Explain that working from home is WORKING

[wfhorwtf]

I work a desk based job where I'm on my laptop most of the day doing fairly intense analytical work. It's mostly quiet, maybe three or four short calls a day with colleagues, and everything else happens over email or teams. The rest of the time I need proper, uninterrupted concentration to write code, analyse data, read documents and produce updates and reports. I work from what used to be the box room, now repurposed as a home office.

My partner has recently moved in. He's worked manual trades all his life and has never really needed a computer, either for work or leisure. To the point where he doesn't even know how to type on a keyboard (non-phone one I mean). The problem is that he's currently between jobs, gets bored, and feels like I'm ignoring him. He'll call out to me several times an hour to ask my opinion on something, show me a funny video, or give me updates about some friends or political news. It’s all well-natured, but even a quick interruption completely breaks my concentration. Watching a 10 sec video can easily cost me 10 min of getting back into the zone. Maybe that's just how my brain works, or age.

This has been worse over the last few days because of Christmas prep on top of the usual household chores. To be clear, I do my share of the festive slog, though if I'm honest he probably does more. I just tend to do it in the evenings, which is also when he'd rather relax or do something fun together.

We had a heated conversation this morning, and it became clear that he genuinely doesn't understand that I'm actually WORKING. Not out of malice, he simply doesn't have a reference point for this kind of work. Compared me to one of his exes who was constantly scrolling social media on her phone and ignored him. From his perspective, I'm "doing nothing" all day and just staring at a screen, while he's busy with visible and tangible tasks. I'm trying to get everything wrapped up before a mandatory two week Christmas furlough at work.

How do I explain that just because my job doesn't look busy from the outside doesn't mean it isn't?

Honestly, it comes across like you think you're very lucky to have him/ anyone and so you'll put up with anything, and continue to make yourself smaller 5o keep him.

He doesn't NEED to understand what you actually do.

All he needs to understand is that your job requires a lot of focus and concentration and that you're often reading and analysing information that needs your full attention. That isn't actually difficult to understand at all. He doesn't need to know about algorithms and data sets. He just needs to fucking BELIEVE YOU when you say that you can't be interrupted, that's all. And he needs to stop being such a needy, over-sensitive baby.

I spent some time working from my mum's house recently after my dad died. My mum (who is the most sociable and chatty person ever) doesn't have the first clue what I do, and I do a lot of tasks that would be hard to explain to her, but when I said 'I'm going to have my head down concentrating on a big work task all afternoon so I won't be able to chat I'm afraid, sorry' she completely understood that interrupting me would break my concentration. She's never worked in an office in her life and she's 82 years old, so if she can manage it, your partner should be able to manage it too.

I bet his ex wasn't really 'addicted to social media' at all. My guess is that she just wanted some peace and quiet while he kept begging for attention and acting all butt-hurt when she wanted to left alone.

No, I don't think they would ever mesh, and that's actually a good thing. We each have our own private ecosystems, and then there's the shared territory between us, which feels like a third place altogether. We're not planning to get married, for many reasons, though we did have some fun imagining what a wedding might look like, with both sets of guests bravely attempting to mingle, heavily assisted by alcohol.

He talks about my work with real pride. When there's a tangible outcome I'm allowed to mention (some of it is confidential / sensitive), it often sounds very sexy like “we improved the discrimination performance of algorithm A by 1.16%.” In practice, in the future that could mean thousands of earlier and cheaper cancer diagnoses, fewer pedestrians flattened by self-driving cars, or many other things. Claiming that directly would feel like a massive reach, though, so the easiest shorthand tends to be the one everyone understands... the financial reward attached to the work.

You've got a whole lot of bullshit excuses for his rude behaviour.

Did he move in to recover from the accident? It really looks like the two of you are incompatible when it comes to living together. He lets his need to be entertained take over and he interrupts your work. He knows you're working. Stop selling yourself bullshit. He doesn't really respect what you do or he would leave you to do it without getting upset that you won't look at his videos or whatever stuff he wants you to do instead of make the money to pay for the roof over your heads.

Showing you off like a smart toy for his friends, the fuck?

It sounds like his moving in was a big mistake. He's childish and pissy when you don't put his need for attention for superfluous bullshit over your job.

Sounds like you see him as your 'bit of rough' and that's why you have separate friends and (ecosystems??)

A workable relationship when you've lived apart for 10 years.

But now he's moved into your home, I've a feeling you're both about to find out how very different you are.

We do have a set of mutual friends, mostly from our shared hobby, which is how we met and is highly identifying (yes, it is cycling). We've also lived together on and off over the years, though never for very long stretches - not by design, but because life happened in certain ways (parents needing care, work secondment to a kingdom far far away, etc).

I can see why, after 10 years, you don't want to accept what he's telling you about himself. Are you happy to live apart for another few decades until retirement, or is it better to cut your losses now?

Why you ignoring the posts where people give you the simplest solution - “don’t disturb me at all between 9am and 5pm”?

Because she’s completely unwilling to assert any boundaries whatsoever.

I’m not ignoring it, I think I did thank one poster for the suggestion? I didn’t respond to the rest, though, that's true. The approach feels a bit passive-aggressive to me, I am usually more leaning towards "let's discuss and agree on a joint solution" rather than ultimatums.

Are you? You’re genuinely surprised that your multiple comments about your complete unwillingness to assert any boundaries, whilst making excuses for and praising this man (who doesn’t appear to actually have any praiseworthy qualities) make you seem like you’ve very little self esteem?

‘He just genuinely doesn’t understand.’ Really, OP?

When WFH, my husband is in the box room and I'm in the living room. If either of us close the door during the hours of 8-5pm, that means we can't be interrupted.

We don't need to understand each others job, just need to respect it.

You think direct communication is passive aggressive? What?

It seems they're happy to live together now that he can't work and may have to medically retire in the near future.

Him having had a marriage in the past and other long-term relationships, and the OP having been mostly single before they met.

I fear this won't be the only spotlight shining on their incompatibility.

But ultimately she'll be able to look after him now, as long as he leaves her alone to earn the money.

I think the suggestion was to put a sign on my office door.

So after explaining how you work to him he's actually just thick then?

That’s what all the parents did when wfh with the kids off school during covid.

He is behaving like a child who doesn’t understand what “I’m working” means so treat him like a child.

He really does just sound stupid.

What most people are suggesting is to directly tell him not to disturb you between X and X time. As a non-negotiable.

Not read the full thread but I have a similar situation with my husband. He's just used to me being there and being able to engage when he wants me for something. It's not intentional on his part at all. If I don't want to be disturbed, I close my office door. If I'm working on 'lighter' stuff and happy for him (kids, dog etc) to pop in, I leave my door open. Simple.

There are several posters on this very thread who openly said they themselves struggled to recognise that their husbands need concentration and silence, or have had exactly the same issue on the receiving end with partners or parents. Are we really saying all of these people are simply thick?

How has he manged without your full attention during the last 6 hours you've been posting on Mumsnet?

Has he bothered you much?

Mentioned how his ex girlfriend used to post on the internet and hurt his feelings by ignoring him?

If they needed to be told more than once (maybe twice to be generous) then yes, they are either thick or lacking any respect for their partner.

Never had this problem with my DH who works from home with me sometimes. We even have doors open and I sit out near the kitchen and he can see me working and doesn’t interrupt. I guess it’s about understanding what work from home means. Is there any other way you can make it clear the home office is a workplace?

I would go back to the office if necessary or may be even find a cafe or library to work from leading into Xmas. Hopefully your partner finds a job soon. Sounds like he has a lot of spare time.

Haha, well spotted! I’ve finished work for Christmas, he's out panic-buying missing presents, and I'm relaxing with mumsnet and Downton Abbey rewatch.

This is quite obviously rage bait.

We’ve now moved into the faux wide-eyed innocence phase: a professional, middle-aged woman with an analytical career forced to come to fucking Mumsnet 😂 to help her explain to her middle-aged boyfriend of ten years what “work” is. It’s transparently absurd.

Its the school holidays people.