Daily Mail - 12.08.2019

Page 34 Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019

Working from

home is ruining

our marriage

O IF YOU have a question

you’d like Steph and

Dom to tackle, write to:

stephanddom@

dailymail.co.uk

TV’s sTeph and Dom parker,

51 and 54, draw on their

20 years of marriage to solve

your relationship problems...

Organise a lunch date in the kitchen

Get your own space, it’s not his fault!

Solve your

sex, love &

life troubles

STEPH

& DOM Q^

AT 47, I recently became

freelance. It is something I

wanted to do as I had a long

commute before. The problem

is my husband has run his own

business from a home office

for years.

I planned to work in the

kitchen, but he’s always coming

in to make cups of tea and

chat when I’m trying to work.

It drives me mad! Then, at

DOM SAYS:

Well I must say, congratula-

tions on being a busy enough

freelancer that your husband is

annoying you by trying to talk to

you! It can be very hard when

you first detach from a company,

so take heart that things are

going so well.

Your situation is one that’s

becoming increasingly common

as more and more people work

for themselves.

The first thing to say is that

there’s a difference between

working together and working

separately, but in the same

space. The former, I know, can

be wonderful. The latter, I

imagine, is rather tricky.

You are side by side every day,

but both focused on different

things. And I can see how that

could start to grate a bit.

I do feel a bit sorry for your

husband — he’s simply excited

that now he has someone at

home to play with. And long

may his excitement last!

Do tread carefully here — it’s

easy to see how he could become

very hurt by your irritation.

So you need to act soon, to nip

this in the bud before it causes

real problems. I would imagine

you are now saving money on

your commute and not buying

lunch out every day.

Why not put that towards

renting a desk in a shared office

space nearby? If it’s too

expensive to do every day, then

perhaps on an ad-hoc basis.

If that’s not possible, could

you turn the dining room into

your office? Or a spare bed-

room? Anywhere that’s not

the kitchen.

I think it’s important that you

have your own office space. It’s

not really fair to be cross that

your husband has come into the

kitchen to make a coffee, even

less so that he dared to speak

while making it. What else is he

going to do? Kitchens are

communal spaces, the heart of

the home. It’s natural he’ll drift

in and out when he gets bored

or hungry.

Which brings me to the

washing up — you say that he

used to tidy up, but now leaves

a mess after breakfast.

How do you know he used to

tidy up after breakfast? My bet

is that the rats were merrily

dancing on the washing up till

ten to seven when, just before

you came home, he’d scramble

to tidy up.

It’s fine to expect him to clean

up, but you must also acknowl-

edge you are changing his

routine, too. And that can

be hard.

Don’t return to work — it’s

moving backwards, not forwards,

and you’ll resent him when you’re

back on that long commute.

But do get out of the kitchen

before tempers truly boil over.

lunch, he expects me to cook

for him. I think he is enjoying

the novelty of seeing me more,

but I feel he doesn’t appreciate

this is my working day, too.

He also keeps asking me to do

chores and leaves the kitchen in

a state after breakfast (he used

to tidy up before I came home).

We’ve had a couple of huge

rows. I don’t want to upset him,

but we need boundaries. I’m

contemplating going back to

my old job, but that makes me

think my marriage is in real

trouble. What should I do?

STEPH SAYS:

WHAT a huge shame. You are

living most people’s idea of the

perfect work-life balance, yet

you’re finding the reality very

far from what you longed for

— and taking it out on your

poor husband.

Try to view this as a work

problem, not a relationship one.

Imagine that this is taking

place in a corporate working

environment, and that you’re

being interrupted by a colleague,

not your husband — and think

how you’d tackle it then.

The conversation with the

offending colleague would be

more professional than personal

— you would no doubt use tact

and a certain amount of charm,

not barbed comments laced

with irritation!

If you can harness that train of

thought, you are well on your

way to managing this situation.

let’s face it, there are worse

problems to have when starting

out on your own.

loneliness is a very common

one, so be thankful to have your

husband at home with you.

That being said, you must

resolve this now — before it

escalates too much.

The first thing to do is to

explain to your husband how

you are struggling to bed-in to

your new working environment.

Then bring up the issue of

the blurring of lines between

working at home and being

available to him for household

chores, chats and general

domestic issues.

Next, try to establish your own

private working environment in

which you can isolate yourself

when you need to — perhaps

introduce a garden office or

claim the spare room. You

need your own space — just as

your husband does. lastly, I

would encourage you to involve

your husband.

Tell him about your clients,

calls, deadlines — that way

you are engaging his support,

and including him in your

working day, but not your

working environment.

Try to see this in a positive

light — you should be thrilled he

wants to spend time with you.

Working together can be so

much fun — Dom and I have a

fantastic time together.

It’s really rather sad that the

‘colleague’ you can’t stand at

work is your husband. And I feel

you should make an effort to

stop thinking like that.

Why not arrange to meet for

lunch every day — you can make

it into something to look forward

to. Go shopping at the weekend

and plan something good for

each day, then agree a time to

meet in the kitchen (where you

no longer work) to have a date.

Or just read the paper over a

sandwich. Together. That’s the

key. Find a room of your own.

Reclaim your independence.

Then enjoy every moment that

you do spend together.

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE asked another. I don’t have mice,

and all doors and windows were

shut. The single unpaired sock on

my laundry pile told me that I

hadn’t imagined seeing its other

half on the step.

Then there were the heart shapes

that were suddenly drawn on the

wall in my hallway. There were

four of them, about the size of

two-pence pieces.

By that stage I’d been in the house

almost six months, and I knew they

hadn’t been there when I’d moved

in. I had scrubbed the house from

top to bottom, dusting picture rails,

skirting boards and door frames. I

would have seen them.

everything I’d read about reloca-

tion depression suggested that it

started to lift after a few months,

but that wasn’t my experience.

I contacted an estate agent about

selling the house only to discover

that mortgage holders must be the

registered owner of a property for a

minimum of six months before they

can remarket it.

I felt trapped and overwhelmed

with despair. And then the

paintbrush incident occurred.

I had been living in the house for

eight months, I got home from

work went into the kitchen and saw

the paintbrush. I checked, and all

doors and windows were tightly

closed. I have no pets that could

have brought it in.

It wasn’t my paintbrush and it

had appeared when I was not at

home. Red paint — the colour of

blood, the colour of danger, made

the incident even more sinister.

The next morning I rang a lock-

smith. I had the locks changed on

the front door, the back door and

extra locks put on the downstairs

windows. I hadn’t changed locks

since moving in, and I had no idea

who had been given a set of keys

over the years.

There was a three-month hiatus

in activities, but just when I

thought I’d turned a corner, a new

wave of weirdness kicked in.

I’d wake up in the early hours

to the sound of someone knocking

on my front door, although

when I put my head

out of the bedroom

window to look, there was

nobody there.

Then puddles of water

started to appear all over

the house. I’d come home

to find them in strange

places like the TV unit and

the dressing table in the

spare bedroom. There was

no leak from the roof or

pipework, and I hadn’t put

any glasses of liquid on

the surfaces. I had given

up trying to explain

the unexplainable.

A friend suggested I got a priest

in to bless the house. ‘But I don’t

believe in God,’ was my reply. And,

besides, don’t you need to be speak-

ing in tongues and vomiting pea

soup before they get involved?

Instead, I looked online at house

healers because, by that stage, quite

frankly, anything was worth a shot.

Most of them were as I expected

— hippy-dippy with websites

depicting images of Victorian

ghosts. No thanks. I wanted to get

because I had friends and family

nearby, and had always adored it as

a child.

I loved the house on first viewing

and immediately put in an offer.

The previous owners had lived

there for more than 50 years and

told me several times how happy a

home it had been for them.

For me, it was a different story.

Within days of moving in I felt

crushingly low and anxious. I

couldn’t sleep at night and

constantly felt tearful and on edge.

I decided it was ‘relocation

depression’ a recognised condition

where the stresses of moving,

coupled with the unfamiliarity of a

new house and town, give you the

blues. I told myself that things

would get better — instead they

just got weirder.

I’d lived in the house for two

months when my possessions

started to go missing. It began with

a favourite pair of earrings.

I was cooking in the kitchen and

the heavy earrings were starting to

irritate my lobes, so I removed

them and placed them in a nearby

egg cup, making a mental note to

take them upstairs to my jewellery

box after I’d eaten.

When I went back for the earrings,

the egg cup was empty. I turned

the kitchen upside down and I

never found them.

T

He same thing happened

with a new fountain pen

I bought myself. I put it

in a pen holder on my

desk and never saw it again. A pair

of flip-flops I left beside my bed at

night weren’t there in the morning.

In the same way that I am not

‘woo woo’, I am also not scatty

or disorganised. I’m tidy and

methodical and people always

remark on my incredible memory.

How likely was it that since

moving house I had turned into

such a forgetful, chaotic person? As

well as losing things I

also experienced a run of

bad health. Normally, I’m

fit as a fiddle, but it

seemed to be one sore

throat, migraine and ear

infection after another.

I developed pains in my

hands that I was having

hospital treatment for,

and had built up a large

file of paperwork from

the various physiothera-

pists and specialists that

I’d seen. Another disap-

pearing incident came

when I was leaving to see

a hand surgeon and had

placed my hospital folder on the

table to take with me.

By the time my taxi arrived to

take me to my appointment, the

file had vanished.

Again, I turned the house upside

down — this time even rummaging

through the contents of my wheelie

bin, but to no avail.

Usually with mislaid items they

will resurface again at some point.

The things I lost never did. Not the

earrings, the flipflops, the pen, the

hospital file — or the sock.

Oh yes, the white sock. The

incident for which even my most

cynical of friends struggled to come

up with an answer.

I had collected a bundle of laundry

from my washing line and was

taking it upstairs. As I climbed the

stairs, a white sock fell from the

pile and landed on a step.

I decided to carry on climbing the

stairs, dump the laundry pile on

my bed and return for the sock.

When I went back 20 seconds later

it wasn’t there.

‘Maybe you’ve got a mouse that

took it away?’ suggested one of my

friends. ‘Could a gust have wind

have blown it out of the house?’

5 WAYS TO

1 DECLUTTER. Positive energy

needs to flow, and when it’s

restricted, it will stag-

nate and affect

the feel of

your home.

2 LET IN

THE FRESH

AIR. Open

your

23

per cent of

us think

there are

mysterious

goings-on in

our homes