shocked by difference between work husband and home husband Post Reply

[belinda158]

Along with many others my husband has been working from home through lockdown but due to some building work his work space is temporarily part of our living room. 

This means that I can hear him when he is in meetings, on calls etc. and I hate to say that I think he is pretty horrible in terms of how he treats people/talks to them.

I've asked him if this is how he "normally" is and he laughed and said yes and it's just the way he works. 

I have pushed it a bit but he really sees nothing wrong.

I have to say I don't really like him when he's like that and I'm finding it hard to separate "work husband" from "home husband" and it is starting to cause me to dislike him. If anyone reading this has experienced similar I would be love to know how you cope.

[chorister]

May be encourage him to go back to the office?

[Just me]

No advice, but as someone who was treated terribly by lots of the ‘family’ men at my old job, I always wondered if their wives knew just how awful they could be. I think I once said to one of them…’you know I am somebody’s wife…. How would you like someone talking to your wife the way you talk to me?’
Maybe that’s a good tact? You could always say… would you enjoy hearing a man berate me like you just did that employee?

[TomThomas]

Not quite the same but yes, can often hear my husband speaking in a tone I wouldn't; also, I do training sessions in my job and when he occasionally does training sessions in his I really dislike how he runs them (overly self-deprecating!) My advice is, politely, to stay out of it; the pandemic has resulted in this crazy situation and everyone is doing their best to cope. If he's in your living space try to find another part of the house where you can't hear him - or go out as frequently as possible. And yes encourage him back to the office as the previous poster said! Good luck!

[Mum2Girlz]

Likewise no advice, but you’re not alone in feeling the strain from husbands working from home. Their persona at work is necessarily different from who they are at home, or really are. Rightly or wrongly, in certain professions you have to be ruthless or seemingly so to get the job done. I don’t agree with it, and it’s one of the reasons I didn’t go back to work after having children, but without knowing more about what he does for a living and who he’s dealing with, it’s hard for us to comment. Hopefully he will go back to work soon and you can love the home husband again. At least he IS different!!

[Needcoffeenow]

I agree with Just Me. All my worst treatment as an employee (and even, subsequently, a board director) was at the hands of ‘family men’. And I’m not sure how easy it is to just ignore behaviour like this if you are married to the guy. Yes, covid has brought all this to light. But I would have thought it was worth at least having a conversation about it as it is clearly preying on your mind. If you don’t, you are going to worry his work aggression will spill into family life or start seeing every disagreement as evidence that it already is. Maybe that is the tack to take when you start the conversation?

[johnnythunders]

My wife helps people like your husband - please email me at simon@ofplus.com if you would like me to connect you

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[betterannabel]

Along with many others my husband has been working from home through lockdown but due to some building work his work space is temporarily part of our living room. 

This means that I can hear him when he is in meetings, on calls etc. and I hate to say that I think he is pretty horrible in terms of how he treats people/talks to them.

I've asked him if this is how he "normally" is and he laughed and said yes and it's just the way he works. 

I have pushed it a bit but he really sees nothing wrong.

I have to say I don't really like him when he's like that and I'm finding it hard to separate "work husband" from "home husband" and it is starting to cause me to dislike him. If anyone reading this has experienced similar I would be love to know how you cope.

Hun, I think we all need you to be a bit more specific. What does he do for a living? And what does he actually do to his colleagues? 

"Pretty horrible" could mean anything. Maybe he said someone's child was fat (been there) or maybe he's just not saying good morning at the start of a meeting.