@IDontHaveThePelvisForAFuton
I feel do much better for reading this thread.
Dh wfh full time since the New Year, but he can pick and choose his hours where as I have fixed hours. He'll do an hour, potter, do an hour, potter. I hear it all. Slip slopping in his slippers. Flushes the loo. Asks Alexa to play Phil Collins. Slip slops in his slippers upstairs to ask me non-essential questions..
'Has the cat been fed?'
'Can I eat this bread with green on it?'
'Is the washing machine always so loud?'
Even if he was completely silent it's just having someone around constantly kind of changes the energy in the house. I'm always waiting for a query or having to look at an odd cloud or being told there's a helicopter flying around. Yes I can hear it
He goes the the football every other weekend. He takes the bus and meets a friend for a beer beforehand so I get about 4 wonderful hours to myself (well, teen dd is usually around but is elusive).
He doesn't seem to crave time alone like I do. I'm out two evenings a week for 3 hours and I do a supermarket shop on another evening so he gets his alone time as well.
Our marriage isn't at risk as such but I miss the days of us being apart from 8-6 and having lots to talk about the commute or gossip about colleagues. Our world has shrunk.
Worded so much better than I can put it. I do love my DH, been together nearly 40 years now, but fuck me he can be so clingy and needy sometimes. He never used to be this way, and was a bit like the men I mentioned (dad and uncles etc) up to 15 or so years ago. He had hobbies, friends, a decent job, and above all, was out of the house half the time.
It's not normal or natural to spend every waking hour together, no matter what the (few) posters say about how THEY never get fed up of THEIR men being at home all the time, and how THEIR men never annoy them, like, EVER!
My DH changed when he lost his job of 25 years, and he and his colleagues he knew lost touch. Then he got a job that was not as good, was less pay, and had less prospects, and he ceased his outdoor hobbies.
We do have some good laughs together, and have a lot in common, and we do get on. We wouldn't still be together after almost 40 years otherwise. But when he was off on furlough last year (and some of 2020,) one time for 5 months I wanted an axe, a shovel, and an alibi. He drove me FUCKING NUTS. (Especially as I was working from home!)
Mithering, constantly chatting, not able to go for more than 30 seconds without talking, (nothing important 70% of the time, just bollocks and jibberish,) following me from room to room, asking what's for tea, if I'd heard from the kids today, if I was OK, if I had fed the cat, blah blah blah, and sulking like a baby when I moved my workspace into my bedroom to get away from him.
Like a lot of men, he struggles when he is not working. Work is a big part of a man's identity (for many men,) and when they're not working, they become annoying, clingy, whiny, and irritating. Even if it's just temporary - like 5 or 6 months.
I remember reading several reports a few years back, about how women suffer from depression in retirement, when they have their husbands at home 24/7, and he's under her feet all the time, and never goes out. The lack of 'me time' and personal space affects her mental health. And this has been pretty much proven/backed up by the multiple posts on this thread saying a similar thing. That their DH being at home all the time makes them very low.
Like the poster I quoted, my DH seems to LOVE spending every waking hour with me, but I have no desire to spend every waking moment with him. Quite a lot of men are like this - especially as they get older (45+,) and it IS tiresome, despite the smug and sanctimonious 'oh I love having my husband in my pocket everywhere I go, your marriage must be shit' type posts.
I go out without him quite often, but he NEVER goes out without me, apart from twice a year... a week before my birthday and a week before Christmas, to buy me a card and a few gifts. Even then he gets back as quick as he can. It's like he can't stand me having time to myself.
And yeah, I have my own bedroom, because I want to SLEEP. Trying to sleep with an almost 60 year old man who snores like a buffalo, and rips the duvet off me, sneezes, coughs, grunts, and farts through the night is not conducive to a good night's sleep! OR a good marriage!
And as has been said, if you are together 24/7,what on earth do you find to talk about? 