I seriously didn’t know a better way of titling this, but please hear me out.
My wife and I both work from home. My job is mentally intensive and requires a lot of concentration, so we agreed that I could work in our home office. Her job is much less stressful and doesn’t require quiet, so she works from an office space we created in the living room.
Just to be clear, I absolutely respect my wife’s job and do not think less of her because mine is subjectively “harder”. We both agreed on me having the office space due to the nature of my work, and she was still able to build out her own office space.
The issue is that my wife is very very social, and loves popping into my office every 5 mins while I’m working to chat, ask me how and what I’m doing, or she just likes to come and sit inside the room. I totally get that we’re stuck at home and she needs to socialize, but I really need to focus to do my work. It’s gotten so distracting that my performance has actually declined to a point that my manager had to talk to me about it.
I absolutely love my wife, but I can’t lose my job. I’ve gotten up earlier to make her breakfast so we can sit and chat before work starts. We eat lunch together as well. I’ve tried to patiently bring up my concerns, even talking to her about it when I got reprimanded at work. I’ve tried finding solutions like encouraging her to set weekly catch up dates with friends. I’ve even tried to schedule in time during work to talk to her when I can.
But still, she completely ignores my needs and continues to barge in. It’s finally gotten to a point where I just started locking the door so she can’t come in. It caused a huge fight, and she said it was callous and rude, and even dangerous in case something happened to her. I said that if I was back at the office it would be the same. Plus, I don’t listen to music when I work so I can hear what’s happening in the home, or she could always call me.
She’s pretty pissed and my sister told me that I was a bad husband because my wife just wanted to spend time with now. I do agree that I’m fortunate to have a loving wife, but I also have to work!