm afterwards or what. Most important is they must communicate to you - I lower my stress in the office. I switch to slower pace job with less career growth. I was becoming this grouchy parent to my children and I didn’t want that.
Even after some counselling sessions, I still relapse and get triggered. Growing up, negative feeling was considered bad and everyone either suppressed it and exploded from time to time without resolving it. I felt blamed cos I felt like my parents had to work so hard for me. Especially when they told me how hard they work, or that they had to work to buy me toys. I stopped asking for toys or anything actually. - I’m someone who is good at this according to my husband. He asked me why I’m not salty about work and life when I’m almost 40. And I’m like, because my life is not about work. I separate work from my personal life and leave my work emotions behind when I’m done with it.
My life is not just work. I have other more important things to enjoy in life. Work is just a means to pay for things. And if I’m not happy at work, I quickly find ways to remediate it.
My husband is the opposite. As salty as the Pacific Ocean. And he brings work stress to our day to day. And it’s easy to spot. Usually when that happens, I’ll ask me if he had a bad day at work. What is stressing him out. Make him away that he’s nagging and being difficult at the moment. Ask him to be aware of his emotions at that point in time.
I think communication is key.