This is a bit long so bear with me. My husband (35m) and I (34f) have been together for 14 years, married for 5. (Today’s our anniversary!)

He has always loved his personal desk space. He is a skilled craftsman and woodworker in his free time and built this custom desk 6 years ago (we were living in a different place and also didn’t have kids yet) and it’s his safe space. He loves gaming, uses it for work sometimes, and you can see he is also a huge hockey fan and adores his hats and sports memorabilia. He cares very much so that it stays clean and organized. However, we now have two small children, (3yo boy and 15mo girl) and it’s a constant battle every day trying to keep them off it. There are lots of tempting things for my son especially to want to play with. He is constantly climbing up there, using the drawers on the left hand side to get up, spinning in daddy’s expensive chair, sneaking things even though we’ve told him over and over he’s not allowed to touch daddy’s stuff. It’s only a matter of time before our daughter will be able to climb up there, too.

Also, the top of his desk has had become sort of a catch-all junk drawer because if you have kids you know that they get into everything, and sometimes as a short term solution I need to put something up high where they can’t get it. He’s complained about me doing that in the past because he thinks it’s disrespectful to his space. Mind you, we live in a small 2 bedroom apartment and this giant desk of his is in the LIVING ROOM. There is no way to limit the kids access or put a gate up around it.

So yesterday I reached a breaking point. I was having a very stressful day in general and after telling my son for 15th time that day to get off the desk, and I texted my husband at work and went off on him. I admitted and apologized later for being aggressive in the moment and losing my temper, but I said some threatening things like “I’m moving everything off your desk” and  “I’m not going to keep telling our son no and just let him get to your things, maybe then you’ll take me seriously etc” which I admitted later to being rude and making him feel panicked like he was going to come home to all of his stuff rearranged. But we have had many talks about this in the past, and he’s aware it’s a constant point of contention and stress for me.

Even though I was tempted, I did not  move everything off the desk, but I DID take all the items (very few objects) off of the 3 little shelves on the left, put them in a box in our bedroom (which has a lock)  moved maybe 6 hats farther to the right so there were less tempting things for my son to grab. Less of an incentive for him to get up there, as everything at that point was out of reach and the rest of the day I wouldn’t have to worry as much about it. Because like I said, this is a constant battle I face every day while I’m home with the kids, and my son isn’t doing anything “wrong”, he’s just a toddler who wants to play with the shiny cool stuff he’s not supposed to.

He came home from work and we hugged, he said let’s figure out a way to make this work, apologized for the stress it has caused me, etc and I walked out the door to go to my job. Got home at 10pm and we went to bed and didn’t talk about it. This morning I wake up and notice everything I took off the desk/moved, was  BACK on the shelves and his hats were back where our son could reach them.

I was livid. I texted him again asking why would he move them back? Moving them is a temporary solution until we figure out what we’re going to do. I felt like it was a reasonable compromise and to see that he put everything back made me feel like my needs and feelings aren’t being taken seriously or validated, and he’d rather his desk look exactly how he wants it, even when he’s at work all day and I’m the one who’s responsible for making sure it stays perfect. His response was basically “I said we’d work together to come up with a solution, I figured you could at least go one or two more days until I have the time this weekend to figure it out”. I rolled my eyes a bit because no, I did not freak out at you yesterday and get into a big fight because I felt I had another day in me. I clearly reached a tipping point and took reasonable action for the time being. He feels as though I was impatient for moving his stuff, and put it back because he wants it there. I’m pissed now that he just had to move everything back and now we’re fighting today because of it…and today is our anniversary! We’re supposed to be going out to dinner later and I feel less than warm and fuzzy towards him after he did something I feel like was invalidating and unhelpful.

He came home from work today at lunch to talk about it, and said he put everything back because he was looking for something and needed to get it re-set so he could feel organized. I get that. (He’s got severe ADHD and OCD tendencies, so I understand the need for order) but I was just taken aback that he’s not understanding I’ve reached a breaking point and I wouldn’t have touched his stuff if I didn’t absolutely feel it was necessary for me to maintain just a tad more sanity as I go about my day with the kids. Like I said before, we’ve talked about this issue MANY times in the past. I did not snap randomly.

My best suggestion we talked about at lunch today would be to move the desk into our bedroom which has a lock and the kids rarely go in there. That would require completing re-arranging the room, taking the bed off the frame and onto the floor, and finding creative storage solutions for all the stuff that lives underneath the bed, moving my daughters crib into my sons room which would a whole disruptive process for their bedtime, etc. I love our bedroom and I consider it MY sacred space. I am willing to throw that out the window and re-do the room if it means his desk would stop being my kids jungle gym, and my husband can have peace of mind knowing it’s not getting disturbed at all. This I feel like is the best solution, but it’s a huge process and he seems not interested.

I offered him another solution which is that for now, until we have a bigger place with a third room that he can do whatever he wants with, he just has to accept the fact that his desk no longer belongs JUST to him if he wants to keep it in the livingroom. It’s a common space and anything he doesn’t want the kids to touch needs to be moved elsewhere because I’m tired of managing it so much every day. He can move his hats and find a new way to display them in our room. He said absolutly not, he’s not willing to move his hats. He built the desk for the main purpose of displaying his hats in those perfectly spaced shelves.

I feel helpless at this point because it doesn’t seem like he’s willing to compromise. It seems as though he just wants me to suck it up and keep not only making sure our son stays off of it, but making sure it stays perfectly organized and aesthetic the way HE wants.  I think this is selfish. I do not think it’s fair to ask that of me when I already have enough stuff going on being a mom and all, and working myself at nights. I absolutely understand and respect his need for a safe and functional space that he takes pride in. I love his desk too and I don’t mind the hockey theme or trinkets everywhere. If we had a third bedroom this would be a non issue.

But his desk takes up a third of the livingroom and I feel exasperated trying to honor his privacy and respect his belongings, while at the same time mothering two small children with their sticky hands and Cherio crumbs, blueberry stains, crayons they sneak around with to vandalize things… and everything that goes along with toddlers. We have kids now and I think it’s only fair the desk either becomes a part of family family furniture, or it goes away behind closed doors. These are the kinds of things you sacrifice when you have kids. Heck, I don’t have any kind of space like this for my OWN personal use, I haven’t even gone to the bathroom without company in 3 years!! He has no right to be upset if he comes home and his things have been shuffled through, and the kids have taken a crayon to his desk. It’s in the livingroom. What did you expect?

(And please, if you’ve gotten this far and are about to comment something silly like “you just need to watch your kids better” just don’t. I am a very attentive and present parent and I enjoy spending time with my kids so much. But things happen and maybe your kids are perfect and you are the perfect parent and I love that for you, but my kids are sneaky, smart and creative and sometimes I need to leave the room to idk, make them lunch? Go pee? Do my makeup? Grab the laundry? Vacuum their bedroom? It only takes a split second for kids to be naughty. They have plenty of toys and our house is very baby proofed otherwise)

Anyway….

I don’t really know what to do. Should I stop telling my son no and let him get into his daddy’s stuff? Should I just move all his stuff into a box and risk the fight? How do I get my husband to understand where I’m coming from, and that I’m really not some monster of a wife asking for anything crazy. I WANT to respect his personal space but I feel as though it is impossible while managing our two kids in this tiny apartment while also keeping my sanity

AIO To my husband’s need to keep his personal desk space in the livingroom, and expect me to make sure it stays untouched?