Sorry - nobody i can talk to IRL.
I have a small/growing business and have moved it forwards enough to have staff who do most of the on-site work and a full-time person to help me manage the day-to-day communications with customers and staff.
I cannot afford an actual office so myself and that person work remotely from home but obviously we share access to the systems we have etc. Sometimes one of us or the other will go out and cover work on-site, this is at least a couple of times a week for both of us and sometimes we both have to leave the office for site work all week and then catch up as we can, for me this is in the evenings and weekends but i cannot afford my colleague after hours so she just sticks to her week days. We both work quite intensively when we are in our respective home offices and communicate a lot throughout the days. So there's no real need for the expense of an office - except for this one which I am resenting to the point of exploding ...
Every frigging time I sit down at my work station to concentrate and my dh is around he will pretend I am not working and talk over whatever it is I'm trying to get my head around. Then I have to start the whole thought process again each time he does it but with additional anger and stress. I make mistakes that I shouldn't make because to him, I am not at work I am there in plain sight. to talk to!
He does not want to talk to me much if i am not working but will not stop talking to me if he can see that I am. It's like he feels left out and must distract my attention back to him. I've told him and told him but he cannot stop and says I am rude to say 'shhh' and then makes a big fuss until I've got cross and forgotten the task and then this causes issues at work because i should have completed the task.
I've even tried talking back over him ie reading aloud from my job list and muttering to myself about it, or reading out the figures I am calculating so he will visibly 'see' I am working because just the mute act of working peacefully is invisible to him. I am just there to talk to and joke with if I am quiet but nothing works, he still tries to interrupt my thoughts. I've told him so often how tiring it is and how i'm trying to build our company but it's so hard with him distracting me during work times. He seems to agree but just does it anyway when he feels like talking to me.
He is a partner in the business but I set it up and I set all the systems of work etc, he cannot figure out the business side so that is my job, he is great in a practical sense on-site and for any practical, physical support we need like delivering supplies etc but he has to leave the business end to myself and my colleague because he has not interest in that side. I've been in this industry for over 20 years and have a lot of industry related knowledge that he is not interested in but he is good at things other than the business side and I have my colleague for that.
Today me and him were both headed out on-site, him driving , so i called my colleague as always to take care of a few things and help her handle a difficult client, there were several items to discuss the management of and after the call (all during our car journey) he said 'You have been NATTERING for an hour.'
There are SO many things wrong with that statement. Firstly the journey was only half an hour anyway, secondly, all the issues needed fully addressing whatever his objections and mainly, his choice of word 'nattering' for us thrashing out urgent business matters.
I said it was completely disrespectful to reduce our conversations down to women 'nattering' and he held firm, carried on ranting at me that a lot of it was just gossip. I asked for one example as it had all felt pretty pressures to me. He said 'One of the client's is just nonsense to deal with and we should get rid of him instead of all this' I told him that colleague and I were perfectly happy to manage difficult clients thank you very much and that us discussing this does not make it 'nattering '. It's serious business and we need to get on with it all, he said that I had brought up things from the past that the same client had said and done, so that's just gossiping, I told him she had to have all the facts in order to handle him correctly. Anyway i was so cross because NONE of this is for him to be dealing with and other than being in the car too, there was no need for him to have an opinion on the conversation or the length of it.
Top and bottom is I was in tears of frustration, and although he ended up saying sorry, i am sick of it and don't want him to interrupt or belittle my work in any way shape or form ever again. Especially since he directly benefits from the long hours i am putting in with increasing household income.
I could be working right now but decided to vent here instead as I now can't concentrate for feeling upset.
Am I over-reacting? He thinks I am although he did seem sorry but inly because I was upset for hours did he finally back down. He said it was because he is 'tired'. Maybe I am over-reacting though?
I just feel so belittled sometimes. What is going on?