have name changed for this and will try keep it as short as possible
dp lost his job in Covid times and only recently has he found something else which is a fully WFH role, only part time and earning about half of what he did before. It should take up around 3 days of his week. It's in IT which was his previous role (we have no dcs together but have them separately, not married, both late 40s, early 50s).
He said he needed a proper work room to do that so we got a shed in the garden, which doubles as a room for gym equipment. I thought great, now all his stuff can go in there. Except he then said the shed was too loud (it backs onto the railway line) and he needed to do his calls inside. So slowly but surely, he has moved all his shit into the dining room. I still WOTH 99% of the time but I deal with a lot of different time zones so I also need somewhere to do calls early in the day or late in the evening. I used to use the dining room but now can’t as it’s covered in his IT stuff so I created a space in dd’s bedroom (she’s abroad this year) with a desk and a neat pile of stuff I need for calls. I came back from work last week to find that he is now working in that nice space I have set up every day because the dining room is full, the dining room is open plan to the lounge and he lets his kids sit there and watch TV/shit on the internet all day so he can’t do calls when they are watching TV, the shed is too loud and he loves the nice, neat space I have created.
I can barely move for his crap everywhere I look. There are literally these IT things (cables, motherboards, chips, keyboards) everywhere – piled on the floor, 4 deep on the dining room table, in the shed etc. and now in my neat space. I told him last week that he had to sort it out because it wasn’t acceptable and he says he is trying but it’s hard as he’s got his kids for a few weeks for the holidays and he’s trying to work too and look after the dog. We have cameras set up on the front and back of the house and one internally that we barely look at but it’s useful when we’re away and when we’re out for the dog. He keeps telling me how busy he is and I have been falling for it. But when I checked the cameras last week, I could tell he wasn’t even walking the dog yet he told me one of the reasons he was busy is that he took the dog out for a few hours. I then see on the internal cameras that he gets up, watches shit on TV, maybe does one call, has a nice nap, watches a bit more shit on TV and maybe cooks some food and that is literally it and he’s on his phone the whole time, like even walking through the house while typing. I’m not on social media but I had a quick look at his and he is posting all day, like posts every couple of minutes on twitter. Some of the work meetings he’s told me he needs to do have been twitter meet ups it turns out. Every time I challenge him, there is some excuse. This morning he tells me how his ‘friend’ on twitter was threatening suicide and he had to be there for him and that’s why he’s found it hard to work as he had to be his support all week and that’s why he didn’t take the dog out (why lie to me the lazy sod!). This week his ‘other friend’ is having marital problems so he needs to spend some time helping him. It’s like I can’t get anywhere without him trying to make me feel like an utter shit for challenging him! I had a good look through his social media and he has styled himself as someone people ask help from – like every time someone posts a question, he will find the answer (as he's on there all day so always available) so he’s now built up this reputation as some sort of ‘helpful’ bod so I can see now why loads of people are now bothering him with their troubles.
The weird thing is he was not like this before – he had a job that he had to go into an office for, he worked hard and he came home and everything was fine. Now that he is WFH, everything has gone tits up and I think it’s because he doesn’t have interaction with people anymore (as he’s hugely sociable, I am not!) and he’s using social media to replace it. I said I thought he was being hugely lazy and he burst into tears and said I was being unfair. He now obviously sees how pissed off I am and is sending me messages saying how much he loves me but tbh I am going right off him at the moment. I’ve even texted this morning to make sure he takes the poor dog out – I was expecting him to go this morning when it was cool and of course he hasn’t so he says he is waiting till later as the dog was asleep but he now won’t be able to be walked till tonight because of the heat. Quite frankly, I don’t want another child as a partner and don’t want a man in his 50s who is addicted to being wanted on social media.
So am I being mean or would this drive you mad too?