To feel lazy relaxing at home when DH is here working?

[Listerntome]

Does anyone else feel like this?

I want to be watching box sets, napping and reading books … but I can hear DH working and it makes me feel I should be working myself.

I know it is probably stupid, but just wondering if I’m alone.

YABU - no I never feel like this.

YANBU - me too!

Some husbands are perfectly happy to be the breadwinner with a wife at home. It means when they get home, dinner is cooked, the house is clean and they can relax. They don’t have to do chores or life admin at home. It sounds old fashioned, but we seemed to have a better quality of life in those days. Everything was calm, more time for kids, proper home cooked food.

These days it’s all tit for tat, having to contribute financially the same, having to work hours the same….both having done 40 odd hours, having to then clean the house, do the shop etc, no time for each other, kids dumped in wrap around care. No wonder there are so many marriages heading for divorce, everyone stressed, everyone exhausted…that’s not life.

@aSofaNearYou DH used to do that when we were both at home during covid. I know he didn’t mean any harm by it but it does take the ‘enjoyment’ away from the TV show or whatever it is a bit.

we both work because it is what grown ups do

Well, yes, some grown ups work. But they don’t all work, and they don’t all work at the same time. So in a couple of weeks, will non teachers married or living with teachers and TAs expect them to bust a gut every day, or get another job? I’d hope not but judging by some responses I bet some would!

but that's a bit the point, even if you can afford not to work, how can you not want to do something else? If you finally have free time, how do you not want to make use of it?
sports, arts, any hobby, studying, volunteering, travelling.. there's an endless list of things

I feel so sad but don't understand people who need a "job" only because they are bored - women on maternity leave who are desperate to go back to work because of the boredom, retired people with "nothing to do". I can't comprehend people wasting their life in front of the tv.

I can't understand people going on social media and forums like MN as a full time job either 😂, but it's a good distraction when you are wasting time waiting for something

Crack on love
As long as you're not taking the pics and doing your share of house chores etc then do whatever makes you happy!

Listerntome

how do you feel when YOU are working but your DH goes from nap to sofa and does absolutely nothing for days?

I don’t WFH @dontbejealousofmyartisticflair … I don’t think it would bother me if I did, but impossible to say how you might feel in any situation I suppose.

I would definitely judge you for watching bloody no sets during the day. What a waste of a life.

but not working - really would depend on your contribution to the household generally. In the same way I don’t think paying 100% of the bills means you can abdicate responsibility for anything domestic, I also don’t think being able to pay your share of the bills means you can just please yourself if your other half is sweating it out full time to pay his share. I cannot imagine a world where I was working full
time, my otherwise able husband was pottering about watching tv all day and then we came back together in the evenings and weekends to run our household together. Hideous.

• box sets not no sets!

Some weirdly angry responses on this thread from people who seem to be absolutely furious at the notion that some couples might be perfectly happy to do things differently from them.

Some people might have a partner who is more than happy to be the sole breadwinner, or a partner who could give up work but doesn't actually want to. Some people might have enough personal income from pensions or savings or an inheritance or something that means they can contribute to household finances without working.

Not everyone's marriages/partnerships have to be the same. People are all different.

OP, to answer your question, I can see why you might feel guilty but you really don't need to!

What else should people do during the day @stealthbanana ? Does every minute have to be accounted for with meaningful activity now? I’m not suggesting that’s all anybody does but surely it’s a reasonably acceptable sort of thing to do, sometimes?

There are no rules. It means people are allowed not to have any attraction for someone who doesn't find an interest in anything, but is content with a limited life doing and achieving nothing.

So many health reasons, accidents, aging, pandemic even, so many things can happen that will stop people from doing whatever they would like to do. It's such a waste to be able do something but not want to. Life is too short, I wouldn't want to be dragged down that way.

Sure it’s acceptable occasionally. It just sounds like what you do when you’re sick or injured. I personally would not want to be in a relationship with someone who just mooched around the house all day. Especially if I was working ft and that person then expected me to equally share the load of maintaining said house when they were pissing about doing nothing all day. It’s unattractive to me. But if it suits you (which it doesn’t necessarily sound like it does if your dh is rolling his eyes at you) then go for it!

Some weirdly angry responses on this thread

I love that 😂 I’m not sure what ever happened to the ‘live and let live’ mantra, MN certainly is a weirdly angry place at times.

it frustrates me sometimes because it can derail a perfectly good discussion and turn it into a slanging match, over what is essentially just a difference of opinion?!

I'm currently a SAHM & my DH mainly works from home. I'm in & out all day & do voluntary work for 2 different charities but also have a fair bit of time to relax during the day too. Our kids are 15 & 19 for context. But we are also mortgage-free & have built up savings plus I got a reasonable inheritance when my parents both died. I do feel a bit guilty relaxing when DH is busy working but I also get up an hour before he does to do the school run every day & I'm often doing my 'work' in the evenings when he is relaxing. I also do most of the cooking/housework/gardening/weeding & all of the holiday research & booking plus most school/uni/house admin plus ALL of the work we've ever had done on our house has been sourced by me. I've got all the quotes/met all the builders & basically been a project manager for our loft conversion/garden room /kitchen/bathroom etc over the years we've lived here. My DH wasn't interested in choosing anything or visiting any showrooms so all decisions were down to me. Our house & garden would be bare & empty if I wasn't here to organise those things. I'm looking into a part time job mainly to get my NI contributions towards a full state pension but we won't need my tiny salary as such. I know I've been a great SAHP over the years & now my son is 15 I need to keep a beady eye on him & his friends more than ever as some of them have started drinking/vaping/smoking weed etc. Both partners working full time in some situations is counter productive. I do tons and tons of unpaid work without the stress of also having to work full time too so I'm not too stressed out especially now I'm late 40s & constantly exhausted/peri menopausal. I like that I get to choose when I relax during the day & when I'm really busy. When my DH finishes wfh at 6 he then doesn't lift a finger all evening often -& that's fine as I also had time to relax but earlier on during the day.

OP I feel the same way as you. I work unsocial hours and will be leaving home at 430pm. My husband will get his chill time later after work. I get chill time before work - but it is hard to feel relaxed and justified when he is WFH.

@Listerntome it depends on what stage of life you're in. You are on a website with a lot of parents of young kids and mortgages. This is my situation. We are busy because we're just... Busy! Its not a judgement or a choice. It's life. Would I judge my (able bodied) husband for watching box sets all day while I worked? No, not occasionally. If it was constant? Yes. I would divorce him. Not because I feel morally he needs to work (although I do) but because the less he does, the more I have to do. And that's not fair and I wouldn't put up with it.

In 15 years I would not feel the same way, because we won't have young kids and a mortgage so the pressure will be off. He can do what he likes then, but for now we both need to pull together.

If you are 65 and retired, crack on this is your one life live it. If you're 35 and a mum of 4, you probably have things you need to be getting on with!

When DS was younger and I was a SAHM, DH would
sometimes work from home. When DS would have a nap, I’d often join him. DH has always stated I work
harder than him because I do the majority of the parenting. He goes to work and gets paid for what he does but I don’t. I appreciate I’m very lucky that he views it that way. He does help out around the house but I don’t expect him to do more than he does, because we’ve got this balance that from the outside might seem unfair but it works for us. So I wouldn’t feel guilty in my case 😊

I swear to God people on here just get thicker by the day. God Bless you @Listerntome you've more patience than I have. I cant believe someone actually asked you why you posted in the first place 😁 good grief. In their desperate need to bring you down a peg or two when they wrongly assumed you didn't work, they payed no attention to your OP. Dont take it personal, they see the first idiotic post and just get all giddy. Quite sad really.

In answer to your question, no I don't feel guilty. Hes a doer, always on the go and I like sitting down. So it works out perfectly lol.

Hmm for me it depends.

For example, DH works from home, starts around 6am usually and finishes between 4 and 6. He rarely takes a lunch break. Sometimes will take a walk, but will be on a work call during. His choice.

I am a SAHM and rarely stop, however I am, like everyone else, allowed a lunch break. So compared to DH, I often feel really lazy during my chill time. But in reality, it’s a rare day when I get to sit down for more than an hour.

I think there is hostility on here generally to people who don’t work, although it does depend on the thread.

@FirstTimeNameChanger the less he does, the more I have to do. And that's not fair and I wouldn't put up with it. is understandable but ‘fair’ is a funny one. So for example if you worked Monday - Friday 9-5 and your partner worked Monday - Thursday 7-7, and then spent Fridays chilling at home, is that OK because they work more hours than you, or not because they have a day off?

Or like with my teacher example above, should teacher partners and spouses of non-teachers be expected to spend the six week holiday constantly doing housework or DIY or an endless stream of jobs just so that life is ‘fair’?

It strikes me as very robotic and almost joyless to purely view life as a constant stream of work - paid or otherwise - that needs doing, although I must have at least partly subscribed to that myself as I do feel guilty for sitting down!

I agree @Listerntome. We are all different. I work quite hard but am also capable of sitting on my arse watching tv when the opportunity presents itself.

I also get the thing about feeling guilty when someone else is working and you are not. There are some very strange attitudes on mumsnet to SAHMs and to people with higher incomes etc. For me if everyone is happy who gives a monkey's what anyone else thinks you should be doing?

I find it weird that people feel the need to judge others so much.

I don’t think it is even so much about judgement but projection and as someone said above there is this anger if someone isn’t living their life in the way MN decide they ‘should.’ Anyway DH is now in my bad books so may have to do a relationships thread yet.

I am currently watching tennis, not feeling guilty, while DH works. But I have done 2 loads of washing and hung them out, I have been shopping, done some clearing up and washing up. I will probably watch tennis for the rest of the afternoon. I refuse to feel guilty about it, I was doing various chores/gardening yesterday while DH watched cricket. I will bet at no point did he feel guilty.

So for example if you worked Monday - Friday 9-5 and your partner worked Monday - Thursday 7-7, and then spent Fridays chilling at home, is that OK because they work more hours than you, or not because they have a day off?

OP, just because PP can give you an example of what the deem fair/unfair in their own relationships, you can't then expect people to be able to answer a hypothetical question pertaining to other people where they don't have any other information.

Like the example you gave above, who does the childcare? who does the chores? who carries the mental load? it's honestly not as black and white as you're trying to make it out to be, 'fairness' in a relationship is subjective and it's not just about who works or not?

You seem to be picking a small portion of what PP are saying and using that out of context to accuse them of being hostile towards people who are not working.. it's a bit odd.

The only thing that ultimately matters is that both people in the relationship are happy with the situation, if one's not, for a genuine reason, and their feelings are disregarded then there's something wrong that may need to be addressed.

Does your DH not like it when you're at home chilling and he's working?

who does the chores? Who carries the mental load

I think this is what I mean about life being joyless, if you consider those things every time you sit down!

But I was single for ages before getting married and I just did my own thing - I do wonder if on some level I still haven’t adjusted.