DH thinks he should have an office space kept clear at home

[RazedBeds]

I am in a job where I visit establishments or work from home. In effect this means I am in and out of my home all the time and WFH about 3 days a week.

DH works in an office, but has the odd evening call to do at home - maybe 2 a month.

He's thrown a strop because I usually work upstairs but move to the basement room when it's very cold, as it's warmer down there and there's an electric fire. I plugged in the fire and in doing so I unplugged DH's monitor that he attached his laptop to when he does these occasional evening calls. He says I should leave one desk completely clear and set up for him and that it's inconsiderate of me not to. If he tells me he has a call I will clear the desk btw, but if I am WFH and will be tomorrow I do leave my laptop set up.

I feel like since I work at home almost every day and he does do very occasionally, it's not unreasonable for me to spread myself across the workspaces at my convenience as long as I clear a desk whenever he wants. He says that's not fair and one desk should always be set up and available for him, that I don't need to use two. For clarity I work at one or the other but it varies depending on the weather and my mood!

AIBU?

I absolutely realise this and wrote as someone who also worked from home.

If the house has room for 2 desks then one is his and one is hers. He should not have to reinstate his desk to how it was before she used it. Common courtesy says you put it back how you found it.

Full stop.

Get an electric heated throw and then you can stay in the attic 🤷‍♀️

@RazedBedsyour update makes it clear that he is being unreasonable.
I think you need to put your foot down and claim the office space as your own and if he’s adamant he wants a designated space for his infrequent meetings then he uses the other options which you agree to leave alone.

Him claiming the most appropriate office space when he rarely uses it is just selfish.

Common courtesy means you don’t hog an office space you don’t need. Which is what he is doing.

Suggest to him that as soon as he gets in to go and tidy any area he wants to work himself, then when it’s ready to work he can just crack on. Or he can claim the other space(s)

Thank you for your clarification. He’s being absolutely ridiculous. It sounds a lot like he thinks your home is somehow primarily “his house” rather than both of your homes. I would agree that everyone has fixed work stations - yours should be the basement as you wfh most days and he can pick one of the upstairs rooms, preferably DS2’s room so that you have the option of working in the attic when the weather is nice. Seeing as your DH doesn’t care which desk he has this should be a fine solution.

Yanbu and he sounds like a petulant idiot.
Some men become increasingly annoying as they age.
Don't tolerate OP, you will regret it if you do.

I mean, actually, I can see why he was a bit annoyed, if he sat down for his meeting after you cleared your stuff away and then found that his monitor wasn't plugged in and the camera was askew. But in my house, it would just be a quick, 'Hey, could you make sure to plug my monitor back in when you clear your stuff away?' Mentioning the camera and the pen wouldn't even be on my radar.

I think it’s fine to use whichever room is warmest but I do think you should clear desk and leave monitor turned off but plugged in ready for use at the end of the day.

So you dont like working at a desk when there's other people's shit left around?

Can you not just focus on the tiny space left from moving a stack of papers and keep looking at your laptop there?

It would give me even more of the rage if there was a pile of my husbands papers on my desk as well as my equipment having been unplugged! I hate having cluttered desks. I genuinely think better with a clean desk policy. I don’t want to have to squeeze myself into whatever small amount of bare space someone has left for me on my own desk!

Except it's not his desk. It's a communal office space that he has decided belongs to him even though he rarely uses it.

No, I don't mind it, but it can be odd on Teams calls when someone asks why there's a giant dalek behind me :)

Well it’s his in the same way Ukrainians think Ukraine is theirs. Just because the OP fancies annexing his desk as well as the one she uses most frequently doesn’t make it communal whatever the position was 6 years ago (ie pre Covid)

Have you actually read what the OP has written?

Well no. It was a shared desk. DH got pissy that I wasn't tidy enough so I retreated to a less professional space to keep the peace, even though he rarely uses that professional space.

It was not ever exclusively "his" desk (except during lockdown, and even then we would swap if I needed to do a private call that I couldn't do from the dining room with kids wandering around).

But I think what he's saying to you now, albeit super clumsily, is that he would like it to be exclusively his desk. He's requesting a change to the arrangement.

You have three options:

1. Say no
2. Say yes
3. Compromise

Your go to method of dealing with your DH’s grumbling is to retreat. Next time, remind yourself that your feelings matter too and hold your ground.

I don't understand how the attic room was good enough for your son to work and sleep in but not good enough for you

1. Sleeping is not an issue; a warm duvet
2. her son was at high school before he moved out. I know zero high school boys who sit at a desk at home all day on the weekend or holidays diligently working, I don’t see the comparison.
3. pretty much all the boys I know (many as I have sons and nephews and all their friends and the other hundreds at the clubs and training) run much warmer than me, they wouldn’t need a jumper in environments I’m swaddled in woollen layers with a coat.

it seems very easy for it to have been fine for a boy to live in that room and do homework

Yep, exactly that. He wasn't in the room during the day in Winter when the heating is off.
In Summer how hot it gets could actually be a problem and there were times he slept in the basement office room instead.

One day we will have to get the roof re insulated but it's a big expensive job that we can't currently afford while paying uni rent.

Surely the best compromise is that DH has his own desk in the boys room - which you don’t touch.

And you have the basement room as your sole desk - which he doesn’t touch.

You wfh so get to choose which area is yours and it sounds like the basement is best but also both get a set desk each.

He’s not saying don’t use it just leave it as u find it
the fact there’s 3 desks in the house an OP wants to use all 3 of them is the issue they do t even have to share

That's not true. I don't want to use the third desk in DS2's room, never have.

Easily dealt with - set up a background for Teams calls so no-one can see what's behind you.