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??

But he's moving the goalposts.

This was not the original deal and homes are HOMES not offices unless you can keep the spaces separate

It's not about them "fucking off" - it's about them not using their home as a workplace and completely changing the dynamics of the household

Houses are not offices. If you want to work from home, you need to adapt around your family, not expect them to adapt to you.

It works fine if one of you WFH and other one works at the office but being at home together 24/7 is a different matter. You need to set out your ground rules straight away Op, you'll go on as usual and they'll be no snacks, drinks or lunch making and you won't be making no noise- life as usual.

Can he not organise/declutter better?

Where was it all before?

I feel your pain, OP. DH in the kitchen ( because it's warmer in there than in the spare bedroom) shouting into his phone and sometimes I can actually hear the person on the other end is driving me to drink. Well not quite, but I am fed up with creeping about and fed up with telling him to shut the door. Thankfully the weather is warming up so he can go back in the bedroom and I'll get the house back.

I wfh full time. I don't have the spare room for an office so my desk is in the bedroom.

It doesn't cause any problem here. I don't keep nipping in and out of rooms with people doing their thing in them. Occasionally my DP will pop up as ask if I want a cup of coffee or something but other than they everybody gets on with what they want.

Either you and your husband don't actually get on, or one of you is a dick to live with 🤷🏼‍♀️

You seem a bit BU to me - I do agree you need to sit down and agree the ground rules, but saying “I don’t like your presence in the house when I’m at home” is dreadful.

as a side note it’s interesting to me that on all the threads about women WFH the general consensus seems to be that it’s an absolute game changer and employers are evil nasty people for wanting f2f time, and people would never go back to in office. But here everyone seems to be saying that their DHs should fuck back off to the office pronto. Which is it?!

The original deal? Seems highly unlikely that the contract they signed when buying the house/agreeing the rental granted OP exclusive occupancy Mon-Fri 8.30am-5.30pm

When DH works from home on my day off (rare) he continually comes to wherever I am, starts a conversation, then as soon as I start to talk says “I’m sorry I’m really busy, I need to go back to work” About 8 million times a day. It’s not infuriating at all.

No, no one’s suggesting that @mrsdineen2 . even if we head made an ‘original deal’ of course things change, jobs change, people change, life changes.

But as unpalatable as it may be to you DH working from home has a knock on effect of turning the home into a workplace and that’s oppressive and suffocating for the others in it. It also isn’t good for DH to spend so much time at home and it creates extra work, extra stress and means we’re living on top of one another. No one wants to bundle him out five days a week but equally I think a couple of days enjoying a home as a home is reasonable.

@Nanny0gg Most of it was at work, but COVID and lockdowns changed all that. After lockdown his bosses decided they could all work at home permanently and let the rented workplaces go (and I couldn't blame them for that, must have been a huge saving).

He now works for himself in his own company and all past and current projects are here. He's not a tidy and organised worker, never has been, so it's not getting any better soon 😬

Mines party trick is enter, hype the kids up, and exit 😠

Mine went back full time because it was fucking awful with him here all day.

The big bosses who love this all have massive houses and/or garden offices. People like me in a small terraced house end up depressed when their home turns into an office.

DH and I have both wfh for over 15 years now. Life just happens. We set up our house in a way to make it possible. It’s only the very rare, extremely important meeting that other household members are expected to alter behavior.

i did in DD’s very early years have to stay in my office once I went in there. I packed food and drinks for the day and we made sure I worked somewhere I could get to a bathroom without her seeing me.

"A couple of days enjoying a home as a home is reasonable" Doesn't he get weekends? Or off-days if it's a different rota?

I have 2 days at home a week where I do all my lesson planning and marking and some cleaning.

DH works from home 2 days but NEVER on my days off.

He did it once and I drove him crazy with my noise! When I clean I put headphones in and sing loudly and dance (otherwise it's soooo boring!!) and he was so grumpy 😂

@Thecatisannoying I work part time (not from home) and my DH works almost full time (again, not from home he's a builder) but you can bet your life that if he takes a day off, it's when I'm on a day off and just want to be at home myself to do stuff without him constantly being "there"
In fact I find it hard to get motivated to spring clean for example if he's just sitting around playing on his phone.
I don't know how people cope with a WFH partner. I know it's his home, too but still..

We live in a cottage and sound really carries. When I started my second maternity leave I looked forward to a bit of peace for a couple of weeks before the baby arrived. Peace <laughs hollowly>

James … Have you got the blahblah sorted … I know, I think the blahblah meant the blahblahblah couldn’t blahblah. Yeah. Yeah he did <laughter> I will make sure tony hears about that but I suppose all we can do is make sure that we’re doing the blahblah … Yeah, that’s right …’

All. Day. Long.

These bastards and their gainful employment.

What do you mean, doesn’t he get weekends?

I do feel a little as if you’re being provocative intentionally. I understand not everyone will agree but these types of questions miss the point.

So let’s say I work Monday to Wednesday, have Thursday and Friday ‘off’ (with a three year old and a one year old it really isn’t time off but anyway) and then weekends together. I do actually make a point of going to places with the children at weekends for a couple of hours to give DH a break from us. Is that what you mean? As I genuinely don’t know what you mean by the quoted post.

Yes, just being provocative.

I WFH every day and DH 2 or 3 times a week. Kids at school then wrap around afterwards so they're never around. I'm struggling to understand all the challenges a bit but then we both just work in our designated spaces in the house and don't really engage much during the day. DH will make lunch and we might have a chat about who is picking up the kids but that's it.

The weekend is literally "a couple of days" where you get to enjoy your home as a home, free of work. You claiming you don't get that.

And it's rich to call me provocative when you're talking about breaking up your children's family because their father works from home. Good luck explaining that one to them when they're older.

I understand. Dh wfh 5 days a week and I do 2. I rarely get any time in the house alone. I’m actually used to it now. We did have a conversation that if I had a day off and stayed in my pjs until lunch or watched crap TV etc he wants to judge me. Work is very busy - NHS - and I’m studying a post grad course plus 3dc. I’m not lazy but initially felt guilty. He also shuts himself away in the study so that helps. I quite like my own company but that doesn’t really happen at the moment.

@mrsdineen2 - ok. I think to put it another way, when DH is at home we are all pressured to be out of the house as much as possible because the alternative is absolutely miserable.

With one child, that wasn’t much fun, especially in winter. With two it’s horrendous. And expensive and tiring. Ideally we go out in the morning, home for lunch, little one has a sleep and I can do something with the older one. With DH around that’s all different. We’re noisy and he’s noisy. I can manage for one day, for two consecutive days it becomes miserable.

I don’t really want to be spending the time before the kids start school filling time with stuff to do out of the house. And when they are at school a bit of normality will be needed in holidays. They will probably want to have friends round, play, make noise and mess. DH there all the time is very counterproductive to that.