Working with a coworker at home, especially when that coworker is my husband, takes more patience than I thought it would.
I'm used to working from home. But I'm also used to being able to leave and go work at a coffee shop if I need a change of scenery. I'm also used to being able to work from any room in the house, and having it be quiet and peaceful. I'm also used to being able to go to the bathroom whenever I want or need to.
No longer.
Now I have a shared home workspace. And I'm mostly just very happy to have some company and know that my husband is home and safe. And I'm also a little quick to anger and stress about things that would seem to be his fault.
Like:
He's still not doing any of the chores
He's hogging the bathroom
He's playing his music too loud
He's interrupting my flow
Sometimes the people we love most can get on our nerves the fastest.
These aren't really his fault, though. I mean, yes they are things he seems to be doing, but they aren't things we've talked about.
Here’s an example. For me, working from home at my station at the kitchen table means I am super aware of messes in the kitchen that need to be cleaned up. I am frustrated that he is not volunteering to help or doing it all on his own. He has no idea this is even a problem. Most of the things i get super frustrated with my work-from-home coworker about are things he has absolutely no idea might bother me. Why? Because he's not a mind reader, and we both experience the world differently.
I look at a sink piled with dishes and immediately think "great. More work for me to do". He looks at the same sink and thinks "no problem! I'll tackle that later"
So here's the trick: Unless I tell him, and explain to him, how *I* experience the sink full of dishes, he will never understand my stress about it. It's on me to communicate that.
Asking him to turn his music down might work for a bit. Later I will hear it again. He doesn't know my experience with this music. Instead, I need to explain to him why it's important to me that the house be quiet (because I record video, because I'm crazy attuned to music and it distracts me really easily, because the mood he needs to be in is not the same mood I need to be in, etc.) But I cannot expect him to magically understand this on his own.
It's on my husband to respect and acknowledge my needs, for sure. But it's on ME to make sure he knows what those needs are.
And as a bonus, telling people what you need empowers them to do the same back at you!
When we're in close quarters with our family, it's easy to become reactive, hurt, frustrated. Try practicing sharing what you need in a kind way, and trusting your partner, children, and anyone else you are sharing your space with to understand and support you!