The other day my husband decided to work from home. Which was all well and good until he kept interrupting me throughout the day, he wanted some information from me and he wanted it now!

He was very agitated and pacing around because he wanted me to gather stuff for the taxes. Multiple times I stopped what I was doing to give him what he wanted because I just wanted him to be quiet and leave me alone. He left for the office late in the day and I was feeling very stressed out and harried. I sat on my guest room bed and just breathed for a minute. Why was I feeling this way? I realized that I felt that way because I didn’t honor my time and what I had on my calendar. I kept pushing things aside because I felt I didn’t have a choice. Well, of course, I had a choice! I could have told him that I have other things on my calendar and that I will help him when I am done. This was definitely an opportunity to set a boundary and I didn’t see it at the time. However, I saw it later, and here are the boundaries I set: When we are both working from home I will close the door to my office when I am working. If you need something from me you are to knock on the door. If I say to come in, then you can come in. If I say “not now”, then I expect you to wait until I say you can come in. (if you do not, I will lock the door.)Just because I say “come in” doesn’t mean I am going to jump to what you are asking me to do. I will let you know when I will be able to do that for you. If you bother me about it…I will lock the door. (Are we sensing a theme here! LOL!)When I am done working, I will open my door and you are welcome to come in and chat with me. When you need things like this from me, please let me know ahead of time. This may seem rather harsh to some of you but think about it for a minute. Because I didn’t set these boundaries for myself I put my needs second, I was stressed out, I was not very nice to him…definitely snippy and short. All the while, he’s wondering why I am being so grouchy.

Now that I have these boundaries I will let him know what they are and I’m pretty sure he will be ok with them. But, if he’s not…that’s ok because the boundaries are for me. To protect myself and my wants and needs…which in the long run affects him because I’m not a cranky bitch (with him scratching his head, totally clueless as to why). It’s a win-win for both of us.