To be a bit horrified by DHs suggestion that he works from home FT?

[Thecatisannoying]

I know I’ll probably get flamed but it’s awful.

You can’t just relax, constant one sided conversations, constant awareness of his presence, winding the children up by being in and out and out and in, no play dates, can’t do anything involving noise (so nothing basically)

I work three days a week. At the moment he wfh two days but five days a week no respite at all??

@BigFatPuddingMonster nailed it immediately.

Before he makes the decision, you tell him that. No tiptoeing around, no fetching things, no winding the kids up, There will be play dates, no work trumping home IN your home. If he agrees, you act accordingly.

DH works from home, DD is at school and I WOH. But his hours are different to mine so he's often working while DD or I hangs around. DD will shush me sometimes but he doesn't.

WFH only works if there is a room where the door can be shut so you can forget they are there. I WFH mostly FT, I go into my room and shut the door and my family only see/hear me if they come into the room to grab some shoes/jacket or I come out for loo or to make myself a quick lunch and say hello.

When ds was young I don't think I would have done it on the days dh had ds at home as the risk for interruption/distractions/impact on dh and ds would have been too much. Commonsense says it doesn't work well with young children at home.

I like @BigFatPuddingMonster 's phrase "You're working in our home. I'm not living in your workplace." - and tell him it's fine, but under those terms. He needs to understand young children might wander into his working area, there will be noise (he can wear headphones), they will have play dates etc, and he needs to be in a corner of the house where a door can be shut and not disturbing others either.

I wouldn’t cope, it changes the atmosphere in the house even if they are shut away.

Seems I’m in the minority but I do think YABU - it’s his home too and if he wants to WFH full time he should be able to without feeling like he’s an annoyance in his own house. Of course, he shouldn’t be expecting you or the kids to be silent all the time or curtail your lives around his work, or for you to wait on him and bring him food and drinks while he works, but if his mere presence in the house even if he doesn’t disturb you causes this strength of feeling, it sounds like the marriage has more issues than this?

I don’t have kids but my partner and I live in a one bed flat. I WFH full time in the living room at a tiny desk and he’s at home during the day 75% of the time as his work is more evening shift-based. Sometimes we watch something together on the sofa while I’m working on my laptop. I lived alone before he moved in and certainly wouldn’t take kindly to him telling me to go to an office more (I’m freelance so there isn’t even “an office” for me to go to). It doesn’t cause us any issues though - and I’m someone who likes alone time! I like it when he’s out for the evening or goes away for a week with a friend, and sometimes I solo travel and work at the same time. But equally when we’re both home it’s fine, I can’t imagine I’d want to be in a relationship with someone whose very presence I resented so much so I don’t really get this attitude I’m afraid, especially from people who do have a whole spare room to work in!

@TedMullins it's very different when there are children involved who get upset that Daddy is next door but can't play or engage with them at all, or when Daddy pops through for a coffee but can't stay and it's mum who has to deal with the resulting tantrums and upset.

Two autonomous adults who aren't going to throw tantrums because one person is on a work call or concentrating are hardly comparable.

DH's company all went WFH permanently just before COVID. We had to shield for 18 months so that was myself and a 1 year old being quiet as we could be. DH was on the ground floor so we had to keep walking through to go into the garden. We then moved and part of the deal was somewhere that had a big enough garden to put a garden office in and cheap enough we could extend mortgage to do so. I also WFH 3 days a week and it's bliss as we don't hear each other and normally a quick "fancy tea/lunch/break" suffices. Also means the kids don't disturb him once I'm back from the school run. Definitely recommend a garden office if it's financially ok to do so.

My husband has worked from home full-time for around eight years. He has an office and closes the door, and the rest of us just go about our lives.

The really crucial part is whether there’s a room he can designate as his office, and whether both of you can feel undisturbed if he’s in there with the door closed. If my husband was working in the family room or something, I’d probably go crazy.

We have young kids in school and I’m a SAHM, so it’s had a nice benefit for us. We can have loud sex during his lunch break. 😁

Unless he’s proposing that he works from home full time literally in your dining room/living area then I think you are being unreasonable.

As long as he has a home office or similar that he can go into and close the door behind him then it’s no different to him being in the office except it saves him any commute and gives him that time back in his working day.

The 4th bedroom is my office space and I can close the door and not disturb the house although, I'm not noisy apart from my podcasts and I can tolerate house noise unless I'm in a meeting or on a call which isn't often but the closed door usually fixes that. The noisiest bastard is the dog when the postman arrives, she goes feckin mental.

So if he has space to close off to and stays in there, YABU. If he's on the kitchen table on calls demanding silence then I'd say YANBU.

He’s never been a MN husband where you wouldn’t even know his presence but I think even if this was the case I’d sense him. It might sound unfair but it’s the thought of him never leaving the house that is mildly horrifying. To be honest I think it would be really bad for him as well but I’m the first to concede it’s mostly for selfish reasons!

I don’t have any objections to him being at home. It’s working in it five days a week that’s making me go all cold!

Dh and I wfh (me 3 days a week and dh ft) but we have an office each so even when one of us us off with ds the other person has no impact as they are in their office.

A friend’s husband wfh during Covid, she said she ended up wanting to kill him! After normality returned, he still wfh a couple of days a week and she says she encourages him to go into the off. I think a garden office might work, but with dc, it must be so hard!

Can you build him a shed/garden office?

He has one but he won’t go in it. Anyway it makes no difference as he’s in and out of the house which is more disruptive really.

My husband working full time from home as a result of covid genuinely hastened the demise of our marriage. We are separated now.

I think DH would probably say him being here has no impact: unfortunately it does!

You can always get a job out of the home 5 days a week if you need "respite".

Naaah. Fine if he wants to work from home but the whole house doesn’t revolve around him. My husband is so loud; l joke he has 2 settings which are loud and extra loud. He then had the cheek when l was on maternity leave to ask me to keep newborn twins quiet 🤣🤣

He needs to listen to you

He needs to work in his 'shed'

And if noise is ever a problem (children need their garden) then he wears noise cancelling headphones

Or he goes back to the office

Why should she?

It's their home, not his workplace

This is amazing! I'd be a bit more understanding if no choice but to wfh but if a choice need to understand there are kids and let them be kids and partner be as they would if you weren't there :)

I’m having flashbacks to lockdown. DH went from being at work 7-7 to being at home 24/7. I don’t know how our marriage survived. I remember one day when he was eating lunch and the noise 😭 I literally had to make an excuse and leave the table.

Does he have a choice? I agree that being at home can have a detrimental effect on mental health for quite a few people. For us, I ended up getting a job that was office based. It certainty saved me and my sanity! I booked the kids places in wrap around to make it work. Is that an option for you?

Correct, it is their home, not her exclusive domain to dictate his access to. She's one unhappy with his working arrangements, she can remove herself.

We have separate rooms for working from home, which is very convenient, except we’ve now lost the use of those rooms, so is inconvenient

Years ago, when my husband was on call, morning and night, he would work and conduct conversations in bed, with me there, rather than get up and work somewhere else.
I used to be so annoyed. I was in bed for goodness sake, it was either night or early hours of the morning. !!

I couldn’t live with someone working in the sitting room or kitchen.

I would at that point tell them to work and make space in the bedroom ( not in the middle of the night though !! 😂😂

Is he in his office?