To be enraged at my DH’s WFH laziness

[Plydrm]

I work in a very high pressure job and am the breadwinner (£55k) and DH works in a local government job at £36k and is based at home but does do the odd field visit.

I work from the office or ‘out and about’ most days but have the very odd day WFH.

I have compressed my working week and have a Wednesday off with our preschooler. This means the other weekdays I’m working long hours, plus a commute.

For the last 6 months or so I’ve noticed that if I message DH around lunch time I don’t hear from him until at least 3pm. I assumed he was busy dealing with meetings or out seeing clients.

I was WFH yesterday and was absolutely enraged to discover that he actually has a 2 hour nap every day (whilst on the clock).

Im frustrated by this for a number of reasons, including the fact that I don’t stop at work and rarely get a lunch break or any downtime at work. I also need to get dinner ready after work every night after being out the house 6am-5.30pm. He does do the odd laundry and keeps on top of the kitchen but other than this the housework waits until the weekend.

AIBU for being annoyed by this?

I work from home, I've usually washed up breakfast dishes and put on and hung out the washing by 8am so that I can start work at 8am. Some days I eat breakfast whilst looking at emails like this morning as I went shopping before work (still back and laptop on at 8am). Occasionally I'll have to run outside to bring the washing in when it inevitably starts raining.

I don't do household chores at all during the day, lunchtime is walk/gym and some food. I treat it like a working day in the office.

Working from home should not be about doing household chores, it really pisses me off when people talk about it like that.

Why are all these (presumably) relatively young people taking regular naps during the day?

Um... nothing to do with cuts in central government grants? Or a significant increase in the number and cost of very elderly people needing social care?

No, it's one bloke who is (maybe) taking a long lunch.

Have you considered educating yourself?

why do some collegues chat at the office wasting x mins or hours ?

Please say thanks to your husband for wasting my hard-earned tax money. Ffs.

This would piss me off no end too. I work for myself so if I take a break it's my money I'm losing. And I'm often working at nights, weekends etc. But if you're paid a salary, you should be working.

Ultimately it's his boss' job to do something about it but he won't end up getting promoted any time soon with that attitude and that's where it impacts you.

Urgh this kind of stuff annoys me so much because it ruins flexibility for others. What a twat.

So much wrong here but singling out this

I also need to get dinner ready after work every night after being out the house 6am-5.30pm.

Just why? I can't honestly believe there is anyone in the UK under the age of 90 who still thinks getting dinner is something you can't do if you have a Y chromosome. DH is 68, we have been married nearly 40 years, he has always pulled his weight in the kitchen. He would occasionally ask advice if he was attempting something he had never tried to do before, but he has never, ever assumed I was the default cook. Since retiring he has even tried his hand at baking from time to time. Oh and household chores are always split. I tend to clean the kitchen more often but he usually cleans the bathrooms.

And that 90 I mentioned. Recently deceased FIL was 95 and cooking for himself and late MIL after she got dementia.

Presume if you are gone from 6am he is doing mornings and nursery drop offs with your pre-schooler and that will continue when they start school?
Does he also do pick ups before you get back or are you running in the door with a child that needs feeding?

I'd take a pretty dim view too but there's a point where it can simply be construed as jealousy that he has such a cushy time of it. Frankly I'd be more concerned that his productivity is rubbish and he'll be out of a job as soon as you can say AI. Government are digitising the hell out of everything and with council consolidations and redundancies/outsourcing coming he should be making himself an indispensable part of the team, not an invisible sloth.

No chance he's working for local gov. Great pension great sick pay no requirement to work

WFH shouldn’t be about chores beyond say, sticking the dishwasher or washing machine on while you’re sorting lunch or whatever, and certainly not for two hour naps unless he starts early and has a long lunch, but if one person has long hours and a commute, the other person should at least be prepping dinner when they finish.

Why isn't your DH doing at least half the housework & childcare?

He sounds like a lazy arse. Just stop doing more than half of anything and see if he notices, or even steps up.

Yep. And can I add that there have and always will be time wasters. Maybe it’s having multiple half hour coffee or fag breaks and chatting to all and sundry in the office. Maybe it’s looking at the news all day in the office etc. WFH is not solely responsible for people being less productive.

And btw maybe he is someone who has certain tasks to finish and as long as he gets them done before they log off and attends all meetings, they don’t care how long he naps for.

I assure you not everyone WFH is like this!!!!!!!!

I DO take an hour for lunch as I am not paid for my lunch break and quite frankly need fresh air ,daylight and movement.

He needs to do more around the house eg the main part of dinner , some washing up/washing to ease your load. The job appears to allow this!

FWIW, it is down to YOU to ensure you have a lunch break though !

Sounds like you're jealous OP! For 35k a year I don't blame him one bit to be honest.

Why do you care? Are you his boss?

Can he cut his nap to one hour on his lunch break and also take some small breaks to prep the evening meal?

This isn’t really about WFH , this is about your husband being lazy and a communication breakdown in your relationship .

I don’t even live with my boyfriend but know his schedule when he’s WFH, how long he takes a break for etc. its very telling that you only found out now.

And why should you -the one who is out of the house all day and working longer hours - be solely responsible for dinner on weekdays? Why is this the current setup? When are you going to speak up about it?

For goodness sake 2 hour nap or not, he should at least be doing half if not the majority of dinners during the week. Does he at least do the clearing up after you cook?

If he’s getting his work done I don’t know it’s that big a deal considering you hear of people doing their shopping, kid’s collections etc. I never wfh but get an hour lunch and 20 minute break too. I think a nap sounds like a good thing and we should all be taking/ getting them!!!

Also OP you’ve called yourself the breadwinner, I think you meant to say the Main breadwinner because to be fair he works as well.

Presumably without his “breadwinning” on top of your own, you wouldn’t be able to pay all the bills. You may well be earning more but his income isn’t an insignificant financial contribution.

I'm not specifically talking about WFH. I asked why any reasonably healthy and relatively young person would take regular naps in the day. It seems unusual, unless obviously they have health issues or a new baby perhaps.

He is public sector. Nothing will happen. No one will care.

fair point i miss read your comment

I also work in the public sector and if my colleagues were taking naps for 2 hours I wouldn’t be surprised.

No he shouldn’t be napping but he shouldn’t be using the time for household jobs either. It sounds like he doesn’t have enough work to do, which honestly is not as enjoyable as it sounds - I am in the same boat!

Didn't we all suspect this was what was happening?

Although a friend of mine who worked for our local council for a time, said she was staggered by how little work they managed to do when they were working in the office.

You’re not his manager so no you have no right to be annoyed about what he does at work.

You do have a right to be annoyed that he never cooks dinner though, why is it always your job?

I also think it’s unfair to call yourself the breadwinner because you earn more, he is still on a decent enough salary and working for local government is always going to pay less than working in the private sector

Taxpayer funded napping. Yet another reason the country is broke