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

Can you work outside the house some of the week? Are you going back to the office?

Am I missing something here, at least he's working and trying to support his family, why don't you go out and work at an office all day, cut the dude some slack, he obviously concerned about catching virus.

I’m sorry you are being unreasonable, I think you need to work out a different room for him to work from. He may be scared and rightly so.

@Confusedaboutlots

you can’t force him - can’t he just work somewhere else in the house

MN poster looks around their own spacious detached five-bed in confusion.

“Why can’t he just work in one of the spare bedrooms, or the snug or the stables? I don’t understand?”

Posts like this make me laugh. 😂

It’s fairly obvious the OP isn’t working. People asking ‘when are you going back to the office’ are just trying to be clever.

Whether she’s a SAHM or between jobs or unable to work due to her own disability or illness, it doesn’t mean she should have to tiptoe around in her own home.

I think a lot of these posts are being very unfair to the op...it's really hard to suddenly be stuck in the same house 24/7. It's well known that a lot of women struggle once their husbands retire. I'm a sahm of school age DC... I'll admit I find it incredibly hard to have DH WFH. Yes I know he's the only one bringing in money but it's still tough.

But a loving partnership shouldn’t be about being so grateful that one half of it brings in money that you are expected to put up with any amount of inconvenience.

I own a home outright, no mortgage. We don’t live in it, but if we did, I wouldn’t dream of making DP feel uncomfortable in it or as if it wasn’t his home. I’m really shocked anyone thinks that’s acceptable, to be honest.

It’s healthy and positive to have time apart and to have some time at home together but also apart.

I agree with OP he needs to clear a space in another room to work in. It's not fair on the rest of the family. Plus covid is still as transmissible just the vaccine reduces life threatening symptoms so really the unvaccinated are at more risk than the vaccinated for becoming seriously unwell x

Can't wait for my OH to go back to the office some weekdays - we both wfh - but I have always done so - he orders slabs of cans, pot noodles by the boatload and makes a mess! I need some space back

I do get you, its hard. My husband works from home in our 2 bed and we have 6 of us here. Our front room is our bedroom is also now his office until 5pm every day!
We have no dining room, our kitchen is definitely not big enough for any kind of table, so when Pa is in his zoom meetings the kids either go in the garden or in their rooms or I take them for a walk!
But I wouldn't change it for the world, no more commuting for him, he's been less stressed, and the kids get extra time with him when he finishes. He's been so much happier, and it has had a knock on effect...
Horses for courses I s'pose, but it would be nice sometimes to be able to fart without worrying his boss heard me from the downstairs loo....

I said YABU but I couldn’t have my husband wfh for 24 hours 😂

I get that he is scared that’s why I said YABU, and nobody really knows if the risk is minimal vaxxed or not. He has health issues so will be extra worried.

Tell him that the living room isn’t just for him & make him room in the bedroom to work, or another place if possible.

I agree with OP, he's just got to get over the hump of the comforts of home working (his not yours). Pack him a lunch, put a loving note in his lunchbox, and say you'll drive him in. He might just need a bit of support the first few times. It's hard!! Good luck x

YABAU putting your living room above the MH needs of your husband unfortunately!!

La Redoute sells some very small flap down desks which you could install in your bedroom. I have done this in my boys room with a folding chair on a hook behind the door. I think you would be better to protect your wage earner by making him as comfortable as possible.

What's does the OP do with her time have to do with anything?

From what I've read both on here and other platforms WFH has been difficult for so many people in terms of both those who are WFH and the people living with them.

It's also turned some people who are WFH into selfish unreasonable tits.

Two threads on here over the past few months that have stuck with me has been the poster who's DH wouldn't work in the expensive comfortable fully heated home office that had been especially constructed for him to WFH and was spending all day hogging the martial bedroom and the poster who's DH used one of their 2 spare bedrooms as his office anyway and had filled the other "guest room" with his shit such as his snowboarding equipment and begrudged the OP a desk and comfortable office chair in there to use and tried telling her she'd have to work at the kitchen table.She then dismantled the bed in there and put in said desk and chair and he sulked massively and started putting boxes his stuff from his office and putting it into his wife's temporary office.

There is no reason for the OP's DH not to go back to work;over 18's are now being vaccinated,covid guidelines are in place and he can also take his own precautions at work too.I use to have to hot desk pre covid and id have anti bacterial wipes and hand sanitiser with me anyway.

I'm also type 2 and double vaccinated and having to get back out there to see people face to face work wise.

I think tbh many people have gotten too comfortable with WFH.

Our front room is our bedroom is also now his office until 5pm every day!

see now someone has a genuine lack of space. You can't magic a room or send someone to work in the loo.

It's very different from someone who HAS some space and could isolate themselves (somewhere else than the loo) but refuse to move some furniture around.

I have the same attitude as the H to return to work. I am self-employed WFH and just refuse any work where I am required to go in to the centre of town, currently. That may change when I am economically forced to go out. As well as being sensibly cautious about health issues, this H is also really committed to improving the family's home life, as can be seen by his weekend plastering etc, so it's not that he's just simply selfish. More that he has selected a communal room to work in which is difficult for the other people at home. It seems to me that the only point that needs negotiating is which room he works from. He could either pick the couple's bedroom or maybe the kitchen if it's not also used communally all the time. And if he's currently picking the front room so as to ensure that everyone around him is quiet, he could look into earplugs etc.
I don't understand why he won't budge on this (if he won't) or why the op has not asked him to relocate to another room (if she hasn't).

If you have a garden and the funds to do it I would suggest a fully insulated office garden, that way he still has a division between work and home, maybe a portable air conditioner in there for summer though as they get a touch warm

I think tbh many people have gotten too comfortable with WFH.

I think too many people have gotten too comfortable with having a house to themselves and are taking the piss!

We all agree that claiming the main communal room is absolutely not reasonable, but expecting the one working to bugger off is ridiculous - even worst if they are the only one working!

If someone wants to WFH, they can! If having someone (reasonably) in the house is inconvenient for the other one, up to them to find a hobby or a job elsewhere.

First off, he should not be commandeering the living room, he needs his own private space away from everyone. Although different, I had a parents who worked nights constantly growing up and the whole 'being quiet' thing all summer was awful.

I have looked throughout the thread and don't think these questions have been answered:

Is there a massive benefit to him working from home? for example is he saving on a huge commute
Are you also working from home?
Is there any benefit to him work wise in going back to the office?
How few desks are there? for example is he guaranteed a desk or could it could be a task to get one everyday

I think you are being a bit unreasonable. In our house I'm the one who is wfh and it's been bloody hard, especially when it's been the holidays and the kids and dp have been sleeping in and then bumbling around having fun and I've been in the next room working away. I've been pretty resentful at times tbh especially when dp has expressed to others how hard he's found it having me at home and having to keep the noise down!
I do appreciate it's been a change for you and the family to have had dh around, but I doubt it's been a picnic for him, nor is it particularly nice to feel unwanted in your own home, or forced into an office environment where you have little control and feel unsafe. I would be supportive of him wfh for the forseeable-at least until society has opened up a bit more and most people have been vaccinated.

@MaMelon

Spot on, I'm glad at least some sane people realise it's not a competition.

I say that as someone who has been going into work at least a few days a week because we needed to (front line service/education).

I also hot desk and we are rotated round so we work some shifts WFH and some in the office. Managers have been very supportive and understanding of people who have been nervous and we all wipe down at the end of a shift, keep windows open, distance etc

Maybe a family conference to air everyone's needs - could he work in bedroom, only do some WFH or other suggestions from PP?

I feel your pain! I need my space. Though I had three months off work when I had a major hysterectomy, years ago now, and when I had to go back to work, finding parking, enduring one particular member of staff, I was totally dreading it. It's that first few days, then it was ok. All will be well.

Would you rather they weren’t having fun, bells?

She's had enough as we can all prob take by now! High fives to you. He had to return to the real world and you can relax in your own home xx