Unfortunately, he goes from being Johnny-One-Note - let me tell you about my depression to Johnny-One-Note, let me tell you about my anxieties.
You see, things at work had shifted. He goes from being a top performer (and I mean TOP) to being a layoff casualty. 500 people - his entire division - are laid off on Good Friday. He does a great job of finding a new job and within two months is back at the same place working.
The job is entirely different. So, you take this self-absorbed man who has little self-confidence and no coping skills and is a professional victim. Add in a new job that requires different skills. Layer on anger at getting laid off and having to do this new job. And the result is the first of his job disasters.
He complains incessantly about his management - though he does admit the group and his manager are particularly nice people. He fights every assignment. Sometimes he simply refuses to do it the way they want it. He's late on many of them. But overall he is still doing a good job. His mgr starts to correct him - he has never been corrected in his life. He feels he is treated unfairly at rating time and is rated in the middle for the first time in 15 years.
He gets even more angry. And spends even more time talking to me about work and how bad it is. It becomes his new obsession. Every conversation begins and ends with work. I try to address each complaint with logic but he only will suddenly veer off and start another complaint. The kitchen is cluttered with his complaints. He does not want them addressed. He just wants to talk about them. Over and over again.
Then I am hit with something that will change the course of our marriage forever.
My Waterloo
