Hey, Dear! How was work?

[Redguard]

Does your spouse talk about how their workday went with you? How many of you are genuinely interested in hearing about it? I'm supposing that this depends heavily on how interesting you find your spouse's line of work.

When you and your spouse are together after the end of a workday, what percentage of your conversation is based around events/frustrations that took place at work? How does this percentage compare to other topics such as finances, kids, future plans, etc?

 

[ksbriscoe]

My hubby always talks about his work... both good and bad. I don't mind most of the time, but sometimes it does get a little old and I will ask if we can talk about something else for a bit. He just really loves what he does, even on his bad days, so I understand his obsession to always want to talk about it.... his dad was in the same line of work, as well as his uncle, and he has been doing it for almost 10 years now. I feel as his wife I am to be supportive and lend an ear when ever needed... its jut nice to talk about other things every once in a while

 

[c1ners]

My hubby talks about work about 75 percent of our time. The other percentage of the conversation revolves between him shooting pool, bowling technics, and race cars. Maybe five percent of the conversation involves the kids, future plans, finances, ect. And that's only because I bring it up.

 

[MikeK]

My wife loves to talk about her day at work and what went wrong or which of her employees are mad at who for what and how difficuult that makes things for her. I am not as good a listener as I should be, because quite frankly, it bores me! I do not like to discuss the day's events when I get home, and even if I did want to talk about them, most problems I deal with are of a technical nature and would require an hour of background explaiation before I could explain the problem.
I think a big part of it is the relationships between females as coworkers and males as coworkers. My wife works with nurses - all women. I work with engineers - all men. Everyday my wife has to deal with at least one catty disagreement that her underlings are having, but these disagreements are never really confronted in the open and people for cliques and learn to like or dislike people as people. Her coworkers frequently invite eachother to weddings and showers, etc. They all know about eachother's families. Where I work, most of us know almost nothing of eachother's personal lives, we don't smalltalk very much and if we do it's about sports or whatever, never anything too serious. When we have disagreements, they are handled immediately, this usually works well but occasionally there will be a shouting match and even the rare fistfight. These events usually end as soon as they start and long term grudges are not kept after the people involved have had their chances to vent. We have two very different ways of dealing with things, but we both prefer our own methods to the other's.
What am I rambling about? To answer the question, we occasionally talk about her work and rarely about mine. She likes to talk so I try to listen. I know she does things for me that she doesn't always enjoy, so it's the least I can do.

 

[HeatherJay]

My husband doesn't talk about work excessively unless I ask. But I DO ask, because I can tell when he's had a stressful day and he always feels better after getting it all out. I'm not particularly interested in the normal day to day computer stuff...but the stuff that really stresses him out, usually issues with the people under him, I do want to hear about it because I think it helps him let go of the stress of it all to discuss it and be able to vent in a "safe" place.

My hubby is in management, so I think it's really important for him to be able to talk to me about the things that bother him. It helps him gain perspective, and he's able to go into the situation the next day with a much more positive attitude.

Also, I do my very best to build him up and support him and his work related decisions. He's an amazing guy, and he truly cares about his employees...not to mention the fact that he's a genius at what he does. He's one of the good ones, and even though his employees don't always appreciate it, I try my best to encourage him to just stick to his guns...keep being the good guy...and don't stoop to office politics/office games. He's better than all that.

Even with all that, lol, I'd say that less than 30% of our afterwork discussion is work related. Probably because I stay at home, lol, so there's very little of interest to discuss on my end (laundry, dishes, my mom called, I saw a bluebird in the yard today, lol...boring stuff ).

 

[felinity]

My husband doesn't have a job yet; he's in the process of applying, now that he has his green card.

Our conversations sound something like this:

Him: How was your day?
Me: It was fine.
Him: What did you do this afternoon? [Generally, we see each other at lunch, as I go home and we spend it together.]
Me: Um, I had a team meeting, and I had some problems with some Java code I was writing, blah blah blah. What did you do this afternoon?
Him: Well, I took a shower, and I got the mail, and I washed some dishes, and I played some World of Warcraft.
Me: So, can we start trying for a bebe now?
Him: ...I don't know...

Hee. I'm exaggerating a bit, but I do bring that up far more often than he'd probably like (actually, I brought it up last night, and I hadn't mentioned it in THREE WHOLE DAYS before that), and he never knows.

 

[Epoh99]

We used to talk about our jobs when we were dating but now our conversations consist of either...

Mr. Epoh99: Did you have a good day at work?
Epoh99: I guess. Did you?
Mr. Epoh99: Sure.

Or...

Epoh99: How was your day?
Mr. Epoh99: It sucked. How was your's?
Epoh99: Awful as usual.

Can you tell neither of us are quite happy with our jobs?

 

[JustBeachy]

I always ask my husband how work was, but I usually get a 'fine' and maybe a couple comments about something funny one of his coworkers did. He's not a talker...but when we have time and it's just the two of us, I know the buttons to push to get him to open up about work. It's a stressful job and I know it helps to talk to me about it. And if something occurs on the job that is emotionally difficult, I NEED to already be established as part of his support system. Divorce rates, alcoholism, and abuse rates are higher among families in his profession than the rest of the 'normal' population(yay!!), so I consider our communication and my involvment in his career as VITAL. I think it helps that I worked in the same field for several years, so we have some common ground about the job. I couldn't tell you a percentage...but we do spend more time talking about our daughter, her school, our families, current events, etc, than we spend talking about his work. I think we discuss it a healthy amount right now...enough so that I feel connected to his job, but not so much that his home doesn't feel like a break from the job.

 

[Daisy321]

We do talk about each others work most days.
My husband likes to vent about his, because he get's stressed. I will share some about mine.

Funny thing about work gossip, my husband works with mostly men and those guys talk more than any women I know. They always have a scoop to discuss.
I'm like when do you men work?

 

[wolfman544]

My wife and I tend to talk about work a bit when we get home. I usually ask her how her day was, typically she doesn't really want to talk about. Not bringing work home. Which is a good idea mostly.

 

[Beth1231]

Yes, we both share parts of our workday with each other. And we both have had to make an effort to really learn about what the other is doing, so we understand and can comment and ask questions appropriately He is in Civil Engineering and I'm a Preschool teacher...yeah, that's a HUGE difference! I recently admitted to him that the first year of our mariage, I understand about 10% of what he told me when he shared his workday. We both make an effort to limit the frustrating stories and stay with the positives. Coworkers (or children) that made us laugh, a project that got finished ahead of time, etc.
On the weekends, work might get into 10 or 15% of our conversation simply because it's what we are doing the majority of the week. The rest of the time, we talk about funny parts of our past, my husband's on the side business and how his success will change our lives, our families, our baby, etc. Actually, the more I think about it, I realize the weekends are spent half in quiet contentment with each other's presence and half conversing and doing chores around the house. We just reconnect and cuddle and not too many words have to be spoken.

 

[wolfman544]

Yes, we both share parts of our workday with each other. And we both have had to make an effort to really learn about what the other is doing, so we understand and can comment and ask questions appropriately He is in Civil Engineering and I'm a Preschool teacher...yeah, that's a HUGE difference! I recently admitted to him that the first year of our mariage, I understand about 10% of what he told me when he shared his workday. We both make an effort to limit the frustrating stories and stay with the positives. Coworkers (or children) that made us laugh, a project that got finished ahead of time, etc.
On the weekends, work might get into 10 or 15% of our conversation simply because it's what we are doing the majority of the week. The rest of the time, we talk about funny parts of our past, my husband's on the side business and how his success will change our lives, our families, our baby, etc. Actually, the more I think about it, I realize the weekends are spent half in quiet contentment with each other's presence and half conversing and doing chores around the house. We just reconnect and cuddle and not too many words have to be spoken.

that sounds like a wonderful way to do it

 

[KillerV]

I ask him everyday,and he normally responds with something short. On occasion he wants to talk about everything,and thats fine by me.Even thogh his job bores me to tears. He also asks me how my day goes. So I guess we spend about 10% talking about work.

 

[oliveplants]

He usually talks about work a bit when he gets home. When he's frustrated he talks more, but when he's mad he won't talk about it til he calms down.

I tell him what cute things the children did, then we talk about what we want to do today, which often involves finances and furture plans.

He is a mechanic/shift supervisor in the Air Force.

 

[Cordy]

We talk about our days pretty much every day – the good, the bad and the ugly. If it is good, we might talk about it for a while. If it is rather negative, we talk as much as it takes to help the other person out/think of solutions, and then move on to more enjoyable topics. It does not constitute the major portion of our conversation.

 

[GodrockDJ]

Yes we both ask each other. We're at the point where I know most of the coworkers he would mention, and vice versa. And we make an effort to not go deep into things but hey if one of us is frustrated, they should vent for a bit. But then we try and concentrate on our time together and not letting work seep back into our minds.

 

[SabrinaFair]

I ask, he usually shares between 1 and 10 sentences, and that is about the sum of it.

Which happens to be night and day from when I used to work at my "hell job"... eek- I would come home and there would be days I would fume and vent for hours. That job was a huge contributor to my stress levels and bled over into everything, I was never so thankful to get away from something so toxic. Praise God!!!!

Anyway, I'd say his work is only about 1% of our conversation each day the rest goes into conversation, planning, home stuff, etc.

 

[Million Pieces]

DHs field of work is highly technical, extraordinarily mechanical, and he tends to go off in mindnumbing detail if I let him. Usually my eyes glaze over the first mention of "slip stop" or "XN nipple"... when I worked in entry level management (for about 3 months) I could talk about frustrations and staffing problems.

Now I'm a paid flunkie again, and my job is just boring enough to be not even worth asking about.

Him: So how was your day?
Me: short. Only 11 rooms, I was home by 2:30.

or... Him: How was your day?
Me: busy. Did 16 check outs today. Got a $6 tip though. It bought lunch. It's after 6, do you wanna order pizza?

 

[Asherz]

My hubby and I are in the same field (well, when I graduate in two months), so I'm always interested in what goes on at his work. I mainly get theory in class and not much real life application, so I'm able to get a feel for that from him. I'm not so interested in day to day politics, but sometimes the stuff that goes on over there is hilarious.

 

[Oblivious]

Yes we always ask each other how our day went. His job is boring (IMO) so I try to act (or at least look) interested!