DH WFH is a huge turn off

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a YOU problem. I get that moving to full time telework was a challenge. It took me a while to find balance and space. Yet, it didn't affect my attraction to my DH. If you need distance to maintain your attraction to your partner, there's something wrong with you.

So judgy

Like OP is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is something that I had to deal with in 2020. You shouldn't have let it fester into 2023.

Yes, the adjustment wasn't easy, but you have to find ways of coping effectively. I set clear boundaries for water cooler conversations. I started eating some lunches alone, instead of always making sure we're eating together. I make lunch plans with friends.

The key in all of this is, you can change your own behavior, but you cannot change your DH's (short of asking for very specific easily done items).

There is so much you can do, instead of wasting time on resentment. Buy him the "pajama" outfits you think might look better/be more acceptable to you. Set lunch dates. Find ways of motivating him.

In 2020, we started going for morning runs together. We don't anymore, but for a while this was a pleasant mutually beneficial activity.

You contradict yourself. She can’t change her husband’s behavior, but she is expected to “motivate” him?

You’re right that she can’t and shouldn’t try to change or control his behavior. She can only control her own behavior.

But it’s wrong to say she should “find ways to motivate him.” He’s a grownup. He needs to motivate his own damn self.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a YOU problem. I get that moving to full time telework was a challenge. It took me a while to find balance and space. Yet, it didn't affect my attraction to my DH. If you need distance to maintain your attraction to your partner, there's something wrong with you.

So judgy

Like OP is.

“There’s something wrong with you” is judgy. You’re defensive because something she’s saying hits too close to home for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I realize this is going to be hard for the DCUM girl boss and jaded beta-male sets to acknowledge, but please consider that mating strategies are hardwired and for most women having a spouse in the domestic sphere all day--even if they are providing for the family by 21 c standards--is going to be a huge turn off. You can blast me for being sexist or un-PC or whatever, but it's a hallow moral victory if the marriage is ruined. Going to the office a few days a week is not a big ask. Obviously this doesn't apply to couples who agreed to this on their own terms, but for a lot of women having their spouse around at home all day is going to be unattractive and it's unrealistic to expect the OP to just turn that switch off when there is a reasonable middle ground here.

What arrogance! But your opening line is a classic of self-importance. "Jaded beta-male sets" is especially cringeworthy and condescending!

I have to laugh when I hear DCUM posters pontificating about their Absolute Knowledge from on high. "Mating strategies are hardwired." "MOST women" want X or Y, and find Z a "huge turn off."

So you know what "most" women want and think--what special insight you must have. I'm NOT "blasting you for being sexist or un-PC," though I suspect you'd love to engage with someone who was. Sorry. I just think you're arrogant down to your marrow for assuming you know what is or isn't attractive to anyone else. My DH works from home now during and post-pandemic. I do too. It's fantastic for our sex life: No more getting up super early to commute, so plenty more morning sex. Feel inspired during the day? Lunchtime sex.

Nope, not a brag (though I'm sure you'd try to huff and puff and say it is!) but a simple, logistical fact: He's home more hours, at times more conducive to sex. But I am not trying to claim OP should feel the same way or do the same things. Because unlike you, PP, I do not claim to have magical knowledge of what all, or even "most" women find attractive, or what all couples find conducive to sex.

[Anonymous]

OP, I relate to much of what you said except I work in an office. Before Covid, DH would shower, put on a suit and go into his office; now that he has no commute he lazes on the couch in sweatpants and plays on his phone until sometime after I leave for work, and by the time I get home from my commute he’s already back in sweatpants, loafing on the couch. So unattractive! One day a couple weeks ago there were some bigwigs visiting DH office so he reluctantly put on his suit and went in. I told him he looked hot (he did) and when he got home later I pounced on him - something I haven’t felt inclined to do much these last couple of years. Guess who’s decided to start going into the office a couple days a week? Men are really so simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a SAHM but everything else about your post resonates with me 100%. A few months ago DH started going to back to the office 2-3 days/wk and it's turned everything around. How is your sex life? That's the one piece of evidence I was able to use to persuade DH to get out of the house on a regular basis. We used to have sex regularly 2-3 x/wk and when he was home it was more like 2x/month. On my part it was b/c of everything you listed, he was just around too much and I never got to miss him. There are so many psychological benefits for him getting out of the house even if they aren't tangible. And there is solid data that staying at home (whether WAH or SAHD) reduces testosterone levels.

Citation, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think you can legitimately complain that he's working from home, given that YOU work from home and apparently prefer it. He's supposed to get up earlier and deal with a longer commute, but you're not? You can say that his lack of personal hygiene and sloppy dressing is a turnoff (again, assuming that you shower every day and don't put on PJs until bedtime).

He’s showering every day, just at 9 not 7. He is also working out. So how is his hygiene bad (does he not shower after working out?)

I'm not sure it is, but that would be a legit complaint. If he's showering, working out, and working in a home office (so it's not like he's in your hair all day), then I think you have to think long and hard about asking him to take on the hassle and expense of commuting again, when it's something you've chosen not to do.

My WFH is something WE both chose for me. We have kids and I'm the main caretaker. This was a decision made years ago, therefore I always WFH so I can get kids to/from school and to activities, dr appts, be home for 1/2 days, breaks, etc. The list goes on. He has never been involved in kid duties.

New poster.

Re: the bold above: In your first post you mentioned (burying it in the larger post) that he didn't WFH/help out back when the kids were little and you could have USED his help, but now that the kids are more sellf-sufficient suddenly he's around all the time. Is it fair to say the thought there is, "He's around all the time NOW when they/I don't need him but where was he all those years he was commuting and not home to help"?

I'm getting an extremely strong whiff of deep resentment from you over the fact that you feel he has never, ever been doing enough with the kids compared to you. But you are conflating that resentment and that situation with the WFH issues, OP. You need to separate out "I resent deeply that you have NEVER been a help with the kids while I have done it all" from the current issue of "I resent that you are physically present in the house." OK? Can you see how you're conflating a larger issue that has been around for the whole marriage, with the WFH issue? I get it, the WFH presence is reminding you there were times he could have been in the house when you actually needed him and this is reminding you he wasn't around then but is now when he's not (to you) wanted.

But especially as the kids are older, and if you have any desire to keep your marriage, you need to realize you're mixing up a lot of past issues with current ones. If you don't get a grip on separating things out, you'll end up with an even bigger ball of anger.

And OP, your anger is further skewed because you really buried the single most troubling thing of all! At the very end of the first post you say his drinking has become a problem. That's a red flag that was waving but you buried it under trivia like his sleeping in, the times he showers, his pajamas etc.

I think you need to sit down and prioritize some issues here; you're currently lumping every resentment and issue into one mess of loathing. That will help and solve nothing.

Do you, OP, actually WANT to help and solve anything, or just to vent angrily? You seem very territorial about the idea that "this was the arrangement when we got married" and keeping that exactly as it was -- though you also resent the part of that same deal where he worked outside the home so much (because you wanted him to help more with the kids--which, to be blunt, is water under the bridge now.O You can't have it both ways and you can't alter that past either.

You say you've talked to him and he sees no reason to change anything. I'd talk to him again but only after some solo work on setting priorities and creating some actual ideas other than "You need to go back to the office so I can have back my exact 'deal' you owe me." The pandemic and the WFH opportunity, which did not exist when you married, negated the deal about which you feel so strongly. I get it, OP, I really do; my own DH is WFH now without prospect of ever going back and I have WFH for years too, so I get the "too much toghetherness" thing. But your anger was there before WFH exacerbated it so badly -- wasn't it?

Come up with actual, concrete solutions including ones where you flex more than you seem willing to. List them. It could be some combo of his going to the office one day a week while you work from somewhere else on a different day each week--that's two of five working days you are not in the house at the same time. And separately it sounds like you and he need to talk, not about the WFH, but about your years of buried resentment re: the kids and his inability (then and now) to flex for you just as you don't want to flex for him. Have you considered whether this is typical of the rest of your marriage? Are you both pretty territorial and stubborn? Worth exploring. I wouldn't even worry about sex and attraction until the two of you can manage to talk about mundane things like work hours and locations with some level of actually hearing and caring about each others' issues.

Very helpful and thoughtful post, definitely gives me pause and food for thought. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Wait, your DH has a good job that allows him to work from home, works out daily, is in good shape, showers and gets dressed by 9:30am every day, and enjoys his social time with you....

And you view intimacy as a chore, and think your DH sucks and is a turn off because.... he puts his PJs on at 4:30 in the afternoon?

This has to be a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I relate to much of what you said except I work in an office. Before Covid, DH would shower, put on a suit and go into his office; now that he has no commute he lazes on the couch in sweatpants and plays on his phone until sometime after I leave for work, and by the time I get home from my commute he’s already back in sweatpants, loafing on the couch. So unattractive! One day a couple weeks ago there were some bigwigs visiting DH office so he reluctantly put on his suit and went in. I told him he looked hot (he did) and when he got home later I pounced on him - something I haven’t felt inclined to do much these last couple of years. Guess who’s decided to start going into the office a couple days a week? Men are really so simple.

Love this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a YOU problem. I get that moving to full time telework was a challenge. It took me a while to find balance and space. Yet, it didn't affect my attraction to my DH. If you need distance to maintain your attraction to your partner, there's something wrong with you.

So judgy

Like OP is.

“There’s something wrong with you” is judgy. You’re defensive because something she’s saying hits too close to home for you.

Sorry to disappoint but no. I’m not controlling of my spouse. Sounds like it hit home to you though or you wouldn’t have commented on what PP wrote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you thought about finding an office job?

I'm 50 years old and haven't worked in an office since I was early 30's.. I selected my line of work for the remote flexibility because we have kids. I also do not have an office to go to.

I get what you're saying - but you've enjoyed 20 years of getting to WFH and refuse to give it up. Can you understand why your husband enjoys it now, too?

I'm not saying you're wrong and he's right - just, I've worked from home on and off for 20 years too and it would really take something special for me to give it up.

UMMM - Years of working from home while raising kids.. Intentionally as I'm the main caretaker. Please do not glorify this.

[Anonymous]

So he’s in shape, employed and relaxed…

…what exactly do you bring to the table?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a YOU problem. I get that moving to full time telework was a challenge. It took me a while to find balance and space. Yet, it didn't affect my attraction to my DH. If you need distance to maintain your attraction to your partner, there's something wrong with you.

So judgy

Like OP is.

“There’s something wrong with you” is judgy. You’re defensive because something she’s saying hits too close to home for you.

Sorry to disappoint but no. I’m not controlling of my spouse. Sounds like it hit home to you though or you wouldn’t have commented on what PP wrote.

I guess it does hit home, in the sense that I don’t think it’s ever okay to say “There’s something wrong with you” or “This is a YOU problem.” It seems very arrogant and prescriptive. I guess it’s just your approach. Not my kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

And people wonder why younger women are more desired…

…don’t you remember in college or early twenties when you wanted to be with your f buddy/bf 24/7 and do it multiple times during the day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is something that I had to deal with in 2020. You shouldn't have let it fester into 2023.

Yes, the adjustment wasn't easy, but you have to find ways of coping effectively. I set clear boundaries for water cooler conversations. I started eating some lunches alone, instead of always making sure we're eating together. I make lunch plans with friends.

The key in all of this is, you can change your own behavior, but you cannot change your DH's (short of asking for very specific easily done items).

There is so much you can do, instead of wasting time on resentment. Buy him the "pajama" outfits you think might look better/be more acceptable to you. Set lunch dates. Find ways of motivating him.

In 2020, we started going for morning runs together. We don't anymore, but for a while this was a pleasant mutually beneficial activity.

You contradict yourself. She can’t change her husband’s behavior, but she is expected to “motivate” him?

You’re right that she can’t and shouldn’t try to change or control his behavior. She can only control her own behavior.

But it’s wrong to say she should “find ways to motivate him.” He’s a grownup. He needs to motivate his own damn self.

I may not have been clear, but it's not a contradiction. You can control your own behaviors, but people will react to your behaviors, depending on what you do. So whereas you cannot tell people what to do, by changing your own behavior, you can sometimes trigger changes in others. She is not expected to motivate him, but some of her actions may cause him to act. That's natural. What she's been doing up to this point is not working at all.