If something unexpected and violent happens at your workplace, are you obliged to tell your SO?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Another hypo, again not on a Monday. Apparently I am not Solomon Grundy. The tale is based on actual events, incidentally, though the identifying details have been changed on account of me wanting to change the identifying details.

Today’s story is about Amy and Rick, whose names have no special significance. They’re in their 30s and married in all but name: that is, monogamous, cohabiting, and raising a child together. Both work: Rick is a surgical resident, Amy a counselor at a group home for the mentally ill.

Amy’s job is a source of tension. Rick is something of a worrier, you see; he frets that the residents of the group home, being by definition somewhat unstable, may one day get involved in something violent that may harm Amy. So while he doesn’t object to her working–not even her working such long hours–he wishes she would do it in a different environment. Amy things Rick’s concerns are overblown. She’s been a counselor at the home for years (longer than she’s known Rick) and nothing dangerous or untoward has ever happened.

Until two weeks ago, that is. That was when one of the group home residents, for reasons I see no reason to contrive, went batshit. The resident trashed her own room, destroyed two televisions, broke windows, even ripped the door off a refrigerator. Nobody was hurt, but it was a near thing for Amy, for during the meltdown the resident threw a small, hard, heavy object directly at her head, missing narrowly. The police were called, and the resident was taken to a more … stringent facility. (None of those details are fictional, incidentally.)

Amy did not tell Rick about any of this. In her judgment it was an anomaly unlikely to recur, and telling him could only serve to feed his fears. But he found out anyway. Yesterday he decided to surprise her at work with flowers and candy, and one of the other counselors, impressed by his no-particular-occasion gifting, chatted with him; seeking to praise Amy’s general comptence, told him about the meltdown.

Rick was pissed. When he and Amy were alone, he asked her why she had kept this story from him, as they generally tell one another about their days. She told him that she didn’t want to distress him, that the violence was anomalous, and that it wasn’t important overall. He replied that she was being inconsistent, for if the meltdown truly was a rare event, it was important. He still wishes she’d find another position, but that isn’t what vexes him; what vexes him is her keeping such an incident from him.

This remark pisses Amy off. “I’m a grown damn woman,” she says. “You don’t get to control me. I don’t have to tell you every little thing that happens to me, and you don’t get to tell me where to work.”

“I’m not trying to control you,” Rick replies. “But we share a home and a bed; we’re raising a son; we’re building a life together. This is something I had a right to know about.”

Whom would you say is right here?

2

I went with the last option because I like to keep an open mind and look forward to someone convincing me that Rick is mostly right.

3

I can see why Amy didn’t tell Rick. She felt he might overreact and from his reaction to learning the news, I’d say that was a safe bet. She is a competent professional and has been trained to handle this type of situation (I’m assuming) and can put it into perspective in a way that Rick cannot. I don’t think she would have told him later, either.

On the other hand, for Rick to find out about it in the way he did was wrong. It would have been better for Amy to tell him about it, as she could have phrased it in a non-alarming way and while he probably still would have had a negative reaction, she could have helped him work through it.

So I’m starting my own option. Neither one of them is right.

4

Rick is a tool. Amy is right.

For what it’s worth, I do a similar kind of work as Amy, and as social care work is overwhelmingly done by women - underpaid and disrespected, to boot - it’s a particular pet peeve of mine that men think we are too fragile and delicate to cope with it. I don’t see a line of men outside queuing up to wipe the bottoms, support the vulnerable, care for the less fortunate, and until I do, I’m not having a man say what is or isn’t dangerous. (I’m generalising. There are men doing this work. Just not many, and it’s traditionally a nurturing female role and therefore societally less highly regarded and compensated).

Amy might not mention the incident because it’s not unusual. I haven’t mentioned every time I’ve been or felt threatened at work, because there’s too many, and I absorb it in the job. It’s also better to leave it at work than bring it home.

Rick is also a tool for showing up at her work place. Unacceptable when working in confidential areas. The colleague is wrong for disclosing work related information to someone not working in the environment. Amy should tell Rick to get over his need to protect her and to worry about his own job.

5

So equally right and wrong.

  1. Peter is wrong initially, his worrying and hassling Amy about that worry contributed to her not sharing the incident with him.
  2. Amy isn’t helping. By not sharing this incident she’s now opened up the concern for Peter to wonder all the time if bad things are happening that he’s just not hearing about.
6

Amy is completely right. As a courtesy she could (and should) tell Rick about something that significant BUT she is under no obligation to do so. She’s an adult and she is an individual not an appendage of Rick’s married/cohabitating/ or other.

7

If you have to hide something from your spouse, or however the relationship is defined when you haven’t actually gotten married, you’re doing something wrong.

Rick obviously cares about Amy but respects her enough to make her own decisions. She should respect him enough not to hide things from him.

8

Rick is wrong to hassle her about her job. Amy is wrong not to tell him about it. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Regards,
Shodan

9

Rick needs to quit being a pussy.

I could elaborate, but I’m not sure it can be said much better than that. It’s not like she’s velociraptor-wrangling at a supervillain-owned shell company with a history of violations against both OSHA and the goddess Athena.

10

I’m sure you did not mean to imply what you seem to be implying, but I’m gonna have to unleash the owls anyway. It’s not personal, and I hope you keep at least one of your eyes.

11

I side more with Rick. If they’re not sharing their lives, then what are they doing? In most families, a common topic of conversation is “So, how were things at work/school today?”. And when something as significant as this comes up, Amy should be raising the topic even if Rick didn’t. She doesn’t need to give all the details, but something as simple as “So-and-so totally flipped out; they’re taking her to a more secure facility” would be enough.

That said, Rick needs to learn to keep his mouth shut about his concerns. Amy already knows that Rick doesn’t like how risky her job is; he doesn’t need to keep harping about it. She has an obligation to listen to and consider his concerns… once. But the decision is hers to make, and he needs to respect that, whatever her decision is. An incident like this should at most prompt a question of “Are you still sure about working at this place?”, and if the answer is anything other than “I dunno, I need to think about it”, he should drop the topic again.

12

I’d think it’s highly dependent on the nature of the workplace. I mean, if your SO is a cop, and they had to wrestle a belligerent drunk and cuff them that day, I wouldn’t think that would merit any unusual notification of the other partner. OTOH, if there was a gunfight or something, then yeah, they ought to tell their SO.

Overall, Rick needs to man up and trust Amy that she’s both appropriately trained, backed up and experienced enough to handle her job, but at the same time, a strategy for Amy might be to explain the nature of the lunatic freakouts as they happen, and how this is the 398th one she’s dealt with in her career, and how they have a procedure, nobody gets hurt badly, etc…

Rick also needs to man up and confront her directly. If he found out, he should say “I heard there was a nut who wigged out the other day. Why didn’t you tell me? You know I worry about you.” instead of some sneaky back-door shenanigans involving cookies and flowers and showing up at work.

13

I think the hypothetical is saying that he found out when he showed up with cookies and flowers, not that he found out first and then showed up with cookies and flowers in a way to corner. (i.e., he showed up to surprise her, and in chatting with the co-worker, discovered about the violent rampage.)

I’d say she’s a bit more right than him, but I really can go either way on this one. They both have merit to their points. (Shoot. I didn’t notice there was an “about equally right or wrong” choice before voting.)

14

II think you misread the OP. The surprise-gift visit is explicitly how Rick finds out, and he does bring the matter up soon afterward, though in private.

15

Where is the cake? I want cake!

I don’t think there is an obligation to tell your partner anything about your job; on another finger, if you do tell, there is an obligation to remember things like confidentiality. On a third finger, having an SO (or friend, or whatever - anybody who in theory should be a possible confidant) who’s not good as a shoulder / confidant / bouncing board is a pain. And on a fourth finger, well, evidently in this case Rick must have some other virtues that weren’t any of our business, cos number 3 appears to be the case.

Gee, I didn’t even need the thumb.

16

They are life partners. She concealed something important to him because she didn’t trust him to be able to handle the news. She didn’t feel like dealing with a possibly awkward conversation, and she got busted. Now Rick has more fears about her job AND he doesn’t know if he can trust her.

She should have told him when it happened. It was scary (it’s scary when people lose their shit), but he should be proud of how well she handled everything. No one got hurt, the patient has been moved, we’re all good. In theory, maybe he feels a little better about her job, maybe. He knows he can trust her.

Now, though, Amy’s got ground to make up, and it’s going to take time. She messed this one up.

17

I’m more with Rick. Amy hid the incident because she’s afraid of what Rick would say, preferring to avoid that confrontation. If Rick has never pressed her about leaving her work, then its simply wrong that she’s accusing him of trying to control her. The only control here is Amy trying to control the fallout, she has no reason to accuse Rick of that

He has a right to know stuff that may affect both of them and is not wrong for feeling betrayed, though it doesn’t rise to me to a big deal. He possibly overreacted to the news, but is not overreacting when he worries about her

18

I am biased because I have been in situations where I am more of the Amy. So, I am taking Amy’s side. I don’t need additional stress related to my job when I am AT HOME, and that is what Rick is adding.

I should also say that if Amy had asked for my advice previous to this incident, I would have suggested that she think about how she presents her day to Rick, as you say that they generally tell each other about their days. If Rick is that much of a worrier, if I were Amy, I probably would have dialed way back what I tell him about a TYPICAL DAY, as to not set expectations about what I would tell him about an unusual day. Overall, I like to leave work at work.

19

Amy is completely right. Rick’s got no more right to know this than he has to know her pap smear results, to pick an arb example. It would be different if they had a prior, explicit agreement that she’d tell him everything that happened at work, but he can’t invoke some bullshit “but we tell each other everything” post hoc justification. He doesn’t have a “right” to know jack that she doesn’t want him to know.

20

Say I discover I am dying of cancer. Have I the right to keep that from my wife?