To be upset what WFH has done to DH

[cappuccinoandcats]

All staff in the office where DH works are clearing their desks one morning this week. The office is going to be hotdesking and I'm praying he goes to the office for at least two days a week.
He's making all sorts of excuses. Type 2 diabetes, stairs due his bad knees etc. I'm not buying these excuses. He is currently renovating and removing plaster at the weekends, so he CAN do stairs and carry heavy loads !
He doesn't want to work with unvaccinated. He's had both jabs and I've explained the risk is miniscule.
I just want him out of the house sometime during the working week. AIBU

[khakiandcoral]

@lavenderandwisteria

I’m currently watching TV, sue me

the other posters are all on MN anyway, so can hardly talk 😂

[lavenderandwisteria]

True

[Summersnightdream]

@lavenderandwisteria

Yes, getting a job is so very easy at the moment, isn’t it

But in any event, you have absolutely no idea why she is at home and to be honest it’s not your business.

How do you know she’s not a nurse, working three nights a week and two at the weekends? Would she be entitled to actually relax in her own home then? Or is it just SAHPs or the retired or the sick you save your disdain for?

If you read my posts properly, instead of trying to pick out certain parts to suit your argument, you will see I've repeatedly said not working when you don't have young children is lazy. Nowhere did I say 'you're lazy if you're a nurse on nights'.

If OP is not working, she has no right whatsoever to tell her husband where he should work.

[Excilente]

@Summersnightdream the OP hasn't said anything about wanting to watch TV all day, the only thing she's said is she wants her DH out of the house some of the time, that she wants her living room back, and her DS would like to have friends over during the approaching summer break (only 2-3 weeks away) and he can't do that if they're all made to be silent while her DH is working.

I grew up with my dad having his office in the dining room of our house with a joint lounge/diner and quite honestly, it drove mom, me, and my brother nuts having to be silent every time his phone rang, so i can sympathise with the OP.. i also had my own ExH home for a whole year while he was redundant, taking over the living room and distrupting mine and my kids daily routines.

I was glad when dad relocated to the smallest bedroom when my older brother moved out, and when my ExH went back to work!

[lavenderandwisteria]

Yes, that’s exactly it summers

You think the OP is lazy, and so you think her time at home (and her sons) should be as uncomfortable and inconvenient as possible, and I think that is rather horrible, actually.

[VladmirsPoutine]

WFH has been a bloody godsend!! I hope remote working now becomes the norm. That said - as PP have said just tell him. He's completely unreasonable to take over the living room and have all of you tip-toeing around the house for 8 hours a day or whatever.

[NVision]

Where do you work OP?

[khakiandcoral]

Summersnightdream

You cannot love your job so much if you are so resentful towards people who decide to stay at home.

if you were so happy, you wouldn't care.

You would also not be so idiotic pretending that not working means you have nothing to talk about.

[Excilente]

@lavenderandwisteria @khakiandcoral i'm sitting on my sofa, eating my lunch, while on hold to my prescription ordering service... 'you are caller number... 26... in the queue, please hold"

Been working my way down from 50 for the last 20 minutes.

[Hello1290]

I haven't read the whole thread but I'm with you OP. It's the being together 24/7 that's a little too much for me. I like my own space and pre Covid being in the house alone for a couple of days a week whilst DC and DP were at school/work was bliss!

[lavenderandwisteria]

This is what worries me, ex

My (full time, summers ) is term time only. I really don’t want to be in the position I’m in now in the future, where we have to be out of the house most of the day. I’m in the back bedroom watching last nights coronation street while ds naps and dp is still asking me if I’m going out today! I don’t think wanting to chill a bit in my own home is massively unreasonable, to be honest!

[lavenderandwisteria]

Oh god excil, sending your way!

[Excilente]

@lavenderandwisteria

Oh god excil, sending your way!

cheers! Made it to 15, woo-hoo.
wonder if i'll get to the end before i have to leave to pick my youngest up from school at 2.20?

[TidyOmlette]

If he doesn’t want to return to the office then he can no longer work in the living room. He can’t take over the main room forever, it’s a family home and your all entitled to the space.

Tell him to find somewhere else

[Excilente]

i think this is one of those situations that unless you've had to deal with a family member using the main family social space as a home office, you really have no clue what its actually like trying to live around it.

(made it to 9th in the queue)

[khakiandcoral]

Excilente

good luck! I tend to keep all that crap for my working hours, doesn't feel like I am wasting so much time then

[wifeofspartacus]

Surely it isn't necessary to make this about OP being a SAHM. This would be a YABU whether she had a job or not.

My partner works evenings (from home, because there is a pandemic). I work days (from home, because there is a pandemic; I am on my lunch break now). We both intend to continue to WFH for the near future. I work in the living room, because while there is a box room which I could use, there is better wifi signal here and because I prefer it. The situation requires compromise on all sides, so sometimes my family doesn't get to use the living room when they'd like; and I don't get the absolute quiet and lack of interruptions that I'd like. But you know, there's a pandemic. It's not really what anyone would choose, and sometimes it's a little inconvenient.

[redcarbluecar]

I don't know whether you're being unreasonable or not, but I feel your pain and would also be desperate for him to get back to work!

[Summersnightdream]

@khakiandcoral

Summersnightdream

You cannot love your job so much if you are so resentful towards people who decide to stay at home.

if you were so happy, you wouldn't care.

You would also not be so idiotic pretending that not working means you have nothing to talk about.

I'm resentful because it's putting women back 50 years. I'm aware that misguided 'feminists' on here think that equality means women can stay home all day and do the dishes as a trade and that's their right, but it's just sad. Have a bit of ambition for god's sake, don't be letting a man take care of you.

You see it often enough on here, posts like "I've been a SAHM for 25 years and now my husband has left me and I don't know what to do". Or one of the more recent ones I saw yesterday "I don't want to go to work and my husband has left me so can I have spousal maintenance from his 40k wages? I need at least £1300 a month and there's no reason he can't live in a bedsit". It's just sickening. To be honest, I feel for the men in all this because illnesses, disabilities and young children aside, I would be ashamed not to work. I would also be embarrassed of my partner if they refused to work. Being an adult means you get a job.

As I have repeatedly said, the house is as much OPs DH as it is hers. If he wants to be there to work, that is his right. Why should he have to leave the house to work, if OP won't even work herself to begin with?

[lavenderandwisteria]

It is, to be honest. DP is a lovely person and he doesn’t do anything wrong as a rule … but he’s there. He also does sometimes do frustrating things, like decides to mend a door involving a hammer and bam, bam, bam, when not only ds was napping but I was trying to. Then I feel lazy, but I was the one up four times in the night and up at 545.

In a few months I’ll be WOTH and going by the last year, I will have no time at all on my own, which is a bit depressing in all honesty!

[lavenderandwisteria]

No one is disputing it is his HOME summers, but that’s the point, it’s a home, it isn’t an office.

The SAHM thing is a separate matter entirely.

[Excilente]

no-one said he doesn't have a right to work there, what we've said is he doesn't have a right to disrupt the other members of the house by monopolizing the room all day, every day... so should be courteous enough to relocate to a bedroom or the dining room.

[user1471604848]

It's so selfish to work from the living room, when others are in the house.

I work from my bedroom. It's not great being in one room for about 20 hours a day, but that's just the way it is.

My childminder is downstairs every day with my 16-month old twins. I can't imagine setting up the laptop in the middle of the living room! I don't even go downstairs when the babies are having a nap, since I don't want to disturb her rest time. When I'm not on zoom calls, I use earplugs, to drown out any baby noise.

He needs to set up a desk elsewhere, or go into the office.

[khakiandcoral]

I'm resentful because it's putting women back 50 years.
it really is not.
It's also very rude to pretend that people who are home just ..do nothing, and waste their time watching day time tv, or be on social media like MN

Friend of mine is a SAH wife, they don't even have kids . If nothing else, I envy her!

But back to the thread, I don't disagree that it's their house equally, and the communal space should stay communal. One doesn't get to have the exclusive use of the living room.

[SleepingStandingUp]

So the issue is a few hours after school term time and odd days DS wants to sit in the living room over the holidays? Surely there's a work around for those - DS using his bedroom, DH using the bedroom or a local cafe etc?