I know it's been done to death, but I wish DH would stop WFH

[Iwrote]

Anyone else in the same boat?

DH has the office and I have the dining table, but he's up and down, chatting, getting drinks, moaning, generally distracting me until I have to ask him to please leave me in peace. He doesn't do anything useful in these frequent trips, too busy to empty the dishwasher but not busy enough to not drive me nuts.
Days I don't work I pick youngest up from nursery and then have to stop her busting in on her Dad when he's on calls etc, I feel like my home isn't my own.
I wish he'd just fuck off back to the office, as least a few days a week. I know there's a commute, but I feel like I'm a woman on the edge.

Maybe the husband's employer can set up a creche for children of employees in the now half-empty office to ensure the work-at-home crowd have peace and quiet?

The children can commute instead of the adults.

@AlphabetSue maybe they could purchase a stair gate so the DD can't "hot foot" it upstairs?

Good thinking, maybe all the wives can share childcare while they try to do their jobs and then they will have their evenings nice and clear for cleaning the house without disrupting their poor husbands home workplace 🤣

Stair gates <hollow laugh>

They just mean the child can’t physically get in unless they are like DS and had them sussed at 20 months

They don’t prevent the noise, tantrums, yelling, daddy, daddy …

Or maybe a really big one to keep their toddler of a husband who can’t compromise, upstairs? 🤔😆

I work 3 days per week busy professional job… 12 hr days.
Husband WFH full time. I used to bloody love my time at home without him. He works on our big dining table but he completely takes over the house… house is messy, leaves his stuff everywhere. House feels it’s his and not mine. I wish he’d F—k office back to an office ( except I bloody love him and he’s much happier at home!

Being a dick by going into his own kitchen to make a drink and make light chat to his own wife? In the real world that’s perfectly normal behaviour.
OP can tell her husband at the time she’s too busy to chat, she can’t control him leaving his computer and ban him from making a coffee in his own house.

Why should she if he knows she is working? He can say hi, make his coffee and head back to work.

In the real world, many people notice and can see when someone is working and will try not to disturb them unnecessarily. If I see my husband is busy, my first thought s to do whatever I need and leave him to it. If he isn’t too busy, he will look up and say something and we may have a small chat then or have a meal together and then go out separate ways.

My dh WFH every day. Honestly it's really hard. I'm a sahm of school age DC and I loved my time alone at home. I find it really hard to get on with things when he's at home...no idea why. I just can't get motivated to do housework yet I feel I should look busy. He is an extrovert and I'm an introvert...I just want to be alone a lot.

@AlphabetSue but he was upstairs on a call, when DD burst in! Because OP had gone to the toilet.

So I don't understand your point at all

Please do enlighten me though!

I feel it's very unfair...many women moan when their husbands retire and are under their feet all day...I feel like we've been plunged into early retirement.

He needs a lock for his door but beyond that there is no reason you need to keep your dc quiet imo - when ds is home and dh is not working (both dh and I wfh but have.an Office each) I don't have any issue with noise elsewhere in the house. A lock would prevent ds barging in.

As you have no other workspace your dh needs to be better at respecting your workspace - I would shut the dining room door and have a do not disturb sign.

I’ve heard the retirement argument before and while I do get it (I’ll come to that in a minute - sorry, this may be an essay) I don’t think that’s the problem for me, although I appreciate I can’t speak for everybody.

The problem here is more that someone working in a space that’s really supposed to be a homely sort of one is always going to be difficult. People come up with various creative suggestions to get around it, usually the argument tends to be that if the WFH person is upstairs and out of the way all will be well. It just isn’t the case, as I have to admit even when DH goes outside and works in the annexe both ds and I can still sense him! And there isn’t a toilet there so while I don’t want him to pee in the bushes, it does still mean he’s in and out of the house.

I do love him, he isn’t a bad man, but he’s no idea that his presence when he’s WFH is so stressful for me. I’m hoping he’s soon going to be back three days a week, and I can probably cope with that because if I have one of those days as ds’ nursery day and the other we can be ‘busy’ for one day a week, it’s when it is multiple days on top of the other it’s exhausting for both ds and I.

One thing I have noticed as a general point though is a lot of men don’t seem to go out as much as women, which is why many wives struggle when they retire. I tried to arrange my days off to coincide with DHS days in the office, he then announced his WFH days would coincide with my days off, I nearly cried!

@maddening i don’t think this is unique to my toddler, where when something is restricted to them, it becomes all the more alluring. It’s very difficult to move my ds on or away from something once he wants it. Maybe it’s just him, I don’t know. I do know if I move him away from a room DH is working in, he just keeps going back, and if he was physically prevented from doing so he’d get very upset and frustrated.

I'd find this ridiculously irritating too, not sure of the answer but I'm glad I usually go into the office and DH doesn't work from home either, what about when one of you has annual leave, do you not get any time to yourself in your own home?

I don’t think you need to be enlightened, that would be patronising. We just have different opinions.

Yes, I get this. I can be at home with one of my teenagers (or both) and feel pretty relaxed because we are each getting on with our own thing.

It drives me insane when dh is wfh and follows me into the kitchen when I go to make a cup of tea (my office is upstairs, his is down and yes I know we're very lucky to have two offices). If you want someone to talk to, GO INTO WORK.

@Iwrote why can't you put a lock on the office door to stop the toddler going in? Or a baby gate? If DH didn't lock it then that would be on him.

Also why can't you buy noise cancelling headphones so your DH can't disturb you, several people have suggested this?

Alternatively are there any other rooms you could work in that aren't communal? Maybe a slimline desk in your bedroom or other room with a door that you can close so your DH can't disturb you?

@AlphabetSue you think it's ok, for a toddler to rule the house by deciding they make the rules...

Oh well!

When dh went to the office I feel I had more downtime to read, exercise and chill yet I also got loads more done in terms of housework. Now he wfh I feel like I'll look lazy if I read a book or rest yet I also struggle to get stuff done with him there so despite having kids at school, I feel I get nothing done in the house yet also don't have any time to do fun stuff.

He also always seems to want the bathroom after I've cleaned it and comes down to use the kitchen when I'm trying to clean it. Arrgghhh

@nomoredriving to an extent, yes.

Toddlers don’t understand that someone is working and so is there but cannot be disturbed. If you stop them going to disturb said person, they become frustrated and upset, which the other parent then has to deal with, often multiple times.

Seriously, I used to think I was just hopeless at managing my toddler as so many MN children apparently respond to boundaries it was only on a thread where professional nannies spoke of the difficulties of WFH parents I realised I wasn’t as shit as I thought.

OP how old is the toddler?

Goodness. No, what I think is that looking after a toddler is hard. If another parent working from home unnecessarily makes it harder (when they themselves happily interrupt other adults working from home) then there’s more than just the solution you’re suggesting. Hence us having different opinions. Which is ok.

Anyway, good luck OP, I understand your frustration and you don’t need more bickering on your thread so I’ll leave it there.

Oh give over telling me about toddlers !

My DH was a night worker, it was a hard no to disturbing his sleep.

I think having someone working nights with a toddler in the house has a lot of similarities, but what is different is the presence. Someone in and out and in and out unsettles things to an extent where it’s just about impossible to have any sort of routine or playtime without leaving the house, which also has its problems. That’s not me telling you about toddlers but (I can’t remember if it’s your post, sorry) the noise cancelling headphones and the stair gates and lock on the door are always trotted out on these threads and they just don’t work for us.

Like I say, I did genuinely think that this was down to my poor parenting and it really knocked my confidence. I’ve come to realise it isn’t me, it’s just a really difficult situation. And DH doesn’t make it easier

No, absolutely not. That's basically the opposite of what I'm saying.

Common sense dictates that he should close and lock his door when on a work call, (equally common sense dictates that you don't leave a toddler that you're responsible for supervising unattended). But, if he finds that home is not a suitable work environment because of normal activities of the other family members (including the toddler), then the onus on him is to find somewhere else to work.