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Comment by intricatedetail | Hacker News Reader

Worst thing is that my partner thinks sitting by a computer is not work and she feels entitled to interrupt any time she pleases. I didn't know that side when I worked in office. The first few months were difficult and she only came to terms with that when I started packing my things and said I will be moving out. I learned that this is probably wrong relationship but it is hard to throw away those years, but I can't live with someone who doesn't respect what I do. I am not sure how I missed this? How do you set those boundaries in a healthy way?

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I can help with this a bit, we suffered this really badly when COVID started which was exacerbated by our first child only being 9 months old or so at the time.

Aside from the obvious (wear headphones, keep work area away from common areas) something else we did was set a boundary limit. If I was in the bedroom, that was now the “office” and was to be treated as such. This one is more personal but I tended to get too annoyed at the interruptions at first without realizing that I needed to make more effort to help and not be (to put it bluntly) a dick about it. My girlfriend started getting in the habit of tidying up or doing crafts during her downtime instead of coming to me after we discussed the huge amount of distraction it caused.

Ultimately though the living situation is what made it hard. We were in San Diego, in a cramped two bedroom apartment that had no privacy. We moved and bought a house where I now have a large upstairs loft area as my office. That is absolutely not the answer to everything but I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations.

My advice sucks but if you have any specifics I can try to help out and answer more. It’s hard but hang in there if you feel it’s just a rough spot.

"I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations."

This is definately a significant factor, many of us literally dont have a door to lock

We down sized 4 months before the pandemic kicked in and I started working from a coworking space. Not great timing but we make it work. I get up early for 4 hours work before wife and kids get up and then later in the day my wife takes the kids out and I get another stint in.

Turn it around and clearly establish and promise the time that belongs away from work, so the message is not just "get away from me" which makes anxiety and behaviours seeking reassurance that exacerbates the problem.

It's "our time starts at 5pm, dinner, and the rest of the evening".

Lunchtime walks together works for me too.

If you can’t have a conversation about this with your partner, your relationship has bigger issues.

For real, how hard is it to say "I am working, talk to you at lunch"?

OP already explained that the partner does not see sitting at a computer as working. They have different underlying assumptions which need to be addressed. That can be hard but not worth throwing away a relationship unless one person won't work towards resolving it.

Or, rather than hinging your relationship on the current extraordinary pandemic situation, just leave it unresolved and avoid working from home as much as possible. Presumably it will get easy to avoid again.

HN is not /r/relationships so I don't want to discuss healthy relationships too much, but their partner not seeing sitting at a computer as working does not mean that reminding them that it is in fact working won't change their behavior.

If anything I empathize with OP because I had the exact same issue with my partner where she'd come to show me tiktoks while I was working but when I said I did not want to be disturbed she stopped. Sure she teased me about being too serious but I just don't see how a healthy relationship could have something like this escalate...

I don't know what /r/relationships. I am glad you and your partner resolved your issues. Do you think the same solution will work for every similar problem?

1 put a lock on your door, refuse to open it

2 a light outside the door or a sock on the door let’s people know you cannot be disturbed

3 don’t forget to open the door when you can legitimately be disturbed

4 calmly and clearly state that you are at work while door is locked/light is on/sock is on the door. Compare to partner being at work/school and you being unable to barge in

5 meditate because this won’t be resolved over night

Like you it took threatening to leave (renting an office space and working from there. She was not fond of throwing out $1200/mo) for my wife to take it seriously. I have been working remotely for almost a decade now but over the last 3 years my wife stopped taking it seriously. The pandemic seems to have driven the fact home (esp when our little one would disturb her while she was working)

You must realize working remotely is not common and with any new lifestyle change there will be adaption periods. Some people longer than others. The ultimatum usually gets their attention but not always the way you would like (my wife refuses to enter the office now, which is also not what I want but baby steps)

I can relate. What worked for me was getting noise cancelling headphones and working inside a room with a door. It took some “training” (aka listening to loud music on noise cancelling headphones if she tried to interrupt) but she no longer interrupts me during work hours except on rare occasions when it actually is important. She will usually IM me too, instead of talking through the door.

In other words, respect your own boundaries first. That goes a long way towards helping other people recognize the same boundaries.

Are you able to discuss this with your significant other?

You may want to come to an agreement on questions like:

- What is work time? How will my partner know?

- Are there any scheduled breaks?

- Are there any moments during work time when it is ok to come disturb?

- What is an acceptable urgent reason to disturb work time?

- ...

... says the person who is still disorganised about this after an entire year of covid-19.

It sounds like you dodged a bullet there. Good on you for standing up for yourself and getting rid of this in your life.

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