Working from home is a wonderful thing for many people, but the home office creates a conundrum.
Redditor throwawayroomprob recently got into a fight with his wife around giving up his home office to become her craft room.
He turned to subReddit “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA).
He asked,
“AITA for not giving up my office to be my wife’s craft room?”
He went on to explain.
“I recently brought this issue up with a few friends of mine, and after disagreeing on whether I was in the wrong suggested I post here.”
“Some backstory: I [25-year-old Male] met my wife [26-year-old Female] six years ago during college. We got married after dating for two years because of visa issues on her side.”
“Shortly after I inherited the house we live in now from my grandparents. Ever since then, we’ve lived here together.”
“I started a new job last year that allowed me to work from home most days. Soon after, I turned our main guest room into my office.”
“It’s just slightly smaller than our master but has no ensuite.”
“I admit I could have moved into one of the smaller rooms but was somewhat excited to have my own space complete with a three monitor desk setup, a comfy couch, and several shelves of figurines I’ve collected/painted.”
“As part of my job (coding), I often pace around the room for ideas, and looking at these shelves (that take up about half the room) gives me a lot of joy.”
“Recently, my wife, who is a very creative person and has dozens of crafty hobbies that she jumps in-between outgrew her craft room that we set up soon after moving here.”
“It’s about half the size of my current office. We also have both a large guest bedroom and another similar sized small room that we currently use mostly as storage.”
“I recommended she use the small room to set up a secondary desk and storage.”
“I figured this could be nice since she often has several projects going at once and would have to store one away for the other(s).”
“She however insists that a bigger room would be the only real choice.”
“Whilst at first I tried to dissuade her from using the guest room since there’s no way we can cram all the furniture in one of the small rooms and I’m also worried about our (regular) guests comfort I gave in.”
“She seemed very happy with the decision however yesterday insisted that I move my office into one of the smaller rooms and let her have my current room so that our guests wouldn’t have to sleep in a small space.”
“I disagreed vehemently since I spent 50 hours a week in my office and have spent countless hours decorating it in the exact way I wanted it.”
“I also actually use the extra space to be more effective and focused.”
“Obviously, now my wife is very angry with me and says the only thing that will calm her is if I give her the bigger room. I don’t think this is something I can budge on.”
“So Reddit, AITA?”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
-
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided:
“NTA. You work 50 hours a week in the room. Guests would sleep there infrequently, and I don’t know how many hours a week your wife would spend on her hobby.” – diminishingpatience
“NTA.”
“This is your workspace for your income.”
“She’s being unreasonable.” – proof-plum
“NTA You are talking about your workspace, where the income to support the two of you is generated.”
“‘and says the only thing that will calm her is if I give her the bigger room.’”
“That’s not a winning approach to a long-lived marriage, and it’s not surprising that you don’t think you can accept her attitude.”
“Her visa issues pushed you into marriage before you fully appreciated her character.”
“Perhaps you should go back and do some post-marital counseling to see if you are likely to be married in another five years.” – 5115E
“NTA: You work from home. You need to have an office you are comfortable working in.”
“It’s not logical to take that space away from you. Who uses it 5 days a week (or more) for guests who stay a week? Maybe two weeks a year?”
“Your wife has the craft room of her dreams. You have the office of your dreams. Be creative with the rooms you have for guests to make them as comfortable as possible.” – debdnow
“NTA”
“The need for a working space is more important than a hobby room” – CrystalQueen3000
“NTA. You are spending way more time in that room working than she would doing her hobbies. Also are these hobbies paying the bills like your job? I’d say work takes precedence.” – Squishoms
“NTA. You guys should sit and touch base here. She has her own space, and enough concessions have been made.”
“Maybe you can look at some organizers or some furniture for her to better organize her materials.” – vee_vintage
“NTA, your guests only sleep there. They don’t need a big room. Let them deal with it if they want a free place to stay.” – tasinca
“Guests don’t stay long, and they don’t need much space. You don’t want them to get too comfortable. They might not want to leave.”
“Your wife should be happy to take any of the other free rooms – besides the room, you already have an office in. NTA” – YouthNAsia63
“NTA. Since your work helps support the family, which is a need, your workspace gets priority.”
“Her hobbies are things she wants, not needs, and thus she needs to be the one to get off her hill and accept a compromise.”
“She’s also being extremely immature and honestly toxic by demanding you give in to her in order to calm her down.”
“If that’s a common attitude on her part, your marriage has some serious problems that need to be addressed.” – ProfPlumDidIt
“NTA Paid workspace ALWAYS trumps hobby space. She needs to grow up and get over being angry over a ridiculous demand. INFO does she work a full-time job to finance all of her crafting?” – celticmusebooks
“This is just a numbers game.”
“You use the space 50 hours a week”
“She uses the space 20 hours a week”
“Your guests use the space 24 hours a week (you said 3-5 times per month, so average 1/wk)”
“But talk TOGETHER and work as a team. It’s logical for you to have the largest space, as you use it the most (and to bring income to both of you).”
“The next largest space has equal reasoning to go to her or guests.”
“I’m definitely inclined to lean towards her since 1) she lives there and 2) is actively using it 20 hours per week (vs guests who aren’t always actively in the room).”
“Ultimately, it should be her decision whether to take two smaller rooms or the larger guest room for herself.”
“But you have very clear logic for using the office for yourself. I’d focus the conversation on how you want her to have first choice of the available rooms (your office is simply not available).” – SingleAlfredoFemale
“NTA. Work comes first then a hobby, and considering how much time you spend in there, the effort you put in it, the way you have adapted to work in it…”
“giving up on an ideal workspace to make space for someone’s hobby makes no sense.”
“Having two rooms dedicated to your hobby is already a luxury most people cannot afford. Someone who’ll stay mad cuz they feel that’s still not enough needs an ego check.” – This-Acadia-1174
“NTA.”
“First, your income will always be more important than hobbies. Period. No job, no house, utilities, groceries. Very simple.”
“Second, as someone who is part of a long line of creative hobbyists who just can’t stop learning skills and buying tools and zomg-supplies-are-on-sale-I-must-buy-enough-for-a-year, space is not the problem.”
“If you get a bigger space, it will just be filled, and you’re shortly back in the same problem.”
“Ideally, your wife needs two things. One is a workspace for the projects. A table, good lighting, ability to not be tripping over yourself as you move through the space, etc.”
“If she has multiple projects going at a time, she should be able to store them in progress in the workspace.”
“Otherwise, out of sight is out of mind, and you have a ton of UFOs taking up space: unfinished objects.”
“The second issue is storage. And this doesn’t need to be in the workspace, and it’s not always ideal to have them together.”
“Ideally, this is set up so that everything is safely stored and easy to access. This could be done in tubs in a basement rather than a dedicated craft room.”
“But this is where your wife has to be honest with herself and set limits. Once she’s maxed her storage out, that’s it.”
“She has to use materials to make room for new things. Otherwise, the storage will creep and creep and creep, squeezing out more and more space from the rest of the house and its occupants.” – Cryptographer_Alone
Hopefully, this couple can craft a solution together.