Is my husband selfish - working from home?

[Kuro20]

For context my husband has a study before the lockdown and works in there. I've been working from home since April with no end in sight I started off trying to work on the kitchen table which was horrendous but after I bought a cheap desk I set up an office in our only spare room. There wasn't much room due to loads of crap and a double bed. Also the only position I could put the desk causes terrible lighting issues.
My mental health needs a boost and I wanted to change my 'office' to feel more work productive and help the lighting issue. To do this we took apart the bed and all our stuff... mainly my husband's stuff propped up against the wall. Its not great but gives me a bit more space. My husband complained and moaned the whole time making me feel awful. He wouldn't take any of his crap into his office.
He actually decided to move some of his stuff....trophies, photos, prints from his study to my room into our spare room . I said this was not fair as it's his and I don't have the space so we had an argument.
What he fails to see is that he has it easy in his office, he thinks I'm being demanding and difficult to want an office space and not take on his rubbish too.
He says I'm ridiculous and selfish
I said we both pay rent 50/50 so we potentially could share the office 50/50 which he said was impossible as it was his and always been his. My point was to highlight he has a study and hasn't once considered to share or be more understanding.

Am I being difficult? Should I accept it's HIS office/study and should I allow him to palm me off with his rubbish that he doesn't want but I don't have space for?

I don't know if I'm being difficult.
Thanks

Clearly YANBU. My only caveat would be if you lived in my house? My study is about the size of a single bed and you have to step over piles of stuff just to get in and out. Whereas the spare room is a nice sized double bedroom (although also my laundry room so usually full of drying racks with 4 people's washing, especially as the tumble dryer broke about 4 years ago and DH keeps making excuses about getting it sorted.....)!

Apart from the clothes drying (and no broadband up there) - if you were us I would say YWBU because there is no way you could fit anything else into the study. There is about a square foot of work space beside the printer and screen, and only one person can fit in at a time. I want to put a child in there to work while they are home schooling so I can do my tax return on the kitchen table - but I'm not sure they could. It certainly won't take a trophy let alone a snowboard......

Also YABVU to get rid of the spare bed as you now have nowhere to sleep if he annoys you.........

No your not being unreasonable I would also say he either removes his crap or your chucking it in the bin give him an hour to clear it if he doesn't very loudly take black bin bags and start putting stuff in them (minus the snowboard which if he takes off the bindings can easily sit down by a bookcase or under a bed etc)

Obviously it's a choice between either making you an equally nice office in the spare room (including clearing any junk) or taking turns in the decent office.

I can't even imagine how he has the nerve to suggest anything else!

I would take all his stuff out, dump it in his study and will get a lock for my office.
No wonder you have mental health issues. You are a bloody doormat!

@Kuro20

He's said, right now he doesn't know why we're married. And I'm like meh, piss off and actually fantasising about a nice two bed flat with a plush office on my own.

@Kuro20 this isn’t normal. Never once has my DH said this to me, if he said this to me a divorce would follow.

Could he put them in the loft?

For goodness sake don't go and get pregnant by this waster.

You say it's impossible to reason with him that's because he refuses to level with you and engage with you and take you seriously
Don't bother trying to reason with him, stop trying to justify or explain yourself to him tell him what your terms are and if he doesn't agree have a serious think about whether it's worth staying in this relationship

Ebay his stuff. Once you start making money ask if he has anymore stuff.

@NoSquirrels

I would be telling him he had these options

1. Have all his shit in 'his' study
2. Move out of 'his' study into the spare room with all his shit, and you have the study
3. He can pay for storage for his snowboard and shit out of his own money

He can pick.

This.

Of course you aren’t being unreasonable, he’s being a screaming dick. I hope he doesn’t behave like this in any other part of your lives.

He is being overbearing , awkward and selfish,and does not play fair with you. You both need comfortable rooms to work in, not just the self important him.We all know that clutter makes a person feel hemmed in. So he needs to be considerate, and move his stuff somewhere else, in the skip maybe !

He sounds horrible Op. I agree with everyone else that you need to dump his stuff (either in his office or the bin). He also sounds like he's gaslighting you so please be very careful if you plan to stay with him as the abuse will likely get worse.

You could utilise the crap he's trying to store to give yourself some fun?

If you make him a cuppa whilst making your own, serve it in a trophy. Use the snowboard as a cheeseboard.
Build a huge tower out of any books, outside the door of his office.

When he asks WTF just calmly explain 'Well you're so attached to it my dear and I hate to see it go to waste couped up in my office, why don't we use it......?
Bonus points if you do it whilst he's on a zoom video call.

Bag it up and dump it in his office. Forget all this "he said" business. He isn't god.

@toocold54 that’s isn’t relevant ffs! Misery top trumps is the most boring game!

I agree with putting his stuff in his office and start calling the spare room your office. How can his possibly think he should be able to store his stuff in your office?

Could you turn the spare room into a lovely study/calm space for you and put dismantled bed away? Alternatively, if you don't need much stuff other than a computer/pen/notebook, could you work.at the kitchen table. My DH and I don't work from home but are currently. He has a desk upstairs but does not use it. I work at kitchen table and prefer it because there's so much room.

He doesn't know why you're married?
What because you happened to say something about him hogging the house space.

I'd just neatly pack them up without making a scene, and put them.in his study. Get a giant storage box. Put his snowboard in his side of the wardrobe.
Say you wouldn't want it to get damaged propped up in your study.

He sounds selfish.
Happy for himself to have a room to himself and use the spare room as storage.
If you're paying 50/50 it's unfair.

Was this 'his' flat before you moved in, is that why he's being like this?
Like you should be lucky to have half the bed.

@Ginkeepsmesane

You could utilise the crap he's trying to store to give yourself some fun?

If you make him a cuppa whilst making your own, serve it in a trophy. Use the snowboard as a cheeseboard.
Build a huge tower out of any books, outside the door of his office.

When he asks WTF just calmly explain 'Well you're so attached to it my dear and I hate to see it go to waste couped up in my office, why don't we use it......?
Bonus points if you do it whilst he's on a zoom video call.

Ha yes. Use the snowboard as your table, trophies as your bin, cups, stationery storage.

@OneNapForMeNoNapForYou. I'm impressed! Good visual aid there to OP

OP, this is all too familiar, he clearly thinks you are nothing and his needs come first. The marriage comment is designed to control you, to make you worried he might leave you, so you ‘improve your behaviour’ and dance harder to please him. He couldn’t care less about your living conditions as long as his are what he wants. I bet you do all the cooking, cleaning and washing too, because ‘you’re better at it than he is’. And that he spends more money on his hobbies and himself. You’d be wise to join his ex wife, I bet she is glad she’s not dealing with the undermining prick anymore.

Box up everything in your study room that isn't required for you to work. Put it on the landing marked 'for temporary loft storage'. Ask him to move it up when he's got time.

If he asks why it's on the landing just say your mental health suffers in a cramped room and this is particularly so during lockdown. That you need a clear study space as he does too.

He appears not to like change, or you asserting yourself. You need to present this how it is, him being inconsiderate and unreasonable.

If it wasn't for lockdown I'd suggest you give it a lick of paint and buy personal things to mark the room as your work area. This will redefine the space.

[quote nettie434]@bestoption

Agree that it's not just about the office space. You just put it more firmly than I did in the next part of my post [/quote]
Yep, not known for pussy footing around 🤣

You have to work, he has to work.. even if you worked 5 hours a week, you still have to work. You still need adequate space to work. You need to be able to function while you work. He has an office already, you technically don't. You're in a room crammed with his crap while you're doing the best you can. You've asked nicely, he doesn't care. He doesn't care what you want because he's getting what he wants. To use the 2nd room for his crap storage.

Go up to him and say, I need a place I can work without trying to work out of a storage unit. You have two options. Take your stuff and put it in here, or put it in actual storage and pay for it. Either way, I need a place to work, or I'm just not going to. Think about it.
And then I'd walk out.

This reminds me of the thread about the dickhead husband hogging the garage space to store all his shite and getting prissy if the wife wanted to shockingly pop a couple of her items in there which led to a deluge of other similarly annoyed woman popping up who were in the same boat with similar selfish dickheads who hogged all the attic/shed/garage space for their useless crap.

You have 3 bedrooms and he's using 5/6 of the space for sleeping,working and storing his crap.If he needs to store his crap tell him to put it in the attic or hire a storage unit and take his stuff there.Replace the bed with a sofa bed so you still have a spare bed and turn it into your office other tell him he can Start sleeping in the spare room with his useless stuff