Carolyn Hax: Out-of-work husband wants you to goof off with him while you’re working - The Washington Post

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Dear Carolyn: I work from home part-time and also I’m a writer working on my third novel. My husband works at a historical site that is currently closed, and he’s home, climbing the walls. He wants me to spend more time with him but my job still has to get done, and my next novel is the third in a series and due this fall. To keep my readers engaged, I can’t afford to miss that deadline.

In other words, I don’t have time to play around. My husband is acting like my refusal to goof off with him means I don’t love or care about him. I feel for him, I know he’s an extrovert, and this is hard on him. He’s also right that the pressure for my novel is mainly internal — my small indie publisher will not drop me over a missed deadline — but it’s very important to me. What can I do as a compromise?

— Up a Wall

Up a Wall: First thing to try, always, when wrestling a shapeless blob of time and competing demands on it into something remotely productive: artificial scheduling. You start work at x a.m. and quit at z p.m. with a play break at y for an hour. If he leaves you alone until z p.m., then you will be available after that for any off-goofing needs.

This might seem ill-suited or even counterproductive for creative work, and styles certainly vary, but doing this can eliminate the stress of constantly trying to enforce your boundaries around your work, which in turn can free you to be more creative within the hard limits you've set for yourself.

Another compromise, if you can do this and still be productive, is to shift your hours so you're getting work done while he sleeps.

If these aren't effective or practical, then you might have to find the most compassionate and respectful way to ask him to grow the erf up. I am 100 percent sympathetic to those at loose ends at the hands of weird external disruptions, but, “I have to work right now,” is the kind of thing an adult hopes never to have to say twice to a fellow adult.

Re: Up the Wall: When my husband retired while I was still working, we had six months of off and on tense times. Finally, after a stupid argument, he yelled, “I’m waiting for you to jump in!” I asked him what I was supposed to “jump in” to? Well, he didn’t even know. It finally led to a discussion about how our roles were reversed and that his current feelings reflected mine for so many years. Work doesn’t allow us to “jump in” to someone else’s newly freed up time easily. Just talking about it helped almost 100 percent.

— Still Working

Still Working: Not to be pedantic … who am I kidding, that’s exactly what I’m after: Just listening about it is most likely what did the trick. But yea to the rest, thank you.

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June 26, 2021 at 11:01AM
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Carolyn Hax: Out-of-work husband wants you to goof off with him while you’re working - The Washington Post
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