DH surprising me with possible (very) early retirement

Today I have sorted additional voluntary contributions and have told him that I think it’s a great idea that we both retire at the same time. Interestingly he started to mention the mortgage….

I can’t thank everyone who replied enough. I have a fresh perspective, additional voluntary contributions sorted and am now able to sit back and consider whether retirement with this person is still on my wishlist!

Best way to improve your pension - take half of his in a divorce...

why not divorce him to get half of his pension 😜🤣 just a thought…

Ok so I know this is his decision, but it will definitely affect us both. We are both early fifties and I am in the situation where due to taking time out of pension contributions and doing freelance work when the 3 DCs were young I know I’ll need to work to retirement age.
We go halves on bills, he is the bigger wage earner and I pay the mortgage whereas he does loads of other things. All ok. But now he has started saying that with the DCs all moved out and nearly independent he’ll be looking to take early retirement in the next few years. He’s been paying into his pension and doing all the sums. He says it will mean a sacrifice but it’s ‘doable’. It just means that we will have to do fewer things like takeaways and cut back a bit. Call me mad but I’m struggling to see the advantage to this. When I ask what he plans to do with his time he says ‘nothing,’ with a grin…
Then he says maybe travel more, but then I point out that I’ll still be working and that we’ll have less money, which doesn’t seem to work logically. I can see a few problems ahead, or am I just being selfish?

Ok so I know this is his decision, but it will definitely affect us both. We are both early fifties and I am in the situation where due to taking time out of pension contributions and doing freelance work when the 3 DCs were young I know I’ll need to work to retirement age.
We go halves on bills, he is the bigger wage earner and I pay the mortgage whereas he does loads of other things. All ok. But now he has started saying that with the DCs all moved out and nearly independent he’ll be looking to take early retirement in the next few years. He’s been paying into his pension and doing all the sums. He says it will mean a sacrifice but it’s ‘doable’. It just means that we will have to do fewer things like takeaways and cut back a bit. Call me mad but I’m struggling to see the advantage to this. When I ask what he plans to do with his time he says ‘nothing,’ with a grin…
Then he says maybe travel more, but then I point out that I’ll still be working and that we’ll have less money, which doesn’t seem to work logically. I can see a few problems ahead, or am I just being selfish?

This IS a joint decision - your pension was affected by taking time out to raise children, so you should both work until you can both retire. He is being selfish, not you.

No he didn’t mention paying it off with his lump sum, but said we’d need to look at how we might get mortgage free if I was going to try to retire as well! 🧐 Obvious backtrack much?

No he didn’t mention paying it off with his lump sum, but said we’d need to look at how we might get mortgage free if I was going to try to retire as well! 🧐 Obvious backtrack much?

Today I have sorted additional voluntary contributions and have told him that I think it’s a great idea that we both retire at the same time. Interestingly he started to mention the mortgage….

Complacency, that's our neighbour. He's in IT preventing hacks in gambling sites. His wife had four children, his idea. She and her mother cared for them because he's very important ya know.

Well we suspect he's got lazy, because now granny looks after the kids, mums out working, he's still working from home but finds time for long cycle rides in his lycra.

He's living the dream with two women doing all the grunt work.

Unless there is a massive dripfeed and the children are not the OP’s husband, then this post is exactly correct.

I dont get this growing trend for married couples with mutual children to maintain “separate finances”. It doesn’t work when your biggest expenses are necessarily child-related. What happens is women end up being essentially financially abused by having to fund their maternity leave out of their own savings. And childcare costs being treated as wholly the mother’s cost to fund out of her salary. Or, as here, the mother sacrificing earnings to raise the children and then having to scrabble around to make up deficits in her pension fund.

It’s like married women have to be as financially independent as single mothers - all the while cooking their husband’s tea and washing his socks (and allowing him to be a father with zero lifestyle impact) . And, as so many pp have pointed out, legally your finances are joint. She would likely be entitled to 50% of his pension if she left him so why is the husband trying to peddle this fallacy whilst theyre married? I do think it verges on financial abuse.