It’s nearly impossible to work happily at home without the support of your spouse, as a joint decision it will work better than making a sudden announcement that you’ve decided to work at home and you are setting up a home office and buying office furniture to kit the house out.

Be honest about how you feel about using the home as an office and try to encourage your spouse to be honest too. Discuss concerns openly. If you’re concerned that your spouse will never leave the home office chair, tell them. If you have further concerns that the children will get neglected, say so.

Good Steps You Can Take:

• Finalise the decision to work from a home office a joint one.
• Explain your reasons for wanting to work at home and make the initial outlay for office furniture.
• Discuss concerns openly.
• Take each concern discussed seriously and get the facts.
• Consider possible solutions and develop a plan to avoid potential problems.
• Test out your solutions.
  

Inevitable changes that could take place when you start working from home could strain your personal relationship. Don’t let the situation become painful. Initial stress can be a sign of better things to come. Be alert and responsive to the difficulties that arise whilst they are still manageable.

Make sure you and your spouse do not spend most of your daily hours sat at the office desk in the home office and not spending quality time with the family.

It is important that you have a strict timetable when working from home that means that your time is divvied up between working hours and family time in a healthy manner.  You need to make sure that you do not let the two different things merge into one another.