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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH work from home announcement

477 replies

fizzypop100 · 26/01/2022 14:56

I have told DH my feelings on him WFH. He's been at home last 2 years and I can't stand it any more. Said there needs to be some compromise, just one or two days a week in the office.
He's just been speaking to his team leader and asked to WFH for the foreseeable future. I have just told him he's being selfish. His answer was "my mental health". I told him it's affecting MY mental health.
This house is totally dominated by his work. He will not move his computer and desk out of the living room. School holidays are miserable as our teenage son can't do anything as dad is working in the living room.
I'm being an adult right now but can feel anger and tears building up.

OP posts:
HelloFrostyMorning · 28/01/2022 14:56

@ArchibaldsDaddy

His ‘mental health’ about going back to the office?

Where is the office? Aleppo?

I work from home and prefer it - but my work crap stays away from family areas.

Sorry, but ALEPPO! 🤣
jeaux90 · 28/01/2022 15:30

We've all had to adjust to WFH but he is being a prick. He can extend the Network upstairs to the spare room. I have a spare room office and it's great.

I think you need to tell him his mental health will be better served by having a dedicated workspace he can walk away from for breaks and at the weekend.

(Otherwise you might divorce him)

NoPrivateSpy · 28/01/2022 15:48

The simple solution is to use the spare room for work and sort out the wifi.

But the fact that you can't work to that (relatively easy) solution amicably together suggests you have other issues going on.

Do you need a break, OP? Sounds like you have a lot of caring duties and a not-very-helpful husband Thanks

Violinist64 · 28/01/2022 20:14

@Whatsonmymindgrapes

Clear out (throw away) all his junk from spare room and make it a nice space for you and your son to be when he’s in the living room.
No, if the OP clears out the junk from the spare room it becomes her husband’s office. The living room reverts being a living room.
timeisnotaline · 29/01/2022 00:02

@RampantIvy

I simply don't understand anyone who has room for a dedicated office space and then doesn't use it. I have turned a spare bedroom into my office. I need 2 widescreen monitors, so setting up on the dining room table isn't practical.

I have a desk, a proper office chair, the monitors, a PC large keyboard, mouse and headset. Work provided evrything except the desk. In fact my home office is set so exactly how I like it - lighting and heating that I get more done at home than in the office.

He’s just taken himself a new dedicated work space which happens to be the family room onky it’s just for him now. Where does this entitlement come from? It can’t just spring out of nowhere, that they wake up one morning and say actually I’m the only one in this family that counts, including my wife and child, and they need to rearrange their lives around a choice I’ve made that is convenient for me and no one else, even if it means they don’t actually have a proper house to live in anymore. What’s the point of him bringing in an income if you don’t even have a nice house anymore, just a kitchen and some bedrooms for the rest of the second class citizens to cook, eat and sleep?
Bondixx · 30/01/2022 01:54

Have you asked him to sort his own stuff in the spare room? Deadline his big move for within 48 hours as ‘normal’ service will resume in the living room from now on and that includes your teenage son not having to tiptoe around!

If you give him any longer than 48 hours he will just push it.

Tell him he doesn’t have to clear it out just move it enough to get the desk in. Then he can dump it as he sees fit.

If you don’t do this your living room will just become the same as the spare room and mention how his mental health will suffer then if he pushes you any more.

The alternative for him after 48 hours is up is to go back to the office.

I have been through similar and this has touched a raw nerve with me! 😂

BritWifeInUSA · 30/01/2022 02:43

I’m surprised the fact that he’s in the living room will pass a workplace health and safety risk assessment. Obviously when COVID happened and people had no option it meant some people were working in unsuitable environments with unsuitable furniture. It was intended as a temporary, emergency measure. But if he’s asked to WFH permanently surely he’ll need to do a health and safety assessment?

I have permanent WFHed since 2014 and every year I have to complete an assessment for the company HR department. Thrh need to know that I have a dedicated dos e that’s not used for anything else (living room working is not an option, has to be a separate office space), they want to know about my chair, the lighting, noise level, space for my wrists and feet, height of the monitors, etc. I have a VariDesk so that I can stand sometimes and sit sometimes. I couldn’t work comfortably in a living room or any room being used by other people. It’s not fair on them and not good for my work.

Emilyweeemz · 30/01/2022 08:10

Easy just say yes I appreciate your mental health but you working and dominating a communal space it affecting the family's mental health. If you want to continue WFH then alternative space for you like a spate bedroom or a converted shed etc will have to happen

Flatandhappy · 30/01/2022 08:19

I have a friend whose husband is the same. I think he is an entitled dick. Start using the living area as it is should be used in a family house, shove his stuff to one side, use the space and have normal conversations, laugh at him if he trying so go shush I am working. It sounds like there is another space he could use, he clearly has no regard for you - if he is unhappy tell him to clear that space and work there.

RaspberryBlower99 · 30/01/2022 13:19

He's being a selfish git. So he's using the living room, won't clear the spare room, insists on quietness and KNEW you wanted him to go back to the office part time and still asked to WFH fulltime?

YANBU a million times over. He doesn't deserve the consideration you're giving him.

sunnybunnyy · 30/01/2022 13:28

He won't extend the wired connection to the spare room

^
Why?

Anniegetyourgun · 30/01/2022 13:36

Because he might be expected to use it!

RampantIvy · 30/01/2022 13:44

It looks like the OP is not coming back. I hope she is OK.

AcrossthePond55 · 30/01/2022 16:38

Probably because she knows she's in a 'no win' situation unless she chooses to LTB.

She can't make him move into the spare room. She can clean the spare room. She can even move his WFH 'set up' into that room. She can sit in the living room and blare the TV or dance the cha cha naked behind him during a zoom call. But if he is bound and determined he has a 'right' to the living room and that everyone needs to tiptoe around him, she can't make him move to the spare room.

It's easy for us to 'armchair quarterback' (I'm including myself here) but we don't really know what his reaction would be if she did really push things to the point of moving his stuff or being 'noisy'.

Original poster
fizzypop100 · 30/01/2022 16:56

Spot on. No win situation

OP posts:
RampantIvy · 30/01/2022 17:14

In that case I would just stop pussy footing around him, and use the living room in the usual way a living room should be used.

Pipsquiggle · 30/01/2022 17:17

@fizzypop100 @AcrossthePond55

So what's the point of posting this query & starting this thread?

There's been over 3000 votes and nearly 500 responses - the vast majority agree with her and some have given some really good advice.

She needs to talk to her DH now and explain how it really is affecting her and how unreasonable he's being and decide. Surely 'the win' situation here is moving to the spare room - like the vast majority of people would do.

If he can't see this, i would really question his emotional intelligence and OP needs to be clear what her red lines are. I would not be able to live with this situtation - it's not sustainable

velvet24 · 30/01/2022 17:27

The wfh thing post pandemic is causing a lot of stress if both people are at home, I totally get this. Can he not have a compromise, work from home 2 or 3 days a week?

velvet24 · 30/01/2022 17:27

Or at the very least use somewhere else in the house

WishIwasElsa · 30/01/2022 17:30

Yanbu when I was working at home during the first lock down I was doing it in the bed as I wasn't prepared to disrupt oh and dcs, your dh has another room he can make space in

AcrossthePond55 · 30/01/2022 18:05

[quote Pipsquiggle]**@fizzypop100* @AcrossthePond55*

So what's the point of posting this query & starting this thread?

There's been over 3000 votes and nearly 500 responses - the vast majority agree with her and some have given some really good advice.

She needs to talk to her DH now and explain how it really is affecting her and how unreasonable he's being and decide. Surely 'the win' situation here is moving to the spare room - like the vast majority of people would do.

If he can't see this, i would really question his emotional intelligence and OP needs to be clear what her red lines are. I would not be able to live with this situtation - it's not sustainable[/quote]
The point of posting is the point of lots of posts. To vent frustration and in the hopes that somewhere in the responses is the 'magic' one that will get through to her DH without some type of 'drastic action'. That somewhere, someone will post something that will actually work other than LTB. Unfortunately, that so rarely happens.

Of course she should talk to him. But I think she probably already has if not as 'forcefully' as many of us would and he's not budged. My point is that he's unlikely to listen to her if he hasn't listened by now. If he was reasonable, he would have moved the first (or second) time she said "This isn't working for the rest of the family" or they would have found some sort of compromise. And I agree it's not sustainable. But that's something she's going to have to wake up and smell the coffee about in her own time.

I admit I have a bit of sympathy for her as I've been married to an extremely stubborn man for 35+ years. But I can be equally as stubborn so I'm not 'pointing fingers' at DH. Luckily enough we are usually in sync about things so immovable object doesn't meet irresistible force very often but when it does we can usually work it out (after enough head-butting). But I do know how op probably feels right now.

AcrossthePond55 · 30/01/2022 18:11

I will add that my DH's stubbornness has gotten him though cancer treatment and heart failure. His stubborn refusal to give up in the face of seemingly impossible odds has gotten our family through some incredibly trying times. He's a true rock in stormy seas.

ZZTopGuitarSolo · 30/01/2022 21:44

@fizzypop100

Spot on. No win situation
What were you hoping for in people's responses on here? Did it help at all?
DrSbaitso · 30/01/2022 23:19

Well, assuming he's not dangerous, I'd be using the living room as a living room and if he doesn't like it, there are two very obvious solutions. If he is dangerous, I'd be looking to find somewhere else to live, permanently.

2022success · 31/01/2022 12:22

OP what would his reaction be if you said, and demonstrated that you intended to use the living room for the purpose it was intended?