To be feeling like the whole house is an office because of endless meetings?

[Shatteredglasses]

I am slowly but surely losing my mind with never having the house to myself, honestly. DH started working from home permanently last year. It was presented to me as a good thing (I’ll be done with work much earlier, be able to help more with the kids) but it’s just turned the house into an office. Half term is coming up and it feels very suffocating. I can’t do basic things like hoover or have music playing or friends over. It’s starting to get me down a bit tbh.

cant you get a job and go to it when he’s wfh

I understand. I think it’s hard being in such close proximity to your spouse so much of the time - being in the home together every day of the week for the majority of the day. It’s not natural.
Also understand wanting to be at home with the DC, able to relax and do your own thing without having to take the WFH into consideration. It isn’t working, I think you’re completely justified raising it and asking for a compromise. Such as he rents a local office / desk space for 2 of the 5 days. Or goes to the actual office. It’s ok to need a bit of breathing space from your other half, distance makes the heart grow fonder.

It’ll either be in the organisation’s work from policy, or in the amendment to his employment contract he may have signed.

If he's on calls and in meetings when does he actually do any work? Is he just waffling all day?

My partner works from home but he's outside so doesn't impact me when I'm on a day off.

If you want this to be the last ever half term when you face this then you could start knocking on the door and asking him to watch the children while you run errands -pretty soon he would find somewhere else to be. You’ve forgotten something incredibly important for lunch etc. oh dear it took much longer than you thought because of the traffic.

I think if he had a pair of noise cancelling headphones with a boom mic then I really don't see the issue. Teams has a voice isolation feature so hoovering etc does not get picked up on calls. If he has a headset he really shouldn't be speaking so loud. If your sound insulation in the house is so poor then you can buy noise absorbing panels that could be put in his study which would help to dampen the noise

Be honest with DH.
It is not sustainable for him to work from home every day. List positives and negatives.
Suggest that DH goes into the office on the two days that you are home looking after two year old.
You need to be able to freely make noise.
That is fair.

Yes the dh has to work and the op choses not too?

I wonder if the DH has not learnt to say no to some of the no doubtless pointless meetings or ones where he does not need to attend.

Not untrue per se but you have a choice. He’s not telling you that you can’t hoover or have people over, or play music as implied. He probably has noise cancelling headphones? You need a mindset change.

All failing that could you agree one day a week or month where he goes to a local co working space and you can have people over?

Have you got a garden, what about a garden room?

@Shatteredglasses if he needs to be in online meetings and is speaking at normal volume, then frankly this sounds like a You problem, not him. He can wear headphones so as not to be disturbed by you carrying our normal stuff so that isn’t an issue. It seems pretty unfair to complain about him just doing his job because it ‘alters the ambience’ for you. Just carry on with your life! If your house is badly soundproofed/ small/ poor layout then it obviously makes things tricky but that’s not his fault (or yours) - it’s just a fact. He’s working full time, if the role is something he can do at home then why shouldn’t he? I can’t help feeling if this were vice versa and a woman was saying her husband didn’t want her working at home and that she should pay to go out to a co working space because it was spoiling the ambience of the house for him, there’d be very little sympathy.

Any space in the garden for a little work office? My friend has a garden room with a little heater and is all set up out there, she comes in to use the toilet but otherwise has a kettle etc all out there.
The community centre near us has bookable offices, I would suggest he book one for a day or two during half term if there is an option like that near you?

Both DH and I have regular online meetings from home. It doesn't bother me in the least if he's hoovering the landing outside where I work, and vice versa. After all, there's usually a level of noise going on in big offices and people cope. I think you just need to carry on as usual and tell him to shut his door. You could also reasonably suggest to him that he doesn't need to use such a loud voice in meetings that you can hear it all over the house.

What sort of meetings is he having that they consist of his voice droning on and on? Most meetings involve contributions from everyone present.

For your Thursday mum get-togethers, can you ask him not to set up meetings while they are going on? It sounds like it would only be two to three hours every few weeks, which shouldn't be difficult to avoid. There must surely be part of his work that doesn't involve meetings that he could be getting on with?

If he has a study area and the door is shut and your DH is using headphones the insulation in your home must be non existent - but you must have known that before he took the job. Suggest you look at improving it.

If the issue is really that he's at home and you dont want him to be there's not a lot you can do about it.

I think you need to make him realise that first and foremost, the building is a family home and needs to function as that. So while he can wfh there are things that need to happen as a home that interfere with that - noisy housework, kids playing, people visiting etc. He needs to understand that there are things that you’ve had to change, and more importantly give up, because of his decision. And that some of those things are a problem.

So talk to him about how to accommodate at least some of those coming back.

like the Thursday circle - it’s not a weekly thing in your house as you said it moves around. So you want him to accept that every 3rd/4th/7th…Thursday, there will be noise in the house. But on the other hand, the other 2/3/6 Thursdays in that period will be quiet as you will be out with toddler. So he can schedule things needing quiet or intense concentration those weeks and either go out himself or expect to be disturbed on that 1 Thursday.

And as it is a family house with kids first, he needs to expect some noise when entertaining them or that older DCs may have a friend over at times..games and music will play etc. And also that as dc’s get older, they tend to get noisier in their play and with friends - and you may have to get noisier with them to make them do homework/chores.

So it’s worth having a proper conversation about it. Schedule a time, make it a serious conversation, and not about obstructing him but about how you can make it work for everything that needs to happen in a space that is firstly a family home. Or to consider if he needs to plan some time in the office or in a dedicated workspace that he rents for one day a week or whatever.

It’s not an accusation or a whine - it’s a proper communication about problems and how to solve them in a way that works for you both.

Because it sounds like it’s only working for one of you at the moment.

I’m not sure you’re understanding. Not all companies will have this. My old lodger had to start WFH in the pandemic and his company did nothing along those lines and just seemed to expect people to sort themselves out; he had to ask/agitate to get a desk and proper office chair sent out, for example. Colleagues were openly on zoom meetings with children perched on their laps etc. There was no hint of a policy or a contract change.
Not all companies always behave professionally!

Is the noise travelling through doors or walls?

It’s not the dh who’s complaining though. It’s the OP!

like I say, if this was a man complaining about his wife working a full time job from home because in his mind he can’t get on with hoovering, or have people over, I bet there’d be very different responses. Imagine a man telling his wife she must pay to use a co worker space somewhere because he doesn’t want the ambience at home spoiled

He isn’t complaining - the OP just seems to have decided she wants the house to herself on her days off.

I wfh and you can’t hear background noise from other people in online meetings. People often apologise about their dogs barking - but nobody has heard them !
I think you can hoover etc without worrying. Maybe try having one Mum and kids round and see if DH is disturbed? It doesn’t sound as though he has indicated that you can’t make any noise…??
Presumably he understands that when the kids are on school holidays, they will be home making some noise - and maybe he’s ok with that and can plan his day/ week around what you and the children are doing?

Why do you keep saying this as fact?

my contract doesn’t say that.
my exDHs doesn’t say that (in fact he’s currently WFH at MY dining table)
my best friends contract doesn’t say that.

we all deal with confidential stuff. What our contracts say, is wording to the effect of “no confidential data should be left available to none employees” and “all reasonable measures should be taken to prevent data loss” meaning: lock your screen when you’re away from the laptop, don’t leave paper files (ideally we wouldn’t have anything printed anyway) unattended.

I think having some music on would benefit you, drown him out abit.

Your noise isn't bothering him because you're not making any.

He's working in your home. You are not living in his office. You need to live as normal and if that disturbs him HE needs to find a solution.

I work from home with DP and DC at home doing normal life stuff and friends coming and going. I have headphones for teams meetings so no one hears my family. I play music in the background so I'm not distracted by their chatter.This week we've had workmen directly outside my downstairs window cutting up concrete flags etc and they didn't disturb my meetings.

You are the one restricting yourself not your DP. Just get on with your life. Play some music so you can't hear his chatter.

You need to remind him he’s working from home, you’re not living at his work. Therefore it has to operate primarily as a home - with visitors and hoovering - and he works around that. If that’s not possible, he needs to find a new place to work as his home isn’t a suitable working environment.

Is there a local library/hub he could go to,even if just for one or two days a week to give you a break?