Wanting the house back to myself

[Estherpologist]

I get that lockdown has meant so many people have had to work from home, and the kids couldn't go to school, but having been the one who gave up their career to be the full time parent, and being the one who hasn't had the luxury of being able to leave the office at the end of the day and go home from their workplace, because home has been my workplace for 12yrs, am I being unreasonable for wanting the house back to myself during the day? Now that the kids are back at school (holidays notwithstanding) am I being unreasonable to be just a bit at the announcement "I'm probably going to work from home from now on"?

It is reasonable to ask a partner not to work from home full time when it has a negative impact on the household.
I think it's time you started doing your normal things in the day fedup and showing him the same level of consideration that he's showing you!
What you have there is more than an issue around needing a bit of space and quiet, it's about being married to a man who is acting like a selfish manchild. He wouldn't be a total slob at the office, so there's no excuse for it at work. Get that vacuum out and yell at your teens as much as is necessary!

For everyone saying that no one has a right to ask their partner not to WFH, surely the WFH partner has no right to expect everyone else to tiptoe around because of their choice (Covid aside)? WFH is great if there's space to do it, like a separate study with thick walls, but I think it's unreasonable if it takes up everyone else's living space and requires the rest of the family to live in silence all day.

I don’t think it is reasonable to insist someone works away from home because it has a negative impact on you. I think everyone is going to have to adapt: those who used to work away from home and those who didn’t. Accept that life has changed. I still have to work away from home and Covid has brought many unwelcome changes to my job. This ‘me time’ (dressed up as ‘I need to be alone to do the housework properly’) really is all a bit precious- most of us would like time away from others after the last year! Discuss what everyone in your house wants and be prepared to go out, as those who share the house with you probably find it just as frustrating having you there all the time.

YANBU - I understand completely where you are coming from. My DH runs a business from home. I work outside of the home but have odd days WFH. We have 2 kids. I never get any alone time in my house ever!

My DH has mostly WFH for a few years now. We make it work because we have set aside a small area of the house as his work space and his papers don't migrate across the whole house. My DH is also good at doing his bit in the house - not leaving dirty mugs all over the place, helping out with bits and pieces when he's not working. I don't need a break from him. I don't tiptoe around my own house, although I do time noisy activities for when he's not on a call.
But if I was married to some total man child, who was spreading his work stuff over the entire house and just making more mess with no attempt to help clear up, too right I'd be pissed off if he planned to WFH permanently and I'd be showing him the same level of consideration in return!
For me, as much as I adore my kids, I do miss having a bit of time with no one saying 'muuuum' or 'whats for dinner'!

But if I was married to some total man child, who was spreading his work stuff over the entire house and just making more mess with no attempt to help clear up, too right I'd be pissed off if he planned to WFH permanently

What rubbish, so you are luckily enough to have a separate work space but those who don’t are referred to as ‘man child’ seriously?

DH is on the dining room table - open plan same as many other families, we haven’t eaten at that table in months as we can’t move his stuff to move it back constantly.

He isn’t a man child for leaving his stuff on the table.

Plus he does loads around the house!

It is reasonable to ask a partner not to work from home full time when it has a negative impact on the household.

if it's because you can't do your housework during business hours, it's completely ridiculous.

That's not quite what I mean and you know it.
We don't have a separate room for DH to work, but we created a space within a room for his desk and printer etc and that's where his work stuff stays. If for you, that is your dining room table then that's the work space. What I'm referring to are people who don't keep their work contained to that space and have bits of paper and equipment all over the house, inhibiting other members of the family from using the space.
Or people who think it's okay to leave dirty cups in a room and never bring them down to be washed, or make themselves a sandwich and leave the crumbs and washing up to their dp.
Tbh though bluebells, if your DH needs to use your family's dinning room table to WFH, is that sustainable in the long term for you? You might personally feel that having him WFH is worth not being able to use the communal space but other people are not wrong if they find having their dp WFH too intrusive on family life and prefer a clear demarcation of work and home

Housework does need to be done though. And kids need to play (and make noise). And these things shouldn't have to be done in the evening because someone else has unilaterally decided to WFH permanently and expects the whole household to accommodate it. In some households WFH works really well but not all families can accommodate it.
The space does belong to both partners and neither really has a right to do whatever they want, to the detriment of the other.
Wanting a little bit of time to oneself is not more of an unreasonable expectation than deciding to WFH full time and needing a quiet house, which then affects everyone else.

But who gets to decide if you don’t feel it is working? How does that conversation go? Will your partner make his or her life a lot more difficult to make yours a little easier?

You: Darling, you are an absolute man child and your coffee mugs scattered around the house are driving me to distraction. The constant pooing is unbearable. I need to be able to sing whilst I do the washing up and not worry about your bloody Zoom call with HR. I have decided, therefore, that you will return to the office. I know the commute takes two hours a day, costs thousands a year and you are more at risk of catching Covid in the office but this is For the Greater Good (me). My alone time is so precious and I need it’.

Partner: No.

You: But this isn’t what I signed up for!

Partner: Oh dear.

Housework does need to be done though.

yes.. but somehow it's very manageable out of office hours, which is when most of us have to deal with it when we work full time.

It's even better, gives you free time for when your partner IS working!

We are not in the 50s, can we move away from picturing women as enjoying spending their days cleaning the house to occupy their time?

Time to get a job?

@thebillyotea

Housework does need to be done though.

yes.. but somehow it's very manageable out of office hours, which is when most of us have to deal with it when we work full time.

It's even better, gives you free time for when your partner IS working!

We are not in the 50s, can we move away from picturing women as enjoying spending their days cleaning the house to occupy their time?

Yep. I leave the house 7am Mon - Fri and get home anywhere between 4pm and 7pm depending.

Cleaning is done after ourselves each evening and on a Saturday. Saturday evening we relax and Sunday we do the rounds checking up on family members.

I haven’t had a day to myself ever I don’t think...unless I’ve taken a sick day which is really rare.

There's less housework when people aren't at home all day every day.

I don't see what the 1950s have got to do with it. If you are a sahp to small children there is a certain amount of mess that needs to be dealt with and there's nothing wrong with making the work as enjoyable as it can be. No one is claiming that housework is their favourite activity.

I think the conversation among couples would go something along the lines of a couple agreeing a suitable space for WFH and the WFH partner agreeing to clear up after themselves, as they would be expected to do in a shared work space. In return, the sah person would be considerate re housework noise. But it's not fair to expect a home to be used exactly like an office, with work totally prioritised to the exclusion of family life.
No one has said they are wanting to send their partners back to the office during Covid, so not sure where you got that from.
It's just reality that not all family set ups are conducive to WFH. I used to be a childminder and there's no way dh could have suddenly decided to WFH then without compromising my ability to work. Same when our DC were tiny - they need to play and have friends over and not tiptoe around.

Thanks for the explanations but I I think many of us who have previously wohm for many, many years, know how it works and how one fits housework and cooking in around the job.

Now that I work pt from home and my DH is wfh all day, and I am responsible for more of the chores and meal production, and I have teens to feed, frankly I think it is disingenuous to suggest that I do all that is necessary before 8 am and after 8 pm which is when my DH is making Zoom calls. I am not after all, doing the cooking and cleaning for my own personal joy, I am doing it for the good of the family and this arrangement is currently what works best for our individual family. So all of you trying to make this in to a sahm v woh debate and trying to make yourselves feel superior in the process , can frankly wang off.

One size does not fit all and life is difficult for everyone right now, and a bit of understanding from all sides of the debate would go a long way. Op

Well said @broadstrokes !

Every family is different but has arrived at a set up the works best for them - even more f that isn't perfect. A unilateral decision made by one member that impacts detrimentally on all the other members us selfish.

I think my DH would be devastated if I told him he had to go back to a 3.5-4h hour a day commute because I didn’t feel as productive when he was home and I had to hoover around his Teams calls!

To those wanting your partners back at work, do they like working from home? How do they feel?

broadstrokes
no one is feeling superior but the posters who seem to think they have more of a right to their house than their full-time working partners paying for them.

There's a very easy solution, get a full time job and share the chores.

Get a job, pay the bills, nothing left to complain about.

Re feeling superior, there seems to be plenty of posters who think that because they work and are 'paying for their partners', they have a right to WFH even if that totally upsets normal family life. No recognition of the fact that a house is a home first and foremost (hence offices existing in the first place) or that lots of people aren't sah because they CBA to get a job but because it was a joint decision that works for the benefit of the whole family, usually saving the couple lots of money in childcare costs.

@choli

Get a job, pay the bills, nothing left to complain about.

I do, but I would still like the house to myself sometimes

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Re feeling superior, there seems to be plenty of posters who think that because they work and are 'paying for their partners', they have a right to WFH even if that totally upsets normal family life. No recognition of the fact that a house is a home first and foremost (hence offices existing in the first place) or that lots of people aren't sah because they CBA to get a job but because it was a joint decision that works for the benefit of the whole family, usually saving the couple lots of money in childcare costs.

things change.. nothing wrong with being a SAH parent, but if your partner changes to WFH, you can easily adapt and get a job if it's no longer convenient to be home?

As an aside, It must be nice for people to have a job they leave at the office too, but for most of us, there always was work to do at home evenings or weekends anyway. So the concept of no work intruding your home life is quite laughable.

It's not family life that is being upset by the sound of it, it's posters who are miffed they don't have the house all to themselves when the other goes out to pay the bills.

YANBU, I work part time but still resent not ever having the house to myself now. DH is also planning to work from home permanently and I am being made redundant next month so will be together 24 hours a day. It is too much.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Housework does need to be done though. And kids need to play (and make noise). And these things shouldn't have to be done in the evening because someone else has unilaterally decided to WFH permanently and expects the whole household to accommodate it. In some households WFH works really well but not all families can accommodate it. The space does belong to both partners and neither really has a right to do whatever they want, to the detriment of the other. Wanting a little bit of time to oneself is not more of an unreasonable expectation than deciding to WFH full time and needing a quiet house, which then affects everyone else.

What if the working out of home partner decides that actually he (or she) likes the idea of 5-6 hours a day of unallocated time, 38 weeks a year while DCs are at school, is happy to manage all the housework and family admin in that time plus a bit of freelance on the side, doesn't mind his career taking a hit so that she can focus on hers, but also would quite like OP to find a job that's in an office and requires a commute on top of working hours, because he needs some alone time?

I appreciate it's never quite that simple, and that many women become sahms because they are married to men who do less than their share to begin with... But really, it's a pretty privileged position to be in.

If you take away the hours your partner is actually WORKING (and sleeping) , how much time do they get to have the house to themselves?

Sometimes sah is a privileged position. Not always though. Not for people who can't afford childcare or whose previous jobs aren't conducive to having children. It's swings and roundabouts imo - there are both gains and losses to sah.