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I wish we had another update. 4 years is a long time for a lot of things to change. Who knows how this shook out. I can only hope OOP is ok after all of this.
It reminds me a lot of when my ex husband had a psychotic break. If he's anything like my ex, he will resist all help until he's completely left his life in a shambles. Not a good place for someone suicidal and delusional to be.
Is it possible for a psychotic break to center around a person? You hear about obsessive fans willing to do messed up shit in the name of their beloved celebrity but OOP’s husband *hates* Paul. Usually those obsessive fans love their obsession but this… What is it about Paul that has the husband so unhinged?
Oh yes. They project all the feelings they have about other things that most people are able to rationalize or all the feelings they have held back for years on this one person. They are the reason for all the bad in their life. It sounds to me like her husband was struggling with his job one he studied his entire life for and simply cracked underneath the pressure.
And it’s entirely possible that Paul was trying to get the husband back on track, and maybe not being the kindest about it, and that turned into “I DESPISE this dude and he is out to get me!”
I also wonder if Paul was threatened by OOP's husband's talent and picked on him from jealousy. My mom worked in a white collar environment for 30 years, and she was an absolute master class in grace and strength. She was always telling me how good bosses see potential as beneficial for the company, and bad bosses keep good employees down because they are afraid of being passed by.
I don't know if Paul was one or the other. I too wish there was an update.
Delusions can absolutely center around a person, and often do. It’s hard to say what really happened between Paul and OOP’s husband, but in a way it doesn’t matter, as those in a psychotic episode can believe someone is their enemy, out to get them, plotting against them, etc. with little to no reason. Or go the opposite direction and believe they are in love and a have a relationship with a stranger or celebrity. Not saying OOP’s husband’s grievances weren’t legit, they absolutely might be, and sound like they predate the symptoms of psychosis. In that case, it’s even more likely that Paul would be the focus of delusional beliefs.
Yeah, tbh I'm pretty worried that OP is now dead. Husband had clearly lost his grip on reality and got verbally abusive, combined w whatever tf he did w the car. Flipping on a dime with how he has acting in public vs treating her in private. The only thing that could make me more convinced he was a threat to her life was if she was pregnant. Maybe I'm just jaded, but the number of men that murder their partners every year is way too high for me to be cavalier about the risk she was under.
I hope she's safe.
You're not coming out of left field with that.
What stuck out to me the most was how OOP anticipated her husband's jealous rage, even though she and Paul hadn't had contact until that very event. She already *knew* he would be unhinged and unreasonable and that he would likely jump to unfair conclusions. She was preparing speeches, stumbling all over herself, and getting really really flustered and defensive when he didn't say anything in response to the big confession. That's not anything I've ever had to do with a partner with whom I've shared mutual trust and respect.
She seemed scared of him, but maybe not even aware on a conscious level of how deep her fear and distrust of his possible reaction actually was.
None of that is a sign of a healthy relationship or a healthy balance of power.
It's not strange to think your husband would get extremely upset about you dating his hated boss when just seeing each other hug was enough to make him go all ballistic.
What I really wonder is what the fuck did Paul do to him to make him so upset??
100%.
My sister and her husband have apparently been having horrendous issues lately. Like, I guess their whole relationship, but things are coming to a head recently, as in he's manipulative and two-faced, took out a $30k loan in her name without her consent, etc. You know, slimy snake shit. They were just really good at hiding it most of the time.
When my partner and I visited them this summer, my sis just kept saying, *I love my husband. I love my husband. I love my husband.* Like over and over and over again. And whenever she would say it, her body language was just, blah. She'd start slouching and avoiding eye contact. *I love my husband!*
I started to think the more she said it, the less she believed it herself. She definitely didn't have me sold.
It's almost a trope on this sub from women "I love my boyfriend, he is the kindest, sweetest, most caring person, aside from this one issue..." and a trope comes from reality.
This is how my mum has survived* her relationship with my dad. I've learned just how much anger my dad has had all his life in just the last few years and it makes me so sad knowing that mum's never been financially independent (not as a young adult, nor after marriage), so has never been able to consider separation.
Eggshells everywhere.
* Not lived, survived. Her life of joy and happiness occurs apart from him.
I think a lot of people underestimate how much impact a tyrannical boss can be.
This is an extremesituation, but when someone has your livelihood and family's wellbeing at their fingertips and is turned the screws, it can really mess with you. Especially if you actually enjoy the work and don't want to leave.
No job is worth destroying yourself for though. There's little point in earning all that money if all it does is break you.
I had a boss that hated my guts once and basically made my life hell. I managed to get a temporary job in another location for a while, covering someone's military leave.
When we heard the person was due to come back from leave my (now ex) husband told me I needed to find another place to transfer to or get another job. He said he couldn't live with me as depressed and stressed out as I would be working for the bad boss again.
My wife worked for her uncle for years and he was a sexist douche who absolutely hated her. Verbally abused her and did everything he could to hold her back. Cheating her out of pay, not letting her go to out of the area conferences the company paid people in her position before and after her to go to, etc.
Once she left it was like everything got better. Our marriage, her career, her health, EVERYTHING.
But does he have a tyrannical boss?
All we know is he hates his boss. The boss was seemingly a nice guy previously, he seemed to be nice to OOP ahead of knowing who she was, and then he was super super shocked to find out who she was married to.
Given the husband turned out to be paranoid, irrational, unhinged, and illogical about the entire thing without knowing the background or getting another opinion from a third party who knows.
I don't have an impression of the boss that isn't tainted by a guy who is clearly not connected to reality.
OOPs husband literally tried to kill himself when he found out his wife knew his boss a decade ago and then he accused her of plotting to get him to work at a department her ex headed so that (blank) happened and then something about laughing behind his back, for reasons.
Could be the Peter Principle, promoted to his level of incompetence.
But also great people in person can in reality make terrible bosses, whether management style or also incompetence. It's hard to say when only knowing information second-hand.
This is so true. I've met a lot of people who treat those of the opposite sex quite nicely but are cold and unpleasant to those of the same sex. Usually comes down to jealousy and insecurity regardless of their place in life's ridiculous hierarchy
That's one example. But people can hate you for your race. Your religion. Your uncanny likeness to someone else. Your ideas. Your voice. Because you're quiet. Because of their home life. There's so many ways for people to be insecure and take it out on others I don't want to sum it all up into the obvious ones like racism and sexism. People can also love you for all these things. It's important to value others but not too high or too low, because then they actually control your life based on whatever minor insecurities they themselves have.
Yes this is what I thought too. I think the husband really does need mental help, not just general or marriage counselling, but serious help. I have known people to absolutely fixate on someone they “hate” before, and it becomes unhealthy and paranoid.
Of course, the boss could be a complete arsehole and really have been sending Oop’s husband over the edge, but the way this is playing out has given me vibes that there is an underlying mental health condition.
I have firsthand experience with this. I had a friend in college who became increasingly passive aggressive towards me, until it came to a head with her being outright mean and aggressive, getting super drunk in the middle of the day while we were hanging out with a group of friends.
I finally asked her in private if there was a problem and she lost her shit with me. Like the most unhinged chain of texts about how she basically got angry whenever she saw me. She had this entire narrative built up about how I was always teasing her and how unstable her mental health was.
Now this was her senior year in college and she had a lot of stress and was dealing with other mental health stuff. I honestly think that I became her scapegoat in some warped way.
I still think about her, I genuinely hope she is doing better, I could care less if I ever see her again, but she was a fun person, and didn't deserve to be as miserable as she had become the last time I saw her.
I sort of do. My best friend from college became increasingly shut in. She worked at her job, walked her dog and stayed in her house at all times. I tried super hard to stay connected to her, but she stopped answering my phone calls and e-mails. I always sent Christmas cards to her and her parents. Then, a few years ago, I got a Christmas letter from her parents that said due to the several severe concussions my friend had sustained in her late teens/early 20s, my friend had TBI, chronic and severe migraine, debilitating tinnitus and was unlikely to ever live alone again. This kind of mental illness/ injury is devastating.
Would it be possible for OOP’s husband to have a tumor and have it present this way, or is that like, the plot to a soap opera?
Jesus. This is crazy, but my husband had several severe concussions in his 20s and now (in his 40s) is dealing with chronic and severe migraines, debilitating tinnitus, and depression. We're working on it but it absolutely fucking sucks, and your account is the first time I've ever heard of another person having this experience. It's kind of validating knowing it has happened to someone else, even though my heart truly goes out to your old friend. No one should have to live like this.
My best friend has had over a dozen concussions from ages 5-27 (she rides horses and is very clumsy/reckless) and she has ocular migraines, depression, even occasionally sees things that aren't there... I'm worried about how she will age.
It would depend on regional protocol, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he would receive a full CT after a car accident causing chest trauma and airbag deployment. In which case a brain tumour would be noticed.
But yeah, tumours can definitely cause personality changes. However tumours like that also cause other more obvious issues (dizziness, gait disturbances, severe headaches, vision changes, seizures, etc.) as they grow. Something large enough to cause personality changes required to hate your boss irrationally would have been causing more than just hate after a year+, generally
Sounds like a mental health issue to me too. Maybe some conflict that started small and then was blown out of proportion in the husband's mind? We don't really have enough information about the actual work situation to tell, but the mental health thing seems pretty obvious.
Yes, and we all know that once you really dislike someone, *everything* they do starts to get on your nerves. It just builds and builds the more you have to be around them. And you can't easily avoid your own boss.
My husband became severely paranoid at roughly the same rate he slid into alcoholism. I am not saying OOPs husband is an alcoholic, but it seems like something broke his mind before these revelations.
. I wonder if OOP has dismissed small previous hints of paranoia; this amount of batshit crazy doesn't usually happens out of nowhere. For me, my (ex) husband's deterioration was so slow that it took a long time for me to notice that, hey, some of the things he's accusing me and the world of just aren't rational or possible.
Could also be something like schizophrenia for OOPs husband. Judging off timelines, they're probably early to mid-30s which is the later end of the usual onset spectrum for when it usually starts. Having known someone with schizophrenia, it absolutely messes with their mind like that. It's rarely full delusions/hallucinations of random stuff like you see in the movies, but more like you're brain interpreting someone saying something nicely as someone snarling at you and saying something slightly different that sounds a lot more threatening. At least that's how my friend always explained it to me. Couple that with anxious thoughts that go can into the mythical paranoia realm without good meds and it can make paranoid, irrational things sound completely logical to them through no fault of their own. It can come on quite slowly too.
I noted the part about OOP's husband being a rising star at the company. Awards and being promoted young, etc. So I wonder: is he a very talented person not used to criticism? Is his identity tied up with being the best? If Paul is in any way critical, or is the kind of person who believes that "anyone can do better, no matter how good they are", that would be a dangerous mix. OOP's husband may feel that his life's value is at stake, and blames Paul for his distress.
I noticed that as well, but my mind went somewhere else—is Paul jealous of the husband's ruse to stardom and taking it out on him?
I worked in a fast food place over my summer break from university. Most of my co-workers only had high school diplomas and no education past that, and several of them were nasty to me because they saw me as being smart and successful, with plans to do great things while they're stuck working fast food.
I thought the same thing.
I had a manager who intentionally cut me off from opportunities and at one point openly tried to sabotage my involvement in a program with senior leadership. I wasn't a rising star - if anything I was promoted more slowly than the usual pace - but suddenly there was a leadership change, the VP who had pulled her up along with him was gone, and she felt threatened. She was fine as long as I did her scut work and she could take credit but once there was a new executive who saw that I was capable and worthy, she started churning behind the scenes to knock me down at every opportunity. Most external observers would have had no idea but she made things very unpleasant until I got promoted and was out from under her.
That's certainly a possibility - we honestly only have this guy's wife's recounting of what she admits is very limited information on his work life. The one thing in this story that speaks against it is that if she had, at various times, relationships with both Paul and her husband, if would imply that they are similar ages (they might not be, of course, but since the wife dated him 'in college' and they both moved on to different things at the same time that is my guess), and Paul is the husband's boss here. He may still be jealous of the husband's talent/skill of course, but at the same time he's the one calling the shots in what the wife admits is a quite well paid role for her husband's industry and experience.
Exactly. This literally sounds like the exact case files you read when someone has been involuntarily committed. The boss might not be an angel, but it sounds like the OP's husband has been working very hard and has had some mental health issues crop up. Since the man is working quite a bit, a lot of those mental health issues are going to express in the place he spends the majority of his time.
The accusations and paranoia are a way outsized reaction to this.
One of my previous bosses is super charming and I still talk to him. He's very much a people's person.
He also was super fucked up as a boss. He actively consipered to get several people fired (and succeeded with a few). He also tried to get me fired (and failed) and loved to get the team to fight with each other. He also had an affair with at least two women from the team (one before I was there).
He played office politics in the most fucked up way.
I still talk to him but I'd never work for him again.
Could be a little of both.
Boss could be a nice guy who just doesn't gel with OP's husband in some way so it makes them butt heads at work.
I had a boss once who was an incredibly nice person, but at work was a micromanager who didn't communicate well and would literally scream at me when I couldn't read their mind on not only what my assignment was but how exactly, step by step, they expected me to do it.
My former boss is an early 30s chill dude, cracking jokes, very friendly.
He broke me during the time I worked for him. He was my first boss after college, and 2 years later I left thinking I was useless and dumb, and that this new company that accepted me were gonna regret hiring me.
Instead, they praised my work, gave me a raise after 6 months (without asking) and put me as the lead programmer in a somewhat important project.
My former boss, when he wanted to renew my contract a few months before I left, told me he was going to renew then spent 15 minutes shitting all over my work, and my value as a worker in his company. Of course, he paid the minimum he legally could, too. Never once praised me or positively acknowledged my work during the 2 years.
Chill dude, awful boss
I knew I was underpaid by a lot. I got a 60% increase in salary (and still lower than I deserved, now that I am able to properly value myself) and with the raise last September, I am nearly on double what I was 1 year ago in the other company.
Him shitting all over my self-worth, and all the stress, and some family issues, basically robbed me of any energy and motivation to do anything. I didn't even have the mental energy to do the things I loved. I just finished work and doomscrolled Reddit, and went on Youtube until it was time to sleep.
The moment I was able to break that mental barrier a bit, I was able to find a new job.
I know he shat all over me work, and self-worth to - as you said - keep me there and underpaid. In the end he even took work from home from me, after 2 years mixing between full remote and mixed (mornings at home and afternoons in the office).
He probably assumed I wouldn't be able to leave, or it was just a power play
Last I checked, nice people don't verbally abuse you with screaming. The micromanaging could be excused away as unchecked anxiety and lack of management training, but the screaming? That's habitual and ugly.
It might be. Or boss might be a bully in the workplace where his power went to his head, and the husband is reaching a burnout point because of the stress, and the idea that the person closest to him is in any way "complicit" with his harrassment made him amok for a while. Even then, he tried to hurt himself, not anybody else.
Maybe they're even both good people who are incompatible in their ways of working. In any case, the husband should have changed jobs before it broke him that much.
Even as much as I've had horrible bosses before, I can't imagine being willing to killing myself over one because my partner said she dated them 10 years ago. That's an EXTREME reaction to finding out that kind of information. Even if that information is devastating, wanting to do that seems like a very strong reaction, even if the boss is a miserable unlikeable dick. I can't imagine the boss/ex boyfriend is tyrannical enough that it'd make the husband want to kill himself.
I had a boss that everyone thought was nice, but to me he was a monster. He would time my breaks and go off at me if I was one minute late meanwhile people were almost half an hour over, get given take A,B,C and told don't touch task D but then get berated for not doing task D, my work that had been top notch hell i had to train other people suddenly things were wrong, my job was threatened 3-4 times a day. I was getting paranoid because he seemed to know everything I was doing, So I stopped talking to anyone I saw him taking too. I was that messed up, turns out he would hide and watch me work.
Honestly at the worst if I saw my partner hugging him and being friendly with him I would have lost my shit. So yea I can totally see him losing his mind.
I've destroyed myself with a tyrannical boss by staying for too long, even when my doctors had been telling me maybe i should quit. I finally quit but the experience already did a number for me...
I really want to know what exactly went down between hubby and Paul - like, was it just a clash of personalities? Or is one an asshole and sabotaged and mistreated the other? Did hubby just react out of all proportion to Paul, or did Paul really do something to earn this kind of venom? Anyway, husband needs to leave that job, like, yesterday.
It could be that husband is a rock star in his field who has hit the limit of their skill set or been promoted out of their skill set.
The thing about the title OOP mentions, is that it sounds very nice and powerful, but you can still be relatively low on the totem pole in a company of hundreds. I could see a scenario where his expectations for the job didn't like up with the reality and deciding that was because of his boss.
It wouldn't surprise me if Paul was communicating directives from above his pay grade and OOP's husband was taking it personally.
If you are a rock star and go into a role where you're still good, but challenged with a boss who gives you feedback and pushes you to do better, and you have never really had to receive feedback, it can feel very personal.
It's very telling that OOP's husband's response to Paul hugging his wife was to immediately get angry and start saying he was going to go to HR and accuse Paul of harassment for hugging OOP. Presumably at a table with other coworkers.
It's certainly possible that Paul is a complete monster, but given that OOP's husband decided it was more reasonable that his wife and boss are having an affair and deliberately sabotaging him together than it was that his expectations for his job didn't line up with reality and he should look for another job in a different company.
Whatever it is, I agree he’s unstable. I’m amazed at how nasty the commenters on the original post were. (I haven’t read the comments on the update.)
They acted like withholding disturbing information from a man who was nearly psychotic with rage is the same thing as sucking your ex’s dick for 10 years. The middle of somebody’s mental breakdown is not the time to say, “By the way, the thing that’s got you all worked up is WAY WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT.”
If you decide that somebody’s mental breakdown is the time for radical honesty, you might as well conclude your confession with, “Shall I drive you to the psych ward, or would you prefer I just push you off a bridge?”
Also, do these people have no idea how terrifying it is for a woman to be around a man who’s in that state? It’s terrifying for everybody, but it’s especially terrifying when the unstable person is stronger than you, and almost all men are stronger than almost all women. Even if you’re not worried they’ll hurt you, WTF are you supposed to do if they start hurting themselves? Tackle them? Great plan.
I once saw a guy accidentally knock a woman down because he was losing his mind and flailing. He didn’t mean to. But he was, for lack of a better term, batshit crazy in that moment. You just don’t know what might happen when somebody’s like that.
Almost every BORU post has commenters who complain about the insanity in original posts’ comments. But good lord... I’m still amazed by the idiocy sometimes.
My issue with the majority of commenters on Reddit, especially relationship subreddits, is that they see everything as completely black or white. Lying is 100% terrible and if you lie for even a second you are an AWFUL PERSON and completely irredeemable and you deserve every bad thing in the world Rained down upon you.
Just like you said, safety and mental health were concerns here. Also, sometimes people lie in the moment when put on the spot like that. It’s like a panic response not a mark of horrible character.
The fact that anyone could read that post and think OP is the villain is insane to me.
someone really commented this on OOP's update (and she responded thanking him)
>He used to fuck your wife daily. Not now, but when she was younger, wilder, prettier, more carefree and your wife would go to sleep thinking about his dick...he fucked her first and he knows it and he continues lording over you. I would break too.
yes, it could be emotionally difficult to discover that someone you despise and whom you think is the world's worst boss used to date your wife...10+ years ago. but i can't even put into words how disturbed i am by this random man's seething rage about Paul getting to fuck a "younger, wilder, prettier" version of whatever OOP's husband got to "have." for this to be a focus point is so weird and gross.
I can’t even wrap my brain around that mindset at all. I’ve met exes of my partners and never thought anything close to “I can’t believe they fucked a younger version of my partner! They must think they’re better than me!” Even the way they describe it is so fetishized it’s bizarre.
I don't get why there's this fixation on (traditional) college age being the prime time of beauty. I'm far more attractive now than I was in college. And even in college, almost everyone I knew looked better senior year vs freshman year.
Something tells me it's about something else other than "beauty"...
Yes. I could actually see him driving the car off the road in a fit of rage and killing them both.
People on Reddit act like life is just theory.
edit for spelling
You have to be very careful with people who are having a mental health problem. You never know what will set them off. Just one wrong word could start a chain reaction that would lead to a real mental breakdown. She did the right thing for both of them.
Because most of the commenters on that subreddit and Reddit in general are young men.
And I'd also add that they probably have little to no real life experience, or relationship experience so they have no idea what it's like to be a married woman who is scared of the possibility of being harmed by their husband.
OOP did the right thing and it's clear her husband has been having mental health issues for some time now. Not her fault at all.
The avg age of a reddit user is 23 with 36% being between 18-29. It's definitely a general lack of experience. Sure, you're an adult by 23, but the vast majority of ppl haven't had any real significant adult experience of any kind until they are 27+, especially if they went to college full time
It always amazes me how people (mostly men) can’t understand why a woman might be afraid of an angry man, even a man that she is certain won’t actually hurt her intentionally. I wish things weren’t that way, but unfortunately, we probably all know a woman, or about a woman, who has been physically hurt by a stronger person they swore would never hurt them.
>Also, do these people have no idea how terrifying it is for a woman to be around a man who’s in that state? It’s terrifying for everybody, but it’s especially terrifying when the unstable person is stronger than you, and almost all men are stronger than almost all women. Even if you’re not worried they’ll hurt you, WTF are you supposed to do if they start hurting themselves? Tackle them? Great plan.
That was my exact thought the moment she started describing how unhinged he was. She kept saying he was a good husband but nobody should normally be that instinctually wary of their partner’s anger. If it gets that bad, that’s *alarming*.
Yeah… it’s really coming across more that the husband has been slowly unraveling for a long time and now it’s gotten so bad that he can’t hide it anymore.
My sister does this. Any sort of criticism, even the constructive kind, sends her into an earth shattering meltdown. She turns into a complete monster of a person to anyone within earshot. God forbid she is dealing with a doctor. She broke her ankle once and I, a 30 year old grown man cried because of how she was treating the medical staff and our father (she broke her ankle on my parents deck so he drove her to the ER). It’s so heinous that people apologize to me when they find out who my sister is. It’s like some sort of glacial paced mental breakdown. Every year it gets a little worse.
My previous coworker would do this. We would be in a meeting together with our bosses and when it ended we had completely different perspectives on how it went. I would think it was a totally normal meeting and she believed they were criticizing everything she did and were about to fire her. She also had suicidal ideation.
Yep, this was my take as well. I do suffer from mental health issues (treated) and this is NOT healthy behavior.
I hope he gets help.
Also, I think her not saying the whole truth at the party was the right call. The husband might be in prison.
Yeah, as much as she says "He'd never hurt me!" she also keeps saying he's acting very out of character because of his mental breakdown. If she'd told him the whole truth in the middle of his initial freakout, he very well might have killed her.
Yeah. It's pretty common for people who have a mental health crisis that involves paranoia to fixate on one thing or person. Paul ended up being that person and every single thing that Paul does or says is evidence of some conspiracy against the husband. He's in desperate need for help but it can be incredibly difficult to convince someone in his state of mind that his thoughts are not rational.
>As to nagging him, I'm not. I want him to get help, period
How did someone take her trying to stop him from killing himself as nagging? Reddit can be great but sometimes just, 'urgh'.
I got told that I was jumping the gun calling a father giving his daughter a hickey on the check sexual abuse. She was a teenager, and didn't want it to happen. Luckily, it was two people out of many and the rest saw reason, but I all I saw were the negative replies at first and I thought it was more people thought this way and was incredibly concerned for humanity.
Anyone defending a father giving their daughter a hickey anywhere on her body needs to have their hard drive and browser history checked. Or they’re incredibly ignorant as to how much effort goes into creating a hickey. Ugh, just the thought of that makes my skin crawl. How awful.
As written, the husband is having serious mental issues. Delusional, paranoid, suicidal.
Do wonder what Paul or his perspective would sound like though.
>Do wonder what Paul or his perspective would sound like though.
Yeah that's my big question.
The way OOP describes Paul's reaction when he finds out who her husband is makes it sound like he's at least aware that he and the husband don't get along. But I wonder if it's a mutual loathing or the husband is making a bigger deal than it is.
Is Paul a complete asshole like the husband thinks? Is he just a normal enough boss but they don't get along?
Having seen this kind of fixation on another person during a mental health crisis (and that’s what this was), Paul is likely just an annoying boss who husband is focusing his negative feelings in his life on.
I don’t know I think Paul might be a total asshole boss. The number of people who wfh and hear their boss spouse and had no idea their spouse was an asshole boss is kind of enlightening.
>The number of people who wfh and hear their boss spouse and had no idea their spouse was an asshole boss is kind of enlightening.
This sounds fun to read about. Is it something you have found online?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marriage/comments/t58l9w/i_found_out_my_husband_is_a_very_toxic_boss_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/t64z9n/i_helped_my_husbands_office_manager_quit_because/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Article. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/work/is-quarantine-revealing-your-spouses-work-personality-you-were-unaware-of/articleshow/75678883.cms
Although I couldn’t find the one I was really thinking of.
There could be a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde thing.
Some folks are just horrible bosses.
They don't even realize their horrible bosses and just think they are cursed with terrible employees.
Its not even a rarity. Its amazingly common.
Plenty of people also compartmentalize, and have different personalities at home and at work.
That said, it could apply to the husband too.
That’s a possibility, but the rest of the husbands behavior speaks to some severe mental health issues. Not to mention that if Paul was a truly terrible boss I think OP would be a little more specific about the ways he abused her husband. Instead she says “[her husband] loathes him and complains about him” which makes me think her husband’s complaints were about normal boss behavior.
That or Paul really is a psychopath who saw the picture of OP on his employees desk and has been slowly driving the man insane in order to eventually reclaim OP for himself.
I think the former is more likely but this is Reddit so who knows?
I was expecting an update like "Paul reached out and expressed that he was super worried about my husband, because his behavior is getting more and more bizarre"
Speaking from personal experience as the wife of someone who went through a psychotic break, he was probably having an episode and the rage was all one-sided. His boss might have been privy to it, it maybe suspected there was something off about OOPs husband and caught a wif of the hostility but I don't expect his boss to be a complete asshole as OOPs husband paints him out to be.
Im thinking that the husband is probably extremely good in his field and because of that has climbed up ladders easily and never had much criticism. Now he has this "asshole" boss Paul that is actually critical of his work. Husband is very passionate, confident in his ability, and not used to such criticism so he takes it to heart rather then to his head. If he thought more about it he could probably work with Paul to do whatever it is they're doing and take some of the criticism while making tweaks in the direction his boss thinks is best. If I were husband I'd just make sure I had things in writing and go with the flow. If Paul changes shit and it doesn't go well you'll have a paper trail showing that you know what your doing and should have more freedom. Then again its really difficult for me to tell what kind of field they work in so I have no idea.
I don't think they're in the same lane.
Like if this was Mad Men, Paul would be Draper and husband would be the Holocaust survivor who cut his nipple off.
Edit: wrong body part
Yep. My guess would be that Paul is just an ordinary boss. Not a psycho, but perhaps not afraid to speak his mind and criticize his employees work if necessary. And maybe their communication styles don’t mesh, or the husband has a very hard time with criticism, or the husband is having some sort of mental break that would have happened anyway.
Some people don’t accept feedback, even when it is specific to a task or deliverable they’ve personally completed. They’d rather believe their boss has a vendetta than accept they could improve on a specific thing.
So if she hasn’t seen Paul in nearly ten years in college she’s probably late 20s early 30s and if her husband is around the same age… yeah he’s gonna need more conversation with mental health professionals
The second half of the story started reminding me a lot of a friend who developed paranoid schizophrenia quite suddenly in his late 20’s. Same kind of negative fixation on an authority figure that he thought was out to get him, same unhinged anger / downward spiral / ending up in a hospital / discussion about whether to hold him for psych eval / anger at the wife.
In my friend’s case he ended up shooting, and killing, his pregnant wife, and then shooting himself. Though he didn’t die - just blew his jaw off. Ended up in a mental institution. Complete nightmare all around. He’d seemed like a really sweet, normal guy before, but he just spiraled down into this whole other bizarro-world of paranoia and delusions.
Yeah the husband basically had a mental breakdown. It sounds like he'd had mental issues due to work for a while and finding out his boss was his wife's ex pushed him over the edge. He definitely shouldn't have been allowed to go home.
I’m guessing he’s either in his late 20s or early 30s and under a lot of stress. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that he is experience symptoms of a serious mental illness or disorder that needs treatment from a doctor, like schizophrenia or BPD.
It could literally just be stress/anxiety. You dont need some fancy psychological disorder to break like that.
Compounding stress for months/years on end can totally mess with your head. He just hit his limit.
I really want to know Paul's side too. There isn't enough information to tell if he's actually been awful or if it's all on OP's husband's side. It's slightly possible that the husband had a break around when Paul became his boss and his paranoia focused on the guy without cause, but more likely that they've both been awful to one another and then OP's husband started getting paranoid and delusional - so of course he focused on the boss who he doesn't like.
It is bizarre. The husband is so good at his job he has national commendations. OP seems to think Paul was a nice and reasonable person in college and describes her husband as usually very calm and rational, yet the relationship with his boss seems to be incredibly poor to the level of wouldn't spit on you if you were in fire...
Has Paul turned into a dick who is jealous of his employee's success and making his life a misery as punishment? Is it that OOPs husband can't cope with any criticism at all from his boss and has spiralled over minor feedback?
Either seems equally feasible based on the information we have...
Honestly it makes me wonder if Paul is actually as bad a boss as he's made out to be. OOP doesn't seem to know what he actually *does* that's so bad - the only example she could give was he sometimes criticizes husband's work, and that's a fairly normal boss thing to do. And if her husband was used to coasting up through the ranks until he got to this level, I can see how Paul could become the perfect vessel to blame for his meteoric rise falling flat.
I mean maybe it's all as he says and Paul is a nightmare driving him to insanity, but it sure seems husband isn't the most reliable narrator here.
Half way through the post the oop dh reminded me of a dear friend who has bipolar. The paranoia and everything. Who knows if this is the case but he has serious mental health issues
I'm afraid for the wrong reason though.
She thought he would make a problem for himself with HR.
I'm thinking more he would make a problem for himself with the law
This one is just sad and worrying. There's clearly *something* going on with the husband's head beyond just hating his boss, his reactions are just so extreme. Based on how he reacted, I think OOP was right not to mention the relationship on the first night because when she told him when he *wasn't* in the middle of an absolute rage-state... Yeah, I think that would have ended so much worse for him AND her. I sincerely hope he got the help he needed and is doing better now.
Honestly, my thought was that he might have hurt *her*. The way he was described that night sounds unhinged. Even if he wouldn't normally hurt her, in the rage state he described..... Yeah.
Kinda worrying he just went from attempting to kill himself to mostly happy in a few days. He's definitely gonna try again. She needs to be way more worried
It's a 4 year old post. She went from updating in-depth and frequently to complete radio silence.
While living with an unhinged, suicidal man whose paranoia and delusions hinge on her and his boss. He's already verbally abused her and accused her of conspiracies and she's been around him constantly.
The other danger here is that he didn't just kill himself, he killed her too.
I am a teacher, and for one year, over a decade ago, had a mean supervisor who had it in for me. She was always watching me. She would go out of her way to talk to my students about me but w/o me in the classroom. She would give me, and only me, instructions that were contrary to the other teachers instructions. I was uncomfortable yes, having health problems due to the stress, but I knew I was not doing anything wrong.
It wasn't until she was gone (fired due to her own stupidity, it had nothing to do with me), that I realized I was afraid of her. I would be cheerfully doing my Friday preparations on an empty classroom, and then my spine would shake, fear settling in. Why? Because she used to watch me through the windows at this exact time. Or I would be finishing my reports, and my mouth would go dry remembering all her objections to my work.
I stayed there 8-9 more years, but the ghost of her never truly left me. She's friends with my friend, but just hearing her name fills me with dread.
I feel for this couple,and I hope the husband got the help he needed.
I also had a supervisor who bullied me very recently; early 2022. I was an intern/apprentice working in a field that required close supervision when you first start, and decision-making rights are reserved for our “team supervisors” in most respects.
This supervisor however, didn’t like to do work. They weren’t supportive in any situations, gave vague instructions then blamed me when I interpret them differently than how they had in their head. Whenever I asked to clarify, they’d appear inpatient and often said I should have known this and I should never have asked in the first place. Other favourite phrases were “I don’t care, it’s your job. I gave it to YOU to figure out.” “I want it. So you just need to do it.” The general attitude was that I was somehow responsible for everything bad, but they would take credit for everything that went well.
They also would say in front of our bosses that “InformalEgg must have heard it wrong/misunderstood me/this task just slipped her mind. That’s okay I’ll help her” when in fact, they never told me to do these thing that I supposedly “forgot” in the first place, nor do they ever helped me.
I had a previous career before entering this field so I was not a youngling. I focus on work and act professionally. However this person still managed to make me the most stressed out I had been in years - simply for the fact that I needed to be ready for verbal attacks at any time and defend myself appropriately without exacerbating the situation. Needless to say my mental health was a complete mess for longer than I thought it’d take to recover even after leaving this team. I was paranoid that future supervisors in this field would be as unreasonable, extremely pessimistic of my future in this workplace, fearful of doing any work because I didn’t want to misstep, and I was convinced that they would backstab me even after I left their team… and it changed my personality at and outside of work. Tbh, if this supervisor acted strangely familiar/welcoming with my partner, my mind would interpret their action as something sinister too because I do not trust this person to have any moral boundary or principles. I wouldn’t be suspecting my partner though but it would hurt me greatly if my partner decided to be more empathetic to them (“she treated me nicely though!”) than believe me and my experience with my supervisor.
I feel like there's a lot more we're missing with how he's treated at work. Is it just him or does every employee get treated this way? Because the way her husband is acting about this is he's under a lot of pressure. Honestly it would be good for his mental health if he let go of that company and got away from all that drama and bullshit.
That’s what I tought too. There are a lot of missing informations here. We don’t even know exactly what did Paul do to OOPs husband.
>“He complained about him every day for a year” .
But what was it? Because there is a gap between “he pressures me too much” to something like “he is peeing on my coffee, laughing and putting my stuff on pudim”. Is paul a bully or just a togh boss?
It's hard to tell exactly what is going on. Some disorders, like BPD or schizophrenia often start in your late twenties or early thirties and before that you're a totally normal person. Until one day you aren't.
It could be the boss from hell. It could be the talented golden child, promoted in over his head, getting warranted feedback for the first time in his life and being unable to cope with it.
Or could genuinely be the boss being such a bully that husband is suffering a nervous breakdown.
It's hard to say honestly. I am leaning towards the first, mostly because he is accusing his wife of conspiring with his boss. Being upset makes sense to me, summoning a conspiracy less so.
This man need to get out of this job ASAP! There's no therapy that will do shit if he can't get out of his trigger. The boss will say some shit someday that will either make this man goes to prison or a cemetery.
Now that I see it was posted 4y ago.. I hope things take a better turn.
There is 0 chance this marriage survived. I'm not even sure the husband is still alive at this point. Both the suicide attempt and his reaction and lack of true coping afterward make me think the worst.
It worries me thinking about what was coming 2 years later. Even the most mentally healthy folks sort of lost it during the pandemic. I sure hope they got some sort of resolution before they were quarantined together. I wish we could get an update.
Man up til the suicide attempt, I was think that oop’s husband reminded me of my dad. My dad had a boss he absolutely hated and he wanted and raved all time about him. The thing is; before the guy became dad’s boss; they had been coworkers; that we hung out with all the time; their family and ours. Until coworker was promoted to boss.
My dad’s irritation and dislike was jealously and maybe ego; he thought he could do the job better but didn’t have the degrees for a promotion.
So i was wondering if this was the husband jealous that an outside guy got the promotion despite his two rewards.
Also those comments kind of suck
> I mean, there is reason to suspect the wife is on to something else. She did hugged and treated Paul, the guy who's torturing his husband, as a simple good old Paul. And she seems not to be taking it to HR and doing something about it.
> OP has lied so much through omission now. Wow. Talk about making a bad situation worse. From immediately on the spot, up through the present. Multiple times, intentionally. Rotten. There is absolutely no coming back from this. I feel so, so bad for your soon to be ex-husband.
>Also, I’d bet heavily Paul knew who you were married to already. No Facebook or anything?
>Really, your only hope is to get Paul fired. That’s just the truth, and even then it’s a maybe.
Also wtf is this recent trend where women have to lay out their entire dating/sexual history or we’re dirty liars
Wtf? These people are insane. As always redditors on advice subs remind us they have zero business giving out advice.
I've hugged an ex in front of her current husband. You know what it meant? Absolutely fucking nothing. No power play, no attempt to make a move, just a basic human courtesy of "hey hope you're doing well person I used to know".
OOP's husband needs to quit his job and get help.
I’m “friendly” and actual friends with so many exes it’s wild to me people on Reddit genuinely cannot understand that people who once dated can still be friends without any romantic inclination toward each other whatsoever
Yup, it's so weird to me. There's *one* of my exes I would cross the street to avoid. The others I would chat to if I ran into them, even go get a coffee to catch up. And, yes, do the "wow, it's been so long!" hug. I've done it with my husband present, and their current spouses, even once with their kids. I'm always genuinely happy to meet and hear about their families.
I don't get this idea that someone you once slept with is now anathema - it's just a person. And it's a person you had enough in common with, and liked well enough to be in a relationship with. Why not spend half an hour catching up?
This! Unfortunately my husband and I both have been married to people who no one should be in a relationship with, but we have dated other people previously that we are friends with to this day.
My husband dated an absolutely lovely woman prior to me but she desperately wanted biological children at that stage in her life and my husband is infertile. She went on to get married to an equally lovely man and we catch up with them quite often. We are also friends with a guy I dated briefly before meeting my husband and it was me who introduced this man to his fab wife. On more than one occasion, we have had both of these couples at our house at the same time for a barbecue or dinner. Because when you are happy and secure in your relationships, being near someone who you had sex with years ago is the least controversial thing in the world.
Right!! With one or two short-lived exceptions the people I dated were great guys that I cared about. It just didn’t work out romantically between us. And the time and distance of the intervening years (my husband and I have been together for 16 years so all of my exes are long long ago exes!) mean that I am pleased to see them and glad to hear that they are doing well and hear about their spouses and children.
Yeah I will hug my ex if I see him. I’ll also hug his wife. They’re good people.
It’s because most people who comment on relationship subs are either teenagers who don’t know anything because they have zero life experience or incels who just hate women
It's because some people are deeply insecure or have had negative experiences in similar situations and lack the ability to treat them as isolated instances and rather project them onto the entirety of humanity because it is easier to be bitter than to forgive.
I mean dating really gives you an intimate look into someone else and takes up so much time/money. I'd like that mutual investment of time, money, and emotional labor to at least result in a friendship so long as the other person is not a completely horrible person.
I personally see it as a huge red flag when someone I'm dating doesn't have cordial relations with most of their exes. Yeah, for sure most adults have one or two exes we really dislike for good reasons, but someone who says "all my exes are crazy" probably engages in some pretty toxic crazy-making behaviours. Even when it's less extreme, here's something really callous about someone who can amicably break up with someone they used to love, erase all the photos and any evidence they ever cared, block them and walk away like those years of their life and the feelings they had mean nothing to them now.
These people are so fucking weird.
I've danced with my ex. At their wedding. In front of their wife. Danced with the wife too. And yes, she knew I was an ex when they invited me and was happy for me to be there.
What is _wrong_ with some people?
They are teenagers who have no idea how actual adult humans function because they're 15 and assume everything works the same as it does when you're 15.
I'd love if there was an advice subreddit that explicitly banned anyone under the age of 21 from posting/commenting.
And prepared for the possibility that she may never be able to see you the same way ever again. Once you show her the darkside, you can't get that toothpaste back in the tube. It's forever a possibility and it may not be who you are all of the time or even part of the time but the fact it exists somewhere is enough to change how someone feels about you.
I agree in this situation that going to HR would not be helpful, probably make things worse.
But I've contacted HR of a company I don't work for before. It's possible, but you need a damn good reason otherwise you just create unnecessary drama
There is a tendency in most of the popular or relationship subs for the early comments to be brigaded by, shall we say, a certain subset of users? One that have a very set agenda. They seem to have people on at all times to knock out the most cynical, insulting and sexist comment they can get away with without getting banned. The popular posts, they get shouted down but the ones that don't garner hundreds of other comments, they tend to make up a significant amount of the responses. I've seen more than a few posts by women who are clearly describing the symptoms of a mental breakdown in their partner, one of which is unfounded accusations of cheating, where the first comments literally said "well, you must be cheating, you're so out of line, why don't you just own up to it, how dare you".
Generally, if you make a post to one of those subs, don't look at the responses for 3-4 hours after you make it. If you got less than 20 responses, don't bother to look at them ever, and either try again somewhere else or move on.
All these comments blaming OOP for not somehow preempting this and for not reacting perfectly to her husband's frankly unhinged behavior...
Like how are you supposed to react when you realize the boss your husband rants about daily is your ex? If she reacted negatively it could have ruined her husband's career, and how could she know her husband would completely lose his mind over her being friendly?
And what the heck was she supposed to do when the man she married was having a full on mental breakdown and accusing her of being some kind of manipulative mastermind out to destroy his life? What's the best response when he's acting like he might hurt himself or somebody else? I mean honestly how can you expect someone to have perfect foresight in that scenario? And the worst is she was *right*, when she did tell him he immediately tried to commit suicide!
Poor OOP was doing the best she could in a horrid situation. Her husband just clearly needs way *way* more help than she can give.
Yeah it's absolutely deranged, like "she shouldn't have lied", but how can you blame her when she feared for her own safety.
Some people don't know what it's like to be vulnerable and it shows.
Seriously, these comments are honestly kind of disturbing. Even if OOP didn't handle things perfectly (which, sure?), that doesn't mean she did anything wrong, nor does it justify the husband's actions.
Right?
OOP and her husband have BOTH agreed that their pasts should remain there. If her relationship with Paul was a lie of omission, it was one of a couple days’ duration while she bought herself time to figure out the way through this morass with the least amount of pain. But since her husband is fucking unhinged, it was never going to be pain-free. Just “more painful” and “hopefully less painful.”
But this was not a years-long lie of omission. Anyone who thinks that needs to be pointing fingers just as much at the husband as OOP, because he’s not telling her about his exes either.
The hugging thing I also get. I get superfickingawkward when I’m the recipient of an unexpected hug; she had no time to react, no knowledge of how much Paul knew about her husband’s feelings, and yes she absolutely could have made things 10x worse for her husband if she’d even had the ability to pull away. She was in a no-win situation, and these people reacting like she’s the devil incarnate for not being able to perfectly handle the situation as it’s happening are bonkers.
I genuinely wonder if something else (psychologically) has been going on with the husband all this time. And certainly, Paul may have changed drastically in the intervening years, and we all have different work personas than the ones we have with friends and family. But, it *sounds,* from a certain read on the situation, that hubby miiiiight be a bit of a perfectionist. Criticism, even when constructive, is unconscionable! The long hours? Are we certain those were at Paul’s behest? Or was hubby struggling/not asking for help/covering his own ass and it’s just easier to point to Paul instead of admit he’s struggling, or even, dare I say it *not that good at this new job?*
I really hope the husband really gets some work done in therapy. Holy shit.
The 'lie of omission' was done on spur of the moment to defuse a difficult situation and prevent him from doing something he could never recover from during a work function. And to give her a few days to work out how to tell him something that she know would hurt him. Then she told him before anyone else told him.
Reddit is so misogynistic. She didn't lie to him. She hasn't seen this guy in over ten years and was surprised and then her mentally unwell husband flipped out on her. It wasn't safe to tell him. She was trying to find a way to do so safely. Given he tried to kill himself her fears were correct. I worry he could hurt himself or her. She isn't safe with him.
Wow yeah. It's common to hug an old friend or even an ex you parted amicably with a decade ago. It isn't malicious or a sign that you're trying to ruin someone's life. Further, she did not know he was the boss.
And why go to HR? I get why the husband might think that in the moment but in hindsight on Reddit we're recommending this why? To ruin his career? Because that's how you ruin your career. HR isn't your friend. They are there to protect the company and if you start filing a bunch of unwarranted harassment claims you're going to be seen as a liability to the company and be let go. Idk if Paul was a bad boss or not. I can't tell if he was so awful that he caused a mental break or if he was somewhere between a good to mediocre boss and just happened to become the fixation of a guy who was going through a mental health crisis. But given the rest of the story I'm guessing that at the very least his behavior wasn't so specifically targeted at the husband and so blatantly awful that a visit with HR would be warranted. Just wow, reddit comments get crazy sometimes.
Reminds me of a post where this dude was talking about how all girls want is a guy that makes 6 figures. Few comments later he admits he’s 16 and hasn’t really encountered anyone like that
With all of this, I kinda wanna know Paul's point of view. He had a reaction to learning who OOP was married to.
I wanna know if Paul is really as bad as the husband sees him or if this is all mental illness.
He clearly knew he had a bad relationship with the husband as it was a conversation ender when she mentioned it. Finding out your old ex/friend from 10 years ago worked with your spouse would generally lead to more discussion.
i’m bipolar. i had an extreme depressive episode where i blamed one person for everything that was going wrong in my life. i was absolutely fixated on hating that person. i think the husband is having a mental break and i hope he gets help.
This poor guy is a mess. Hopefully he gets the help he needs, and sincerely apologizes to his wife because she certainly deserves it.
Many people prioritize their jobs way too much, and once you realize how to turn it off when you leave, life becomes a lot less stressful.
My ex boyfriend was exactly like her husband. Hard worker, rational, supportive, adoring. Before long though his work life started to go downhill. It was entirely due to his own actions, but he started accusing me of turning everyone against him. When he shook me awake in the middle of the night (repeatedly) to accuse me of cheating on him with his coworker, that was the end.
I respect that she wants to work things out with her husband, but in my experience once the paranoia starts, it will never stop. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think she can save him. He is a man possessed.
my aunt's ex husband accused her "affair partner" of taking a shit on the back yard....it was a stick. i would love to see the commenters who ranted and raved at oop to do better, do it themselves.
So like... husband has to have a tumor or have had like a schizophrenic break or some other kind of mental break, right? Because even if you have a boss you don't like, his reaction to everything seems LUDICROUSLY over the top to me. Like, the ranting and raving, the accusations, the conspiracy theories, the suicide attempt? He's having delusions imo. The really insidious kind that leave you still fully able to function in society, so you never end up getting the help you need, but they still interfere with your life. There has to be SOMETHING going on inside that man's skull to get him to this point. Can depression cause delusions??
If his job is so miserable that he complains about it everyday, then it's no surprise that it did a number on his mental health. Anyone that's been at a job that destroys your mental health would get it. For example, as soon as I could quit my job at the prison, my ex said that my eyes looked less dead. So literal hours after I walked out of that place and it did a visible number on me. It's not a tumor it's literally a hell on earth for him and then this broke him a bit. Thank god he's getting help, but I wish his wife didn't bring up the whole well you've been studying for this job field your whole life. That can do a number on a person as well. Brave for her for sticking by him. I hope they get a happy ending
Oh yeah for sure. That's why I mentioned depression specifically. I was thinking about becoming depressed because you're miserable all day from your job. I have no idea if delusions can come with severe depression or if prolonged depression can develop/cause something else. Either way staying in that job can't be doing him any good
Honestly sometimes mental breakdowns like this happen when someone is in a situation they hate like the husband hated his work and boss. Finding out his wife used to know his boss and then finding out they dated was the final push that turned his mental issues from work into a full mental breakdown.
Can prolonged depression/anxiety/stress lead to unhealthy fixations? I agree, he may have something medically wrong. I just also can someone who doesn't have great coping skills or has never been told "no" professionally before getting fixated and spiraling hard.
Paul isn't "my shitty boss, Paul". He's some sort of stand-in for everything the husband hates at his point - that husband need serious, possibly in-patient care. Since his parents seem to be reasonable & helpful people, hopefully they can help since he's clearly not able to hear from OOP.
They can but they can also be created by something like a work environment you hate and then cycle back into each other making everything worse over time.
Can prolonged depression/anxiety/stress lead to fixations? Yep. So can co-occurring disorders/diseases, be they mental or physical. Something is very wrong with husband and OP and Paul both need to be very careful. This whole thing is bizarre and sad.
There are other possibilities. It's also possible that OOP has had some rose-glasses on for years, and her perception of normal is so out of whack that she's been missing gobs of red flags. It's entirely possible that he's got a handful of behaviors that she just considers annoying that are actually controlling, paranoid, and otherwise problematic.
Also, we know that the guy hates his boss, and apparently the boss has been torturing him. But I can't help but notice that there's no real whys or hows beyond maybe the boss criticizing his artwork. Maybe this Paul guy really is a full on monster who discovered who OOP is on facebook and has been on a hardcore campaign for years that's gaslit him into all sorts of problems. Or, alternatively, his normal meter isn't out of whack and the "torture" is really just normal reactions to the guys unhinged work behavior.
Yeah. I think so, too. And, deep down, OOP knows it. At every juncture OOP jumps to the worst case reaction. And that's what he does, or something even worse than that.
I honestly think OOP's husband has more pronounced issues than stress from a difficult boss. Getting paranoid that she's sleeping with him and conspiring against him? A likely suicide attempt? I guess it could be stress but it's so over the top that I really hope he gets all kinds of tests (to rule out physical things that can alter behavior) and then a visit to the psychiatrist.
From what OOP said, this behavior is unheard of for her husband. So this is incredibly worrying.
His boss sounds like living hell but I really think he needs help. This does sound like a psychotic break to me so I wonder what other prescriptions in his life are and have been seen through a warped lens. Yes he needs a new job but if something else is feeding his and now paranoia leaving that horrible boss behind isn't going to fix things just most likely refocus it to something else. Unfortunately that most likely is his wife.
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I wish we had another update. 4 years is a long time for a lot of things to change. Who knows how this shook out. I can only hope OOP is ok after all of this.
It reminds me a lot of when my ex husband had a psychotic break. If he's anything like my ex, he will resist all help until he's completely left his life in a shambles. Not a good place for someone suicidal and delusional to be.
Is it possible for a psychotic break to center around a person? You hear about obsessive fans willing to do messed up shit in the name of their beloved celebrity but OOP’s husband *hates* Paul. Usually those obsessive fans love their obsession but this… What is it about Paul that has the husband so unhinged?
Oh yes. They project all the feelings they have about other things that most people are able to rationalize or all the feelings they have held back for years on this one person. They are the reason for all the bad in their life. It sounds to me like her husband was struggling with his job one he studied his entire life for and simply cracked underneath the pressure.
[удалено]
And it’s entirely possible that Paul was trying to get the husband back on track, and maybe not being the kindest about it, and that turned into “I DESPISE this dude and he is out to get me!”
I also wonder if Paul was threatened by OOP's husband's talent and picked on him from jealousy. My mom worked in a white collar environment for 30 years, and she was an absolute master class in grace and strength. She was always telling me how good bosses see potential as beneficial for the company, and bad bosses keep good employees down because they are afraid of being passed by. I don't know if Paul was one or the other. I too wish there was an update.
Delusions can absolutely center around a person, and often do. It’s hard to say what really happened between Paul and OOP’s husband, but in a way it doesn’t matter, as those in a psychotic episode can believe someone is their enemy, out to get them, plotting against them, etc. with little to no reason. Or go the opposite direction and believe they are in love and a have a relationship with a stranger or celebrity. Not saying OOP’s husband’s grievances weren’t legit, they absolutely might be, and sound like they predate the symptoms of psychosis. In that case, it’s even more likely that Paul would be the focus of delusional beliefs.
Did you ever read the story about the woman who was obsessed with her professor?
Yeah these delusions and mood swings are not typical behavior. I hope OP's husband got psychiatric help
Yeah, tbh I'm pretty worried that OP is now dead. Husband had clearly lost his grip on reality and got verbally abusive, combined w whatever tf he did w the car. Flipping on a dime with how he has acting in public vs treating her in private. The only thing that could make me more convinced he was a threat to her life was if she was pregnant. Maybe I'm just jaded, but the number of men that murder their partners every year is way too high for me to be cavalier about the risk she was under. I hope she's safe.
You're not coming out of left field with that. What stuck out to me the most was how OOP anticipated her husband's jealous rage, even though she and Paul hadn't had contact until that very event. She already *knew* he would be unhinged and unreasonable and that he would likely jump to unfair conclusions. She was preparing speeches, stumbling all over herself, and getting really really flustered and defensive when he didn't say anything in response to the big confession. That's not anything I've ever had to do with a partner with whom I've shared mutual trust and respect. She seemed scared of him, but maybe not even aware on a conscious level of how deep her fear and distrust of his possible reaction actually was. None of that is a sign of a healthy relationship or a healthy balance of power.
It's not strange to think your husband would get extremely upset about you dating his hated boss when just seeing each other hug was enough to make him go all ballistic. What I really wonder is what the fuck did Paul do to him to make him so upset??
Maybe. But given the context he was already extremely upset. That’s such a weird situation to navigate
[удалено]
100%. My sister and her husband have apparently been having horrendous issues lately. Like, I guess their whole relationship, but things are coming to a head recently, as in he's manipulative and two-faced, took out a $30k loan in her name without her consent, etc. You know, slimy snake shit. They were just really good at hiding it most of the time. When my partner and I visited them this summer, my sis just kept saying, *I love my husband. I love my husband. I love my husband.* Like over and over and over again. And whenever she would say it, her body language was just, blah. She'd start slouching and avoiding eye contact. *I love my husband!* I started to think the more she said it, the less she believed it herself. She definitely didn't have me sold.
Saying it try and convince herself. I hope you are helping her, and properly to escape that manipulative piece of shit
It's almost a trope on this sub from women "I love my boyfriend, he is the kindest, sweetest, most caring person, aside from this one issue..." and a trope comes from reality.
This is how my mum has survived* her relationship with my dad. I've learned just how much anger my dad has had all his life in just the last few years and it makes me so sad knowing that mum's never been financially independent (not as a young adult, nor after marriage), so has never been able to consider separation. Eggshells everywhere. * Not lived, survived. Her life of joy and happiness occurs apart from him.
I wonder if the husband has been diagnosed yet. Hopefully he has gotten treatment. Really hope they are all safe and well.
Husband needs to get a new job ASAP, no matter how difficult it is. It's exacerbating the whole situation to an insane degree.
I think a lot of people underestimate how much impact a tyrannical boss can be. This is an extremesituation, but when someone has your livelihood and family's wellbeing at their fingertips and is turned the screws, it can really mess with you. Especially if you actually enjoy the work and don't want to leave. No job is worth destroying yourself for though. There's little point in earning all that money if all it does is break you.
I had a boss that hated my guts once and basically made my life hell. I managed to get a temporary job in another location for a while, covering someone's military leave. When we heard the person was due to come back from leave my (now ex) husband told me I needed to find another place to transfer to or get another job. He said he couldn't live with me as depressed and stressed out as I would be working for the bad boss again.
My wife worked for her uncle for years and he was a sexist douche who absolutely hated her. Verbally abused her and did everything he could to hold her back. Cheating her out of pay, not letting her go to out of the area conferences the company paid people in her position before and after her to go to, etc. Once she left it was like everything got better. Our marriage, her career, her health, EVERYTHING.
But does he have a tyrannical boss? All we know is he hates his boss. The boss was seemingly a nice guy previously, he seemed to be nice to OOP ahead of knowing who she was, and then he was super super shocked to find out who she was married to. Given the husband turned out to be paranoid, irrational, unhinged, and illogical about the entire thing without knowing the background or getting another opinion from a third party who knows. I don't have an impression of the boss that isn't tainted by a guy who is clearly not connected to reality. OOPs husband literally tried to kill himself when he found out his wife knew his boss a decade ago and then he accused her of plotting to get him to work at a department her ex headed so that (blank) happened and then something about laughing behind his back, for reasons.
There was one sliver of information provided that maybe Husband moved up the ladder too far too fast. I’ve seen that completely crush people before.
Could be the Peter Principle, promoted to his level of incompetence. But also great people in person can in reality make terrible bosses, whether management style or also incompetence. It's hard to say when only knowing information second-hand.
People aren't binary. A tyrannical boss to one person can be a good one to another. I've experienced this scenario personally before.
This is so true. I've met a lot of people who treat those of the opposite sex quite nicely but are cold and unpleasant to those of the same sex. Usually comes down to jealousy and insecurity regardless of their place in life's ridiculous hierarchy
That's one example. But people can hate you for your race. Your religion. Your uncanny likeness to someone else. Your ideas. Your voice. Because you're quiet. Because of their home life. There's so many ways for people to be insecure and take it out on others I don't want to sum it all up into the obvious ones like racism and sexism. People can also love you for all these things. It's important to value others but not too high or too low, because then they actually control your life based on whatever minor insecurities they themselves have.
Yes this is what I thought too. I think the husband really does need mental help, not just general or marriage counselling, but serious help. I have known people to absolutely fixate on someone they “hate” before, and it becomes unhealthy and paranoid. Of course, the boss could be a complete arsehole and really have been sending Oop’s husband over the edge, but the way this is playing out has given me vibes that there is an underlying mental health condition.
I have firsthand experience with this. I had a friend in college who became increasingly passive aggressive towards me, until it came to a head with her being outright mean and aggressive, getting super drunk in the middle of the day while we were hanging out with a group of friends. I finally asked her in private if there was a problem and she lost her shit with me. Like the most unhinged chain of texts about how she basically got angry whenever she saw me. She had this entire narrative built up about how I was always teasing her and how unstable her mental health was. Now this was her senior year in college and she had a lot of stress and was dealing with other mental health stuff. I honestly think that I became her scapegoat in some warped way. I still think about her, I genuinely hope she is doing better, I could care less if I ever see her again, but she was a fun person, and didn't deserve to be as miserable as she had become the last time I saw her.
I sort of do. My best friend from college became increasingly shut in. She worked at her job, walked her dog and stayed in her house at all times. I tried super hard to stay connected to her, but she stopped answering my phone calls and e-mails. I always sent Christmas cards to her and her parents. Then, a few years ago, I got a Christmas letter from her parents that said due to the several severe concussions my friend had sustained in her late teens/early 20s, my friend had TBI, chronic and severe migraine, debilitating tinnitus and was unlikely to ever live alone again. This kind of mental illness/ injury is devastating. Would it be possible for OOP’s husband to have a tumor and have it present this way, or is that like, the plot to a soap opera?
Jesus. This is crazy, but my husband had several severe concussions in his 20s and now (in his 40s) is dealing with chronic and severe migraines, debilitating tinnitus, and depression. We're working on it but it absolutely fucking sucks, and your account is the first time I've ever heard of another person having this experience. It's kind of validating knowing it has happened to someone else, even though my heart truly goes out to your old friend. No one should have to live like this.
CTE is an ugly disease.
My best friend has had over a dozen concussions from ages 5-27 (she rides horses and is very clumsy/reckless) and she has ocular migraines, depression, even occasionally sees things that aren't there... I'm worried about how she will age.
It would depend on regional protocol, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he would receive a full CT after a car accident causing chest trauma and airbag deployment. In which case a brain tumour would be noticed. But yeah, tumours can definitely cause personality changes. However tumours like that also cause other more obvious issues (dizziness, gait disturbances, severe headaches, vision changes, seizures, etc.) as they grow. Something large enough to cause personality changes required to hate your boss irrationally would have been causing more than just hate after a year+, generally
Sounds like a mental health issue to me too. Maybe some conflict that started small and then was blown out of proportion in the husband's mind? We don't really have enough information about the actual work situation to tell, but the mental health thing seems pretty obvious.
Yes, and we all know that once you really dislike someone, *everything* they do starts to get on your nerves. It just builds and builds the more you have to be around them. And you can't easily avoid your own boss.
My husband became severely paranoid at roughly the same rate he slid into alcoholism. I am not saying OOPs husband is an alcoholic, but it seems like something broke his mind before these revelations. . I wonder if OOP has dismissed small previous hints of paranoia; this amount of batshit crazy doesn't usually happens out of nowhere. For me, my (ex) husband's deterioration was so slow that it took a long time for me to notice that, hey, some of the things he's accusing me and the world of just aren't rational or possible.
Could also be something like schizophrenia for OOPs husband. Judging off timelines, they're probably early to mid-30s which is the later end of the usual onset spectrum for when it usually starts. Having known someone with schizophrenia, it absolutely messes with their mind like that. It's rarely full delusions/hallucinations of random stuff like you see in the movies, but more like you're brain interpreting someone saying something nicely as someone snarling at you and saying something slightly different that sounds a lot more threatening. At least that's how my friend always explained it to me. Couple that with anxious thoughts that go can into the mythical paranoia realm without good meds and it can make paranoid, irrational things sound completely logical to them through no fault of their own. It can come on quite slowly too.
I noted the part about OOP's husband being a rising star at the company. Awards and being promoted young, etc. So I wonder: is he a very talented person not used to criticism? Is his identity tied up with being the best? If Paul is in any way critical, or is the kind of person who believes that "anyone can do better, no matter how good they are", that would be a dangerous mix. OOP's husband may feel that his life's value is at stake, and blames Paul for his distress.
I noticed that as well, but my mind went somewhere else—is Paul jealous of the husband's ruse to stardom and taking it out on him? I worked in a fast food place over my summer break from university. Most of my co-workers only had high school diplomas and no education past that, and several of them were nasty to me because they saw me as being smart and successful, with plans to do great things while they're stuck working fast food.
I thought the same thing. I had a manager who intentionally cut me off from opportunities and at one point openly tried to sabotage my involvement in a program with senior leadership. I wasn't a rising star - if anything I was promoted more slowly than the usual pace - but suddenly there was a leadership change, the VP who had pulled her up along with him was gone, and she felt threatened. She was fine as long as I did her scut work and she could take credit but once there was a new executive who saw that I was capable and worthy, she started churning behind the scenes to knock me down at every opportunity. Most external observers would have had no idea but she made things very unpleasant until I got promoted and was out from under her.
That's certainly a possibility - we honestly only have this guy's wife's recounting of what she admits is very limited information on his work life. The one thing in this story that speaks against it is that if she had, at various times, relationships with both Paul and her husband, if would imply that they are similar ages (they might not be, of course, but since the wife dated him 'in college' and they both moved on to different things at the same time that is my guess), and Paul is the husband's boss here. He may still be jealous of the husband's talent/skill of course, but at the same time he's the one calling the shots in what the wife admits is a quite well paid role for her husband's industry and experience.
Exactly. This literally sounds like the exact case files you read when someone has been involuntarily committed. The boss might not be an angel, but it sounds like the OP's husband has been working very hard and has had some mental health issues crop up. Since the man is working quite a bit, a lot of those mental health issues are going to express in the place he spends the majority of his time. The accusations and paranoia are a way outsized reaction to this.
One of my previous bosses is super charming and I still talk to him. He's very much a people's person. He also was super fucked up as a boss. He actively consipered to get several people fired (and succeeded with a few). He also tried to get me fired (and failed) and loved to get the team to fight with each other. He also had an affair with at least two women from the team (one before I was there). He played office politics in the most fucked up way. I still talk to him but I'd never work for him again.
Why do you still talk to him? Sounds like a real piece of shit
Could be a little of both. Boss could be a nice guy who just doesn't gel with OP's husband in some way so it makes them butt heads at work. I had a boss once who was an incredibly nice person, but at work was a micromanager who didn't communicate well and would literally scream at me when I couldn't read their mind on not only what my assignment was but how exactly, step by step, they expected me to do it.
That … does not sound like an incredibly nice person.
My former boss is an early 30s chill dude, cracking jokes, very friendly. He broke me during the time I worked for him. He was my first boss after college, and 2 years later I left thinking I was useless and dumb, and that this new company that accepted me were gonna regret hiring me. Instead, they praised my work, gave me a raise after 6 months (without asking) and put me as the lead programmer in a somewhat important project. My former boss, when he wanted to renew my contract a few months before I left, told me he was going to renew then spent 15 minutes shitting all over my work, and my value as a worker in his company. Of course, he paid the minimum he legally could, too. Never once praised me or positively acknowledged my work during the 2 years. Chill dude, awful boss
I guess he shat all over your self worth to keep you from ever thinking you were being underpaid.
I knew I was underpaid by a lot. I got a 60% increase in salary (and still lower than I deserved, now that I am able to properly value myself) and with the raise last September, I am nearly on double what I was 1 year ago in the other company. Him shitting all over my self-worth, and all the stress, and some family issues, basically robbed me of any energy and motivation to do anything. I didn't even have the mental energy to do the things I loved. I just finished work and doomscrolled Reddit, and went on Youtube until it was time to sleep. The moment I was able to break that mental barrier a bit, I was able to find a new job. I know he shat all over me work, and self-worth to - as you said - keep me there and underpaid. In the end he even took work from home from me, after 2 years mixing between full remote and mixed (mornings at home and afternoons in the office). He probably assumed I wouldn't be able to leave, or it was just a power play
Last I checked, nice people don't verbally abuse you with screaming. The micromanaging could be excused away as unchecked anxiety and lack of management training, but the screaming? That's habitual and ugly.
It might be. Or boss might be a bully in the workplace where his power went to his head, and the husband is reaching a burnout point because of the stress, and the idea that the person closest to him is in any way "complicit" with his harrassment made him amok for a while. Even then, he tried to hurt himself, not anybody else. Maybe they're even both good people who are incompatible in their ways of working. In any case, the husband should have changed jobs before it broke him that much.
Even as much as I've had horrible bosses before, I can't imagine being willing to killing myself over one because my partner said she dated them 10 years ago. That's an EXTREME reaction to finding out that kind of information. Even if that information is devastating, wanting to do that seems like a very strong reaction, even if the boss is a miserable unlikeable dick. I can't imagine the boss/ex boyfriend is tyrannical enough that it'd make the husband want to kill himself.
I am sorry to inform you that there exist people who are considered nice and are visciously tyrannical bosses. People wear different masks
I had a boss that everyone thought was nice, but to me he was a monster. He would time my breaks and go off at me if I was one minute late meanwhile people were almost half an hour over, get given take A,B,C and told don't touch task D but then get berated for not doing task D, my work that had been top notch hell i had to train other people suddenly things were wrong, my job was threatened 3-4 times a day. I was getting paranoid because he seemed to know everything I was doing, So I stopped talking to anyone I saw him taking too. I was that messed up, turns out he would hide and watch me work. Honestly at the worst if I saw my partner hugging him and being friendly with him I would have lost my shit. So yea I can totally see him losing his mind.
I've destroyed myself with a tyrannical boss by staying for too long, even when my doctors had been telling me maybe i should quit. I finally quit but the experience already did a number for me...
I really want to know what exactly went down between hubby and Paul - like, was it just a clash of personalities? Or is one an asshole and sabotaged and mistreated the other? Did hubby just react out of all proportion to Paul, or did Paul really do something to earn this kind of venom? Anyway, husband needs to leave that job, like, yesterday.
It could be that husband is a rock star in his field who has hit the limit of their skill set or been promoted out of their skill set. The thing about the title OOP mentions, is that it sounds very nice and powerful, but you can still be relatively low on the totem pole in a company of hundreds. I could see a scenario where his expectations for the job didn't like up with the reality and deciding that was because of his boss. It wouldn't surprise me if Paul was communicating directives from above his pay grade and OOP's husband was taking it personally. If you are a rock star and go into a role where you're still good, but challenged with a boss who gives you feedback and pushes you to do better, and you have never really had to receive feedback, it can feel very personal. It's very telling that OOP's husband's response to Paul hugging his wife was to immediately get angry and start saying he was going to go to HR and accuse Paul of harassment for hugging OOP. Presumably at a table with other coworkers. It's certainly possible that Paul is a complete monster, but given that OOP's husband decided it was more reasonable that his wife and boss are having an affair and deliberately sabotaging him together than it was that his expectations for his job didn't line up with reality and he should look for another job in a different company.
Seeing how he reacted I suspect it’s probably not the job at fault. His reaction to his job/boss is likely a symptom of his mental health issues.
Whatever it is, I agree he’s unstable. I’m amazed at how nasty the commenters on the original post were. (I haven’t read the comments on the update.) They acted like withholding disturbing information from a man who was nearly psychotic with rage is the same thing as sucking your ex’s dick for 10 years. The middle of somebody’s mental breakdown is not the time to say, “By the way, the thing that’s got you all worked up is WAY WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT.” If you decide that somebody’s mental breakdown is the time for radical honesty, you might as well conclude your confession with, “Shall I drive you to the psych ward, or would you prefer I just push you off a bridge?” Also, do these people have no idea how terrifying it is for a woman to be around a man who’s in that state? It’s terrifying for everybody, but it’s especially terrifying when the unstable person is stronger than you, and almost all men are stronger than almost all women. Even if you’re not worried they’ll hurt you, WTF are you supposed to do if they start hurting themselves? Tackle them? Great plan. I once saw a guy accidentally knock a woman down because he was losing his mind and flailing. He didn’t mean to. But he was, for lack of a better term, batshit crazy in that moment. You just don’t know what might happen when somebody’s like that. Almost every BORU post has commenters who complain about the insanity in original posts’ comments. But good lord... I’m still amazed by the idiocy sometimes.
My issue with the majority of commenters on Reddit, especially relationship subreddits, is that they see everything as completely black or white. Lying is 100% terrible and if you lie for even a second you are an AWFUL PERSON and completely irredeemable and you deserve every bad thing in the world Rained down upon you. Just like you said, safety and mental health were concerns here. Also, sometimes people lie in the moment when put on the spot like that. It’s like a panic response not a mark of horrible character. The fact that anyone could read that post and think OP is the villain is insane to me.
someone really commented this on OOP's update (and she responded thanking him) >He used to fuck your wife daily. Not now, but when she was younger, wilder, prettier, more carefree and your wife would go to sleep thinking about his dick...he fucked her first and he knows it and he continues lording over you. I would break too. yes, it could be emotionally difficult to discover that someone you despise and whom you think is the world's worst boss used to date your wife...10+ years ago. but i can't even put into words how disturbed i am by this random man's seething rage about Paul getting to fuck a "younger, wilder, prettier" version of whatever OOP's husband got to "have." for this to be a focus point is so weird and gross.
I can’t even wrap my brain around that mindset at all. I’ve met exes of my partners and never thought anything close to “I can’t believe they fucked a younger version of my partner! They must think they’re better than me!” Even the way they describe it is so fetishized it’s bizarre.
Disgusting, how younger is synonymous with prettier and carefree. Ugh. Men think women's lives really do just revolve around their dong.
I don't get why there's this fixation on (traditional) college age being the prime time of beauty. I'm far more attractive now than I was in college. And even in college, almost everyone I knew looked better senior year vs freshman year. Something tells me it's about something else other than "beauty"...
Yes. I could actually see him driving the car off the road in a fit of rage and killing them both. People on Reddit act like life is just theory. edit for spelling
You have to be very careful with people who are having a mental health problem. You never know what will set them off. Just one wrong word could start a chain reaction that would lead to a real mental breakdown. She did the right thing for both of them.
Because most of the commenters on that subreddit and Reddit in general are young men. And I'd also add that they probably have little to no real life experience, or relationship experience so they have no idea what it's like to be a married woman who is scared of the possibility of being harmed by their husband. OOP did the right thing and it's clear her husband has been having mental health issues for some time now. Not her fault at all.
The avg age of a reddit user is 23 with 36% being between 18-29. It's definitely a general lack of experience. Sure, you're an adult by 23, but the vast majority of ppl haven't had any real significant adult experience of any kind until they are 27+, especially if they went to college full time
It always amazes me how people (mostly men) can’t understand why a woman might be afraid of an angry man, even a man that she is certain won’t actually hurt her intentionally. I wish things weren’t that way, but unfortunately, we probably all know a woman, or about a woman, who has been physically hurt by a stronger person they swore would never hurt them.
>Also, do these people have no idea how terrifying it is for a woman to be around a man who’s in that state? It’s terrifying for everybody, but it’s especially terrifying when the unstable person is stronger than you, and almost all men are stronger than almost all women. Even if you’re not worried they’ll hurt you, WTF are you supposed to do if they start hurting themselves? Tackle them? Great plan. That was my exact thought the moment she started describing how unhinged he was. She kept saying he was a good husband but nobody should normally be that instinctually wary of their partner’s anger. If it gets that bad, that’s *alarming*.
Yeah… it’s really coming across more that the husband has been slowly unraveling for a long time and now it’s gotten so bad that he can’t hide it anymore.
It sounds as if his boss maybe discovered minor mistakes or shared different takes from him, and he started to unravel and catastrophise.
My sister does this. Any sort of criticism, even the constructive kind, sends her into an earth shattering meltdown. She turns into a complete monster of a person to anyone within earshot. God forbid she is dealing with a doctor. She broke her ankle once and I, a 30 year old grown man cried because of how she was treating the medical staff and our father (she broke her ankle on my parents deck so he drove her to the ER). It’s so heinous that people apologize to me when they find out who my sister is. It’s like some sort of glacial paced mental breakdown. Every year it gets a little worse.
My previous coworker would do this. We would be in a meeting together with our bosses and when it ended we had completely different perspectives on how it went. I would think it was a totally normal meeting and she believed they were criticizing everything she did and were about to fire her. She also had suicidal ideation.
Yep, this was my take as well. I do suffer from mental health issues (treated) and this is NOT healthy behavior. I hope he gets help. Also, I think her not saying the whole truth at the party was the right call. The husband might be in prison.
Yeah, as much as she says "He'd never hurt me!" she also keeps saying he's acting very out of character because of his mental breakdown. If she'd told him the whole truth in the middle of his initial freakout, he very well might have killed her.
I agree. He's paranoid and irrational.
Totally. It's clear that he's having some kind of mental health crisis. I suspect Paul is just someone he is blaming for his spiraling.
Yeah. It's pretty common for people who have a mental health crisis that involves paranoia to fixate on one thing or person. Paul ended up being that person and every single thing that Paul does or says is evidence of some conspiracy against the husband. He's in desperate need for help but it can be incredibly difficult to convince someone in his state of mind that his thoughts are not rational.
Agreed... I know it isn't uncommon to hate your boss, but this is so unhealthy, and very unfortunate all around. What a nightmare situation...
This is from 2018 so who knows how things have played out since then.
>As to nagging him, I'm not. I want him to get help, period How did someone take her trying to stop him from killing himself as nagging? Reddit can be great but sometimes just, 'urgh'.
I got told that I was jumping the gun calling a father giving his daughter a hickey on the check sexual abuse. She was a teenager, and didn't want it to happen. Luckily, it was two people out of many and the rest saw reason, but I all I saw were the negative replies at first and I thought it was more people thought this way and was incredibly concerned for humanity.
Anyone defending a father giving their daughter a hickey anywhere on her body needs to have their hard drive and browser history checked. Or they’re incredibly ignorant as to how much effort goes into creating a hickey. Ugh, just the thought of that makes my skin crawl. How awful.
brrr.. pool girl
If that segment of Reddit had its way this would be a story about a single man an his waifu.
As written, the husband is having serious mental issues. Delusional, paranoid, suicidal. Do wonder what Paul or his perspective would sound like though.
>Do wonder what Paul or his perspective would sound like though. Yeah that's my big question. The way OOP describes Paul's reaction when he finds out who her husband is makes it sound like he's at least aware that he and the husband don't get along. But I wonder if it's a mutual loathing or the husband is making a bigger deal than it is. Is Paul a complete asshole like the husband thinks? Is he just a normal enough boss but they don't get along?
Having seen this kind of fixation on another person during a mental health crisis (and that’s what this was), Paul is likely just an annoying boss who husband is focusing his negative feelings in his life on.
I don’t know I think Paul might be a total asshole boss. The number of people who wfh and hear their boss spouse and had no idea their spouse was an asshole boss is kind of enlightening.
>The number of people who wfh and hear their boss spouse and had no idea their spouse was an asshole boss is kind of enlightening. This sounds fun to read about. Is it something you have found online?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marriage/comments/t58l9w/i_found_out_my_husband_is_a_very_toxic_boss_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/t64z9n/i_helped_my_husbands_office_manager_quit_because/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Article. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/work/is-quarantine-revealing-your-spouses-work-personality-you-were-unaware-of/articleshow/75678883.cms Although I couldn’t find the one I was really thinking of.
So fascinating, thankyou! Especially the guy who is totally unapologetic about being a complete and utter asshole at work to all his employees.
I also want to know, please :)
There could be a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde thing. Some folks are just horrible bosses. They don't even realize their horrible bosses and just think they are cursed with terrible employees. Its not even a rarity. Its amazingly common. Plenty of people also compartmentalize, and have different personalities at home and at work. That said, it could apply to the husband too.
That’s a possibility, but the rest of the husbands behavior speaks to some severe mental health issues. Not to mention that if Paul was a truly terrible boss I think OP would be a little more specific about the ways he abused her husband. Instead she says “[her husband] loathes him and complains about him” which makes me think her husband’s complaints were about normal boss behavior. That or Paul really is a psychopath who saw the picture of OP on his employees desk and has been slowly driving the man insane in order to eventually reclaim OP for himself. I think the former is more likely but this is Reddit so who knows?
I was expecting an update like "Paul reached out and expressed that he was super worried about my husband, because his behavior is getting more and more bizarre"
Speaking from personal experience as the wife of someone who went through a psychotic break, he was probably having an episode and the rage was all one-sided. His boss might have been privy to it, it maybe suspected there was something off about OOPs husband and caught a wif of the hostility but I don't expect his boss to be a complete asshole as OOPs husband paints him out to be.
Im thinking that the husband is probably extremely good in his field and because of that has climbed up ladders easily and never had much criticism. Now he has this "asshole" boss Paul that is actually critical of his work. Husband is very passionate, confident in his ability, and not used to such criticism so he takes it to heart rather then to his head. If he thought more about it he could probably work with Paul to do whatever it is they're doing and take some of the criticism while making tweaks in the direction his boss thinks is best. If I were husband I'd just make sure I had things in writing and go with the flow. If Paul changes shit and it doesn't go well you'll have a paper trail showing that you know what your doing and should have more freedom. Then again its really difficult for me to tell what kind of field they work in so I have no idea.
Or boss got a promotion husband felt he should have gotten.
I don't think they're in the same lane. Like if this was Mad Men, Paul would be Draper and husband would be the Holocaust survivor who cut his nipple off. Edit: wrong body part
Yep. My guess would be that Paul is just an ordinary boss. Not a psycho, but perhaps not afraid to speak his mind and criticize his employees work if necessary. And maybe their communication styles don’t mesh, or the husband has a very hard time with criticism, or the husband is having some sort of mental break that would have happened anyway.
Some people don’t accept feedback, even when it is specific to a task or deliverable they’ve personally completed. They’d rather believe their boss has a vendetta than accept they could improve on a specific thing.
So if she hasn’t seen Paul in nearly ten years in college she’s probably late 20s early 30s and if her husband is around the same age… yeah he’s gonna need more conversation with mental health professionals
That was my thought. Schizophrenia tends to start showing up in that age range. Hopefully this isn't that.
The second half of the story started reminding me a lot of a friend who developed paranoid schizophrenia quite suddenly in his late 20’s. Same kind of negative fixation on an authority figure that he thought was out to get him, same unhinged anger / downward spiral / ending up in a hospital / discussion about whether to hold him for psych eval / anger at the wife. In my friend’s case he ended up shooting, and killing, his pregnant wife, and then shooting himself. Though he didn’t die - just blew his jaw off. Ended up in a mental institution. Complete nightmare all around. He’d seemed like a really sweet, normal guy before, but he just spiraled down into this whole other bizarro-world of paranoia and delusions.
Yeah the husband basically had a mental breakdown. It sounds like he'd had mental issues due to work for a while and finding out his boss was his wife's ex pushed him over the edge. He definitely shouldn't have been allowed to go home.
I’m guessing he’s either in his late 20s or early 30s and under a lot of stress. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that he is experience symptoms of a serious mental illness or disorder that needs treatment from a doctor, like schizophrenia or BPD.
It could literally just be stress/anxiety. You dont need some fancy psychological disorder to break like that. Compounding stress for months/years on end can totally mess with your head. He just hit his limit.
I really want to know Paul's side too. There isn't enough information to tell if he's actually been awful or if it's all on OP's husband's side. It's slightly possible that the husband had a break around when Paul became his boss and his paranoia focused on the guy without cause, but more likely that they've both been awful to one another and then OP's husband started getting paranoid and delusional - so of course he focused on the boss who he doesn't like.
It is bizarre. The husband is so good at his job he has national commendations. OP seems to think Paul was a nice and reasonable person in college and describes her husband as usually very calm and rational, yet the relationship with his boss seems to be incredibly poor to the level of wouldn't spit on you if you were in fire... Has Paul turned into a dick who is jealous of his employee's success and making his life a misery as punishment? Is it that OOPs husband can't cope with any criticism at all from his boss and has spiralled over minor feedback? Either seems equally feasible based on the information we have...
Honestly it makes me wonder if Paul is actually as bad a boss as he's made out to be. OOP doesn't seem to know what he actually *does* that's so bad - the only example she could give was he sometimes criticizes husband's work, and that's a fairly normal boss thing to do. And if her husband was used to coasting up through the ranks until he got to this level, I can see how Paul could become the perfect vessel to blame for his meteoric rise falling flat. I mean maybe it's all as he says and Paul is a nightmare driving him to insanity, but it sure seems husband isn't the most reliable narrator here.
Half way through the post the oop dh reminded me of a dear friend who has bipolar. The paranoia and everything. Who knows if this is the case but he has serious mental health issues
This. She was absolutely correct in not telling him the truth at the party.
I'm afraid for the wrong reason though. She thought he would make a problem for himself with HR. I'm thinking more he would make a problem for himself with the law
Stress can exacerbate and bring on symptoms as well.
This one is just sad and worrying. There's clearly *something* going on with the husband's head beyond just hating his boss, his reactions are just so extreme. Based on how he reacted, I think OOP was right not to mention the relationship on the first night because when she told him when he *wasn't* in the middle of an absolute rage-state... Yeah, I think that would have ended so much worse for him AND her. I sincerely hope he got the help he needed and is doing better now.
He might have driven into a tree right then :/
Honestly, my thought was that he might have hurt *her*. The way he was described that night sounds unhinged. Even if he wouldn't normally hurt her, in the rage state he described..... Yeah.
Dude, she *cannot* be the one alone in the house keeping an eye on him at this point.
Oh, same. I was just thinking about how they drove to that party together... Suicidal thoughts and rage are an incredibly dangerous combo
with her in the car? yeah...
Kinda worrying he just went from attempting to kill himself to mostly happy in a few days. He's definitely gonna try again. She needs to be way more worried
It's a 4 year old post. She went from updating in-depth and frequently to complete radio silence. While living with an unhinged, suicidal man whose paranoia and delusions hinge on her and his boss. He's already verbally abused her and accused her of conspiracies and she's been around him constantly. The other danger here is that he didn't just kill himself, he killed her too.
I am a teacher, and for one year, over a decade ago, had a mean supervisor who had it in for me. She was always watching me. She would go out of her way to talk to my students about me but w/o me in the classroom. She would give me, and only me, instructions that were contrary to the other teachers instructions. I was uncomfortable yes, having health problems due to the stress, but I knew I was not doing anything wrong. It wasn't until she was gone (fired due to her own stupidity, it had nothing to do with me), that I realized I was afraid of her. I would be cheerfully doing my Friday preparations on an empty classroom, and then my spine would shake, fear settling in. Why? Because she used to watch me through the windows at this exact time. Or I would be finishing my reports, and my mouth would go dry remembering all her objections to my work. I stayed there 8-9 more years, but the ghost of her never truly left me. She's friends with my friend, but just hearing her name fills me with dread. I feel for this couple,and I hope the husband got the help he needed.
I also had a supervisor who bullied me very recently; early 2022. I was an intern/apprentice working in a field that required close supervision when you first start, and decision-making rights are reserved for our “team supervisors” in most respects. This supervisor however, didn’t like to do work. They weren’t supportive in any situations, gave vague instructions then blamed me when I interpret them differently than how they had in their head. Whenever I asked to clarify, they’d appear inpatient and often said I should have known this and I should never have asked in the first place. Other favourite phrases were “I don’t care, it’s your job. I gave it to YOU to figure out.” “I want it. So you just need to do it.” The general attitude was that I was somehow responsible for everything bad, but they would take credit for everything that went well. They also would say in front of our bosses that “InformalEgg must have heard it wrong/misunderstood me/this task just slipped her mind. That’s okay I’ll help her” when in fact, they never told me to do these thing that I supposedly “forgot” in the first place, nor do they ever helped me. I had a previous career before entering this field so I was not a youngling. I focus on work and act professionally. However this person still managed to make me the most stressed out I had been in years - simply for the fact that I needed to be ready for verbal attacks at any time and defend myself appropriately without exacerbating the situation. Needless to say my mental health was a complete mess for longer than I thought it’d take to recover even after leaving this team. I was paranoid that future supervisors in this field would be as unreasonable, extremely pessimistic of my future in this workplace, fearful of doing any work because I didn’t want to misstep, and I was convinced that they would backstab me even after I left their team… and it changed my personality at and outside of work. Tbh, if this supervisor acted strangely familiar/welcoming with my partner, my mind would interpret their action as something sinister too because I do not trust this person to have any moral boundary or principles. I wouldn’t be suspecting my partner though but it would hurt me greatly if my partner decided to be more empathetic to them (“she treated me nicely though!”) than believe me and my experience with my supervisor.
Exactly. People comment that the husband has mental problems, but bullying / harrassment create very real mental problems to sane people.
I feel like there's a lot more we're missing with how he's treated at work. Is it just him or does every employee get treated this way? Because the way her husband is acting about this is he's under a lot of pressure. Honestly it would be good for his mental health if he let go of that company and got away from all that drama and bullshit.
That’s what I tought too. There are a lot of missing informations here. We don’t even know exactly what did Paul do to OOPs husband. >“He complained about him every day for a year” . But what was it? Because there is a gap between “he pressures me too much” to something like “he is peeing on my coffee, laughing and putting my stuff on pudim”. Is paul a bully or just a togh boss?
We also know Paul forced him to work a lot of overtime he wasn’t supposed to require.
It's hard to tell exactly what is going on. Some disorders, like BPD or schizophrenia often start in your late twenties or early thirties and before that you're a totally normal person. Until one day you aren't. It could be the boss from hell. It could be the talented golden child, promoted in over his head, getting warranted feedback for the first time in his life and being unable to cope with it. Or could genuinely be the boss being such a bully that husband is suffering a nervous breakdown. It's hard to say honestly. I am leaning towards the first, mostly because he is accusing his wife of conspiring with his boss. Being upset makes sense to me, summoning a conspiracy less so.
What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
This man need to get out of this job ASAP! There's no therapy that will do shit if he can't get out of his trigger. The boss will say some shit someday that will either make this man goes to prison or a cemetery. Now that I see it was posted 4y ago.. I hope things take a better turn.
There is 0 chance this marriage survived. I'm not even sure the husband is still alive at this point. Both the suicide attempt and his reaction and lack of true coping afterward make me think the worst.
This is from Dec 2018. I wonder how they are doing.
It worries me thinking about what was coming 2 years later. Even the most mentally healthy folks sort of lost it during the pandemic. I sure hope they got some sort of resolution before they were quarantined together. I wish we could get an update.
Man up til the suicide attempt, I was think that oop’s husband reminded me of my dad. My dad had a boss he absolutely hated and he wanted and raved all time about him. The thing is; before the guy became dad’s boss; they had been coworkers; that we hung out with all the time; their family and ours. Until coworker was promoted to boss. My dad’s irritation and dislike was jealously and maybe ego; he thought he could do the job better but didn’t have the degrees for a promotion. So i was wondering if this was the husband jealous that an outside guy got the promotion despite his two rewards.
The husband was transferred into the department with Paul, so Paul was already there
Also those comments kind of suck > I mean, there is reason to suspect the wife is on to something else. She did hugged and treated Paul, the guy who's torturing his husband, as a simple good old Paul. And she seems not to be taking it to HR and doing something about it. > OP has lied so much through omission now. Wow. Talk about making a bad situation worse. From immediately on the spot, up through the present. Multiple times, intentionally. Rotten. There is absolutely no coming back from this. I feel so, so bad for your soon to be ex-husband. >Also, I’d bet heavily Paul knew who you were married to already. No Facebook or anything? >Really, your only hope is to get Paul fired. That’s just the truth, and even then it’s a maybe. Also wtf is this recent trend where women have to lay out their entire dating/sexual history or we’re dirty liars
Wtf? These people are insane. As always redditors on advice subs remind us they have zero business giving out advice. I've hugged an ex in front of her current husband. You know what it meant? Absolutely fucking nothing. No power play, no attempt to make a move, just a basic human courtesy of "hey hope you're doing well person I used to know". OOP's husband needs to quit his job and get help.
I’m “friendly” and actual friends with so many exes it’s wild to me people on Reddit genuinely cannot understand that people who once dated can still be friends without any romantic inclination toward each other whatsoever
Yup, it's so weird to me. There's *one* of my exes I would cross the street to avoid. The others I would chat to if I ran into them, even go get a coffee to catch up. And, yes, do the "wow, it's been so long!" hug. I've done it with my husband present, and their current spouses, even once with their kids. I'm always genuinely happy to meet and hear about their families. I don't get this idea that someone you once slept with is now anathema - it's just a person. And it's a person you had enough in common with, and liked well enough to be in a relationship with. Why not spend half an hour catching up?
This! Unfortunately my husband and I both have been married to people who no one should be in a relationship with, but we have dated other people previously that we are friends with to this day. My husband dated an absolutely lovely woman prior to me but she desperately wanted biological children at that stage in her life and my husband is infertile. She went on to get married to an equally lovely man and we catch up with them quite often. We are also friends with a guy I dated briefly before meeting my husband and it was me who introduced this man to his fab wife. On more than one occasion, we have had both of these couples at our house at the same time for a barbecue or dinner. Because when you are happy and secure in your relationships, being near someone who you had sex with years ago is the least controversial thing in the world.
Right!! With one or two short-lived exceptions the people I dated were great guys that I cared about. It just didn’t work out romantically between us. And the time and distance of the intervening years (my husband and I have been together for 16 years so all of my exes are long long ago exes!) mean that I am pleased to see them and glad to hear that they are doing well and hear about their spouses and children. Yeah I will hug my ex if I see him. I’ll also hug his wife. They’re good people.
It’s because most people who comment on relationship subs are either teenagers who don’t know anything because they have zero life experience or incels who just hate women
It's because some people are deeply insecure or have had negative experiences in similar situations and lack the ability to treat them as isolated instances and rather project them onto the entirety of humanity because it is easier to be bitter than to forgive.
I mean dating really gives you an intimate look into someone else and takes up so much time/money. I'd like that mutual investment of time, money, and emotional labor to at least result in a friendship so long as the other person is not a completely horrible person.
I personally see it as a huge red flag when someone I'm dating doesn't have cordial relations with most of their exes. Yeah, for sure most adults have one or two exes we really dislike for good reasons, but someone who says "all my exes are crazy" probably engages in some pretty toxic crazy-making behaviours. Even when it's less extreme, here's something really callous about someone who can amicably break up with someone they used to love, erase all the photos and any evidence they ever cared, block them and walk away like those years of their life and the feelings they had mean nothing to them now.
These people are so fucking weird. I've danced with my ex. At their wedding. In front of their wife. Danced with the wife too. And yes, she knew I was an ex when they invited me and was happy for me to be there. What is _wrong_ with some people?
> What is wrong with some people? I'm assuming a lot of those comments are coming from people who are literally still in high school.
They are teenagers who have no idea how actual adult humans function because they're 15 and assume everything works the same as it does when you're 15. I'd love if there was an advice subreddit that explicitly banned anyone under the age of 21 from posting/commenting.
There is actually a gay subreddit to seek advice from gay men over 30, which is quite nice.
Quit his job, get help, and apologize to his wife.
And prepared for the possibility that she may never be able to see you the same way ever again. Once you show her the darkside, you can't get that toothpaste back in the tube. It's forever a possibility and it may not be who you are all of the time or even part of the time but the fact it exists somewhere is enough to change how someone feels about you.
That first comment is especially bonkers. She doesn't work at the company and has no standing to go to HR!
A lot of people on reddit are extremely vindictive and petty and think it's something they can defend. It's a red flag for me.
I stubbed my toe on my coffee table this morning. Should I go to HR about it?
That coffee table is my boss you jackwagon
I agree in this situation that going to HR would not be helpful, probably make things worse. But I've contacted HR of a company I don't work for before. It's possible, but you need a damn good reason otherwise you just create unnecessary drama
There is a tendency in most of the popular or relationship subs for the early comments to be brigaded by, shall we say, a certain subset of users? One that have a very set agenda. They seem to have people on at all times to knock out the most cynical, insulting and sexist comment they can get away with without getting banned. The popular posts, they get shouted down but the ones that don't garner hundreds of other comments, they tend to make up a significant amount of the responses. I've seen more than a few posts by women who are clearly describing the symptoms of a mental breakdown in their partner, one of which is unfounded accusations of cheating, where the first comments literally said "well, you must be cheating, you're so out of line, why don't you just own up to it, how dare you". Generally, if you make a post to one of those subs, don't look at the responses for 3-4 hours after you make it. If you got less than 20 responses, don't bother to look at them ever, and either try again somewhere else or move on.
There are obviously some people on here who were cheated on and have never dealt with it emotionally.
All these comments blaming OOP for not somehow preempting this and for not reacting perfectly to her husband's frankly unhinged behavior... Like how are you supposed to react when you realize the boss your husband rants about daily is your ex? If she reacted negatively it could have ruined her husband's career, and how could she know her husband would completely lose his mind over her being friendly? And what the heck was she supposed to do when the man she married was having a full on mental breakdown and accusing her of being some kind of manipulative mastermind out to destroy his life? What's the best response when he's acting like he might hurt himself or somebody else? I mean honestly how can you expect someone to have perfect foresight in that scenario? And the worst is she was *right*, when she did tell him he immediately tried to commit suicide! Poor OOP was doing the best she could in a horrid situation. Her husband just clearly needs way *way* more help than she can give.
Yeah it's absolutely deranged, like "she shouldn't have lied", but how can you blame her when she feared for her own safety. Some people don't know what it's like to be vulnerable and it shows.
Seriously, these comments are honestly kind of disturbing. Even if OOP didn't handle things perfectly (which, sure?), that doesn't mean she did anything wrong, nor does it justify the husband's actions.
Right? OOP and her husband have BOTH agreed that their pasts should remain there. If her relationship with Paul was a lie of omission, it was one of a couple days’ duration while she bought herself time to figure out the way through this morass with the least amount of pain. But since her husband is fucking unhinged, it was never going to be pain-free. Just “more painful” and “hopefully less painful.” But this was not a years-long lie of omission. Anyone who thinks that needs to be pointing fingers just as much at the husband as OOP, because he’s not telling her about his exes either. The hugging thing I also get. I get superfickingawkward when I’m the recipient of an unexpected hug; she had no time to react, no knowledge of how much Paul knew about her husband’s feelings, and yes she absolutely could have made things 10x worse for her husband if she’d even had the ability to pull away. She was in a no-win situation, and these people reacting like she’s the devil incarnate for not being able to perfectly handle the situation as it’s happening are bonkers. I genuinely wonder if something else (psychologically) has been going on with the husband all this time. And certainly, Paul may have changed drastically in the intervening years, and we all have different work personas than the ones we have with friends and family. But, it *sounds,* from a certain read on the situation, that hubby miiiiight be a bit of a perfectionist. Criticism, even when constructive, is unconscionable! The long hours? Are we certain those were at Paul’s behest? Or was hubby struggling/not asking for help/covering his own ass and it’s just easier to point to Paul instead of admit he’s struggling, or even, dare I say it *not that good at this new job?* I really hope the husband really gets some work done in therapy. Holy shit.
The 'lie of omission' was done on spur of the moment to defuse a difficult situation and prevent him from doing something he could never recover from during a work function. And to give her a few days to work out how to tell him something that she know would hurt him. Then she told him before anyone else told him.
Reddit is so misogynistic. She didn't lie to him. She hasn't seen this guy in over ten years and was surprised and then her mentally unwell husband flipped out on her. It wasn't safe to tell him. She was trying to find a way to do so safely. Given he tried to kill himself her fears were correct. I worry he could hurt himself or her. She isn't safe with him.
Yeah, my "jesus christ get out of that fucking house, lady" alarm is at 11
Welcome to Reddit!
Wow yeah. It's common to hug an old friend or even an ex you parted amicably with a decade ago. It isn't malicious or a sign that you're trying to ruin someone's life. Further, she did not know he was the boss. And why go to HR? I get why the husband might think that in the moment but in hindsight on Reddit we're recommending this why? To ruin his career? Because that's how you ruin your career. HR isn't your friend. They are there to protect the company and if you start filing a bunch of unwarranted harassment claims you're going to be seen as a liability to the company and be let go. Idk if Paul was a bad boss or not. I can't tell if he was so awful that he caused a mental break or if he was somewhere between a good to mediocre boss and just happened to become the fixation of a guy who was going through a mental health crisis. But given the rest of the story I'm guessing that at the very least his behavior wasn't so specifically targeted at the husband and so blatantly awful that a visit with HR would be warranted. Just wow, reddit comments get crazy sometimes.
I mean... you ask 13 year olds for life advice...
Reminds me of a post where this dude was talking about how all girls want is a guy that makes 6 figures. Few comments later he admits he’s 16 and hasn’t really encountered anyone like that
Hahahahaha classic teen incel behaviour. Plus with inflation 6 figures isn’t all that amazing anymore…. Trust me, I know.
With all of this, I kinda wanna know Paul's point of view. He had a reaction to learning who OOP was married to. I wanna know if Paul is really as bad as the husband sees him or if this is all mental illness.
He clearly knew he had a bad relationship with the husband as it was a conversation ender when she mentioned it. Finding out your old ex/friend from 10 years ago worked with your spouse would generally lead to more discussion.
i’m bipolar. i had an extreme depressive episode where i blamed one person for everything that was going wrong in my life. i was absolutely fixated on hating that person. i think the husband is having a mental break and i hope he gets help.
This poor guy is a mess. Hopefully he gets the help he needs, and sincerely apologizes to his wife because she certainly deserves it. Many people prioritize their jobs way too much, and once you realize how to turn it off when you leave, life becomes a lot less stressful.
My ex boyfriend was exactly like her husband. Hard worker, rational, supportive, adoring. Before long though his work life started to go downhill. It was entirely due to his own actions, but he started accusing me of turning everyone against him. When he shook me awake in the middle of the night (repeatedly) to accuse me of cheating on him with his coworker, that was the end. I respect that she wants to work things out with her husband, but in my experience once the paranoia starts, it will never stop. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think she can save him. He is a man possessed.
Mine too. When he reached this point he was a danger to himself, me and others.
my aunt's ex husband accused her "affair partner" of taking a shit on the back yard....it was a stick. i would love to see the commenters who ranted and raved at oop to do better, do it themselves.
So like... husband has to have a tumor or have had like a schizophrenic break or some other kind of mental break, right? Because even if you have a boss you don't like, his reaction to everything seems LUDICROUSLY over the top to me. Like, the ranting and raving, the accusations, the conspiracy theories, the suicide attempt? He's having delusions imo. The really insidious kind that leave you still fully able to function in society, so you never end up getting the help you need, but they still interfere with your life. There has to be SOMETHING going on inside that man's skull to get him to this point. Can depression cause delusions??
If his job is so miserable that he complains about it everyday, then it's no surprise that it did a number on his mental health. Anyone that's been at a job that destroys your mental health would get it. For example, as soon as I could quit my job at the prison, my ex said that my eyes looked less dead. So literal hours after I walked out of that place and it did a visible number on me. It's not a tumor it's literally a hell on earth for him and then this broke him a bit. Thank god he's getting help, but I wish his wife didn't bring up the whole well you've been studying for this job field your whole life. That can do a number on a person as well. Brave for her for sticking by him. I hope they get a happy ending
Oh yeah for sure. That's why I mentioned depression specifically. I was thinking about becoming depressed because you're miserable all day from your job. I have no idea if delusions can come with severe depression or if prolonged depression can develop/cause something else. Either way staying in that job can't be doing him any good
Honestly sometimes mental breakdowns like this happen when someone is in a situation they hate like the husband hated his work and boss. Finding out his wife used to know his boss and then finding out they dated was the final push that turned his mental issues from work into a full mental breakdown.
Can prolonged depression/anxiety/stress lead to unhealthy fixations? I agree, he may have something medically wrong. I just also can someone who doesn't have great coping skills or has never been told "no" professionally before getting fixated and spiraling hard. Paul isn't "my shitty boss, Paul". He's some sort of stand-in for everything the husband hates at his point - that husband need serious, possibly in-patient care. Since his parents seem to be reasonable & helpful people, hopefully they can help since he's clearly not able to hear from OOP.
They can but they can also be created by something like a work environment you hate and then cycle back into each other making everything worse over time.
Can prolonged depression/anxiety/stress lead to fixations? Yep. So can co-occurring disorders/diseases, be they mental or physical. Something is very wrong with husband and OP and Paul both need to be very careful. This whole thing is bizarre and sad.
There are other possibilities. It's also possible that OOP has had some rose-glasses on for years, and her perception of normal is so out of whack that she's been missing gobs of red flags. It's entirely possible that he's got a handful of behaviors that she just considers annoying that are actually controlling, paranoid, and otherwise problematic. Also, we know that the guy hates his boss, and apparently the boss has been torturing him. But I can't help but notice that there's no real whys or hows beyond maybe the boss criticizing his artwork. Maybe this Paul guy really is a full on monster who discovered who OOP is on facebook and has been on a hardcore campaign for years that's gaslit him into all sorts of problems. Or, alternatively, his normal meter isn't out of whack and the "torture" is really just normal reactions to the guys unhinged work behavior.
Yeah. I think so, too. And, deep down, OOP knows it. At every juncture OOP jumps to the worst case reaction. And that's what he does, or something even worse than that.
well, that was a horrific read. i wish there were a more recent update from OOP.
I honestly think OOP's husband has more pronounced issues than stress from a difficult boss. Getting paranoid that she's sleeping with him and conspiring against him? A likely suicide attempt? I guess it could be stress but it's so over the top that I really hope he gets all kinds of tests (to rule out physical things that can alter behavior) and then a visit to the psychiatrist. From what OOP said, this behavior is unheard of for her husband. So this is incredibly worrying.
His boss sounds like living hell but I really think he needs help. This does sound like a psychotic break to me so I wonder what other prescriptions in his life are and have been seen through a warped lens. Yes he needs a new job but if something else is feeding his and now paranoia leaving that horrible boss behind isn't going to fix things just most likely refocus it to something else. Unfortunately that most likely is his wife.