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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think she should just go back to working in the office?

80 replies

SweetElizaRose · 27/05/2016 13:26

Dh now works from home (unless he's travelling away which is probably 50% of the time but supposedly going to decrease). He does have an office he could go to but he says that because most of the people he works with are now in different countries there's no value added by going to the office and he may as well stay at home.

However since I had dd and am at home too he's got increasingly aggressive about us making any noise. We are basically confined to the living room with the door shut. He had come down to the kitchen just to get a coffee and was still on a call. I went in to get dd a bottle and he made a throat slitting motion and mouthed 'fuck off.' In having to creep around my own house. When ds (6) gets home it's even worse. I have to remind him in the car every day that we have to go in the house quietly and go straight into the living room.
Sometimes - if on a particularly important call - dh will come down first and say not to let dd cry. How?! It's making me really stressed out.

Aibu to think he should just work from the office if we are that much of a problem? We are hardly noisy! It also means I can vacuum / clean upstairs etc. in fact I'm frightened to go upstairs at all!

OP posts:
MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 27/05/2016 13:36

That's no childhood for your children. Your H needs a rocket up his arse.

KayTee87 · 27/05/2016 13:39

He sounds like an arsehole, tell him he can work in the office and sleep there unless his attitude towards you and the kids improves Angry

weebarra · 27/05/2016 13:40

Eliza, I've read a few of your threads now and I really think you need to speak to yours husband. He's very little help, he threw away your ADs, he is now stressing you out by invading the space you have with your children. He needs to use his office.

Heyheyheygoodbye · 27/05/2016 13:42

Sweetheart, with the best will in the world, you keep starting these threads about your husband and nobody can give you any advice that you haven't already had. Of course MN is a good place to come and vent but unless you start speaking to your husband about all this stuff and making a plan to improve your life - with our without him - nothing is going to change.

Valentine2 · 27/05/2016 13:43

I would open the door and throw his whole office out. And tell him to take it to his actual office along with his sorry ass. It's bad enough to be dealing with a newborn and confining DC to one room so he doesn't have to go to office is terrible. Tell him to sod off to office.

KoalaDownUnder · 27/05/2016 13:43

Hang on, wait, what?! He threw away your antidepressants??

ThatStewie · 27/05/2016 13:44

He isn't a good husband or a good father. Please call Women's Aid for a chat. They can help you because you deserve better than a man who tells to fuck off for making a baby bottle or throws away your ADs.

AdrenalineFudge · 27/05/2016 13:44

What does he say when you bring this up with him?

Valentine2 · 27/05/2016 13:44

Oh I just realised it is you again OP. Wow. You need to set boundaries now. What's the point of taking advice f you aren't working on it?

ChaChaChaCh4nges · 27/05/2016 13:45

He threw away your ADs? Seriously?

sharknad0 · 27/05/2016 13:46

I wouldn't tell him to fuck off, because I don't think going to in a full on screaming argument would help anything.

Once he is in a better mood, after work, I would seat down with him and explain calmly that

  • he is perfectly ok to work from home as long as he doesn't disturb the other residents (you and the kids) *it is completely unreasonable to expect kids to stay quiet and be locked in a room in their own home *just by being in the house, he is actually causing the kids to play out. Ask any nanny with experience, and they will tell you that life is a nightmare when the parents are in the house and children are a lot easier when the parents are not around.

I would also show him a list of your chores, and explain that you have to get them done during the day, so no, you cannot be completely quiet.

Many people work from home, but if he needs complete silence, he needs to move into the garden shed or something separate from the main building.

GasLightShining · 27/05/2016 13:46

He's a knob

Does he also moan that the housework isn't being done? Wouldn't surprise me

BabyGanoush · 27/05/2016 13:48

He should work in the office

Maybe he could live there too, that would be even better.

andadietcoke · 27/05/2016 13:49

I WFH two days a week. Normally Thursday and Friday but occasionally a Monday when my MiL has my DTs at our house. I know I am completely unable to work with them in the house so I either shut myself upstairs (which I don't like because when I'm on calls I worry about interruptions/background noise) or I go and work out of the house - at my parents', the pub, anywhere with wifi that's quiet basically. It's my responsibility to find a suitable working environment and I wouldn't dream of asking my MiL to keep the girls quiet so I could stay at home. If the office wasn't 180 miles away I'd just go in!

NeverbuytheDailyMail · 27/05/2016 13:51

My OH started working from home but I found it too stressful. Like you I felt like I was tiptoeing around my home and I'm NOT a tiptoeing kind of women - i'm a radio up, dancing in the kitchen with the kids, singing at the top of my voice kind of women. He never once asked us to be quiet but I felt that we should be. I told him that it wasn't working for us and he said ok. He had booked a desk in a shared office space within 24 hours. That's normal. It is normal to be able to talk to your husband about things that are getting to you. It is NOT normal to feel like you can not ask him to work in the office and if he refuses it is because he is being a bastard.

From what others have said on this thread, I think you know this about him?

Pseudo341 · 27/05/2016 13:52

What a twat!

My DH works from home a lot. He'll be at our house on the days our 2 year old is at nursery but on the days she's home he takes his laptop over to his mum's and works there because she'd never leave him alone if he was here. We're planning to build an office extension to make things easier but agreed DD still needs to be older before he'll be able to stay here when she's here because she just won't understand Daddy being home but not being able to play yet.

ImperialBlether · 27/05/2016 13:53

Oh I'd be very tempted to yell, "Did you just tell me to fuck off?" so that his clients heard.

KatharinaRosalie · 27/05/2016 13:54

I've seen your other threads. He should fuck off to his office and stay there. He's a nasty bully.
Of course you're not unreasonable. You are not in his office - he is at home where kids and you should be able to live a normal life!

sportinguista · 27/05/2016 13:57

I work from home all the time. Today I have DH home and DS, cartoons are on full blast next to me and DS is playing. DH is on playstation, there is noise outside. I am still working and manage. I also manage client calls without total silence. It takes a bit of practice to zone out the noise but it can be done.

Guess what unless he has his own sound proofed office at work there will be noise there too. He needs to learn to cope with it. Plenty of us manage it.

AddictedtoSnickers · 27/05/2016 13:58

My husband works from home 2 days a week too. We do try to be quiet(er) but we still have friends over and have fun/laugh/cry etc. What you have described is NOT normal or acceptable. Please encourage him to go into the office. If he won't, then just be yourselves, make normal amounts of noise (including hoovering) and hopefully he will get fed up and work it out for himself.

AyeAmarok · 27/05/2016 14:04

Every thread you start I think I couldn't think any less of your horrible, abusive husband.

Then the next one I find myself surprised again that he actually does get worse.

Honestly, you'd be better off on your own. No wonder you have PND Sad

SuckingEggs · 27/05/2016 14:07

Jesus.

He's a total utter cunting arsehole.

Please look to the future.

TwoWeeksInCyprus · 27/05/2016 14:07

Yes he should go to work at the office, preferably one in another country.

Kenduskeag · 27/05/2016 14:15

SweetElizaRose, this isn't the first thread you've made about your abusive, lazy husband. Your mental health and physical health are suffering and now he keeps you locked in a room and makes violent threats.

What further proof do you need?

Your DD deserves a better role model than that man.

Talk to Women's Aid, as advised before. They can guide you to your next steps.

EUnamechange · 27/05/2016 14:17

He's an idiot. I work from home sometimes whilst our daughter is there with the nanny. The only rule is that she doesn't come to my office when I'm working. Very occasionally if I have a VIP foreign language call which can be hard to understand, I might ask the nanny to keep her out a bit longer, or play in her room - for half an hour or so only.

My dh works from home sometimes when I have both children at home, tired fractious, making a noise and piano playing. Must drive him mad though he's on a different floor, but he never complains, and he would never, ever, tell me to fuck off.

We both very occasionally use the finger across neck sign to signal the noise needs to be kept down, because it's the easiest thing to do in some situations when you are on (for both of us, foreign) calls.

He cannot expect to work at home all the time and for you to keep the children quiet all the time. The odd half hour is okay. He should be wearing a headset with noise cancelling headphones and a microphone to do the calls and video cons. If this doesn't help then he needs to go into the company office.

His behaviour to you is also worryingly disrespectful.

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