I think you could be right on some occasions but those are the few that I would share.

What I learned a while ago is to rechannel the negative energy and focus on her, do something special for her. It helps me work through/sort out what happened and of course she's appreciative of the foot massage or some such other little thoughtful act. Since I do those kinds of things randomly normally anyway, there's no alarm or cause for her to suspect anything. Only the joy I feel in giving her a little surprise. And hers too.

Channeling and focusing positive energy and therefore attitude/demeanor, seems to work for me. The key I think is understanding your partner's love language and focusing on those like "words of affirmation, quality time and physical touch."

Yesterday was a bad day because I spent 12+ hours working on a rare part, it was 95% done, I set it down, had lunch, came back and it was broken. Like magically broken, it's more believable that invisible elves appeared and broke it 10 feet away from me eating lunch at my desk than anything I did. And it's not fixable. And it's rare and pricey. That and a crown came off a few hours later, at least I didn't swallow it. There was something else but I can't remember it now. It was a bad day.

Shaun, that sucks, twice. Sorry to hear. That is hard all around.
As stated by other 'long timers' here, my wife and I rely upon each other's strengths. If I had a day anywhere close to what you just had, she would know it the second I came through the door and would be asking about what was wrong before I opened my mouth.
It might not work for everyone, but it has worked for us since '76.

Best
Les

It is called a partnership and wedding vows usually have those nice bits about "for better or worse, in sickness and in health" for a reason ....

Shaun, how does your SO feel about your not sharing your bad day? Does she prefer that, or is she hurt?

I’ve had a couple of days on par with that work wise over my career. It sucks but, being able to share those instances reaffirms that I’m not ‘alone’ in my journey. The journey isn’t supposed to be all about the good.

Telling ‘US’ about the day reveals that you needed to share it to release some of that internal load. I realize that many of ‘us’ are somewhat anonymous so it feels safer to do so but, the need to share was real. Not sharing with a SO is not ‘sheltering’ unless the sharing can’t be done without dredging up other feelings. It’s a delicate balance of allowing vulnerability into the discussion.

Mind you, I’m not talking about storming home in a rage, announcing how crappy your day was, grabbing a beer and brooding,,,

Does she share bad days with you and how would you feel if that part of her life was cut off from you?

Only very occasionally do I share business related bad-day info with my wife. I see time with her as a respite from work-related stress. The complexity and nuance around such things preclude revisiting all that detail only to relive it again. Simply not worth it.

No.
The times I have she has gone on to tell me how I should have done thing differently.

I need to share just because I'm a narcissist. :D

Here's my thing. I have shared work related bad days before with SO's and their response is typically of concern and comfort and understanding and sometimes advice and such. With my current gf, she trends more toward concern and worry. In a day like yesterday, neither she nor anyone can really do anything about it or even offer advice other than don't chew 2 Werther's Originals at one time. But the part breaking, I can't even do anything about it. I am still very much shocked that the piece is broken. I honestly would have been thrilled if somehow I had sanded too far and that caused it to break. But doing this for 9 years, I don't really do that, but anyway, the broken area is full thickness. Breaking it would require someone actively breaking it. And it wasn't broken for 12 hours. Since I train my eyes on finding micro-pitting, it's not like I could have missed a crack or any flaw. That's what is driving me crazy. So sharing this with her doesn't do much for me and only makes her worry. And she has some health issues that the last thing I want her to do is worry about me.

Her career doesn't have bad days, at least in the last year. She shares funny/goofy/annoying customer stories but that's as much as she can. Regular bad days, she shares, as do I and those are good, and close and important in our relationship.

I generally do, but mostly because if I don't, she senses it, and assumes something worse than what put me in a bad mood. She had 30 years of mostly bad relationships and that history can be challenging to deal with. I've got my own baggage that doesn't help much, but 10 years in we get better at communicating all the time. The older I get, the luckier I realize I am and I'm a much more positive minded person than 20 years ago. That helps keep the bad days in perspective.

Your situation with work sucks. Sorry to hear that. I can only begin to understand the frustration.

Hahahaha!

I get it, my wife is the ultimate “fixer” personality.

Funny. My wife vents to me about stuff. My first reaction is always to offer suggestions on how to avoid the problem which royally pisses her off. That's not what she wants, she's just venting. It's natural for me. I don't understand how when presented with a problem, anyone wouldn't offer suggestions on how to solve a problem. At least, that's my natural reaction, and I don't seem to be able to stop it.

Exactly. I don't need to cause additional stress in the family by creating it where it doesn't already exist.

On the topic of "The key I think is understanding your partner's love language and focusing on those like "words of affirmation, quality time and physical touch."

I can't stress enough the value of randomly, and rarely, sending a nice surprise to your SO at work. Could be anything from flowers or a stuffed animal or just a hand written card. Extra points if it references a recent discussion or noting something she offhandedly said she wanted in casual conversation. Pays serious dividends.

Sharing the terrible days with my husband always helps me. He gives me time to talk through it and then if I don't come up with a solution to feel ok with things, he helps me to that point. I, also do that for him. Now, most of my day to day issues are emotional because I am dealing with patients at the end of their life so there is no "solution", only acceptance.

When it comes to dealing with bad days: I think every relationship is different. If you both are happy with things and you both feel your mental health is good without the need to vent to one another on a bad day, great! I say do what works for you. But don't underestimate the catharsis that comes from a good rant.

As far as random acts of kindness: my hubby brought me lunch on a bad day this week and it really did help with my mood. I can't stress how the little things matter.

A B movie line came to mind. Movie "Pool Hall Junkies" is hardly great, but the line was delivered by Rod Steiger in his final role..must have known he was terminal during the filming...

One of the characters said he'd had a bad day. Steiger: "Every day is a good day. Just try missing one."

Some days are "meh", some are great. But since hearing that, I've tried to avoid saying "a bad day".

That said, after 49 years married, Cindy & I pretty much share everything. But that's just us.

(edit) Stephanie, God bless you & those who work in Hospice. You are a special breed. Hugs from an old guy...

I've had bad days because lots of little things throughout the day just added up to wear me down, so I was dragging ass and angry at Gaia by the end of the day.
Days like that are not worth sharing; best thing to do is put it behind before you get home.
I had a bad day in August when I broke my arm.
Talking about it helped. I was glad to have someone to listen to my story.

It's all circumstantial.

(And don't forget, sometimes solutions to problems come from the most unexpected places: )

"What's the matter, hon, you seem quiet tonight?"

"Oh, it's nothing. I somehow destroyed an unobtainable casting for the 1966 Spica fuel injection I was working on. I have to tell the owner. I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Shaun, honey, my Grandfather was lead engineer at Spica before Fiat bought the company. He has boxes full of old fuel injector parts in the garage. I'll see if he can find what you need. Heck, he probably just wants to get rid of all that old junk. I bet if you paid for shipping he'd send it all to you!"

It could happen!

Yes, of course. And my wife does the same. She deals with children with gunshot wounds, she has to have someone to talk to.

I never need to tell her if I’ve had a bad day, she knows me well enough to know. I DO definitely need to tell her why it was a bad day to reassure her that she isn’t the cause.

OR she could ask if a BJ would make you feel better …
and give you $20 and a ride to the truck stop.

:)