If you WFH, how much do you interact with your spouse during the work day?

[Anonymous]

Title says it all, but do you spend time together during the day? Like lunch or on short work breaks?

I like to hang out with DH on my short breaks and at lunch, but he would prefer to work straight through with zero interruptions. Kind of feel like that defeats the purpose? We also have three kids. Since I only work PT, he expects me to keep them entertained and away from his office until 6.

[Anonymous]

This sounds pretty standard. I assume he makes most of your HHI as well?

[Anonymous]

The purpose? The purpose of WFH is to… work.

[Anonymous]

We'll occasionally sit and have lunch together (maybe once a week), and a couple times a week we coordinate to take a walk during the day. We also wander into each others' offices if we want to chat or vent about something - but if we see the other person is busy we obviously leave them alone!

No one likes to be bothered when they are busy or in the zone - it sounds like your DH's job is more demanding so it's understandable that he doesn't want interruptions.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies! Yes, I’m definitely more of a social person when I’m in the office. DH make more $, and prefers not to socialize at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The purpose? The purpose of WFH is to… work.

OP didn’t say that she expects to spend the entire day with him.

OP: DH and I both work from home. We sometimes eat lunch together if our lunch breaks overlap. Other times, he’ll come into my office just to say hi (and vice versa). But generally we don’t interact too much in person. We do exchange texts and whatnot.

[Anonymous]

We usually have lunch. Occasionally more. We both work FT.

OP I think this depends on the nature of work and whether it goes with interruptions and breaks. You need to talk this out and find a reasonable compromise, like if he can’t hang out during work hours then he can other times.

[Anonymous]

All day. I work up in the converted attic. He works on the main level. But, he makes my latte and oatmeal and we split up morning school runs for our MS and HS kids.

We workout together mid-morning. Sometimes a quickie somewhere in the work day.

We might hit Whole Foods together after the workout one day a week for groceries.

Afternoon everyone is home. Dinners together--alternate who makes it. Kids different sports team runs. Couch at 9pm to watch Netflix.

I have been WAH since 2005, but husband never was (just one day every other week) until Covid and he's been full-time WAH since then. He used to have long hours and it would just be by text. IF he worked out--he had to do after the day was over and would get home after dinner. This has been so much better for our marriage and we both really are loving it.

He has been offered pretty crazy $ to take on a new role but it would require a lot of stress and possibly less at home, if at all. At 50, we are thinking time is now more important. His prior schedule did a number on our marriage since he was out of the house so much and got home so late in the evenings.

[Anonymous]

This probably sounds like I have a bad marriage, but very little. We would eat lunch together 2-3 times a week, but we both have jobs where we are on Zoom or the phone a lot and I really value my little breaks between meetings to do actual work or just decompress alone. I am probably the one who gets more annoyed with random interruptions.

[Anonymous]

We have a quickie before lunch most days.

[Anonymous]

He WFH 100%. I WFH about 60%. We almost never plan things during the work day.

Rarely we'll take a walk (rather, he'll accompany me on my walk).
Maybe we will eat lunch at the table together once a week?
Maybe once every 6 weeks we'll go to lunch (walk somewhere, order and eat it at home). This is "special."
We're low key house hunting, so we'll go look at houses in the afternoon on Fridays a lot.

We really don't plan much. We're both pretty busy. That said, we usually sign off at 6pm or earlier (much earlier for me often). And we eat breakfast together with our MS kid every day. We usually hang out downstairs together for an additional hour or so.

No complaints! It's pretty perfect!

[Anonymous]

we usually work through lunch and are on different schedules. We have occasional short conversations that would have been texts otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Mine travels quite a bit but when he's home we walk the dog together or go for a run, then shower together and have sex. The rest of the day, not so much - we have offices on different levels of the house and we're both on the phone a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All day. I work up in the converted attic. He works on the main level. But, he makes my latte and oatmeal and we split up morning school runs for our MS and HS kids.

We workout together mid-morning. Sometimes a quickie somewhere in the work day.

We might hit Whole Foods together after the workout one day a week for groceries.

Afternoon everyone is home. Dinners together--alternate who makes it. Kids different sports team runs. Couch at 9pm to watch Netflix.

I have been WAH since 2005, but husband never was (just one day every other week) until Covid and he's been full-time WAH since then. He used to have long hours and it would just be by text. IF he worked out--he had to do after the day was over and would get home after dinner. This has been so much better for our marriage and we both really are loving it.

He has been offered pretty crazy $ to take on a new role but it would require a lot of stress and possibly less at home, if at all. At 50, we are thinking time is now more important. His prior schedule did a number on our marriage since he was out of the house so much and got home so late in the evenings.

This sounds so great!

[Anonymous]

All people having quickies during the work day, I’m jealous!