DH to pay off mortgage then stop house bill contributions

I would have written exactly the same to a woman.

He has children. You don't get time off from being a father.

He is burnt out by his job, which is shifts and stressful. He would find a 9-5 job shelf stacking peaceful and restorative in contrast. He doesn't need to stop work altogether to recover from the previous job. If he is so ill he can't do this, then he needs to see a doctor to obtain medical help to enable him to do so. I don't think this is the case or he would have gone for retirement on the grounds of ill health, which would have got him a payout and a bigger pension.

He has always been unreasonable in his expectation of how much of the household and child duties he expects his wife to carry. She has been foolish to allow it. It is double double unreasonable to expect to have no job, reduce the family's income so they can no longer have a holiday and require his wife to pay for additional child care.

I'd love to hear your explanation of how he's preparing his family for his recovery period. The mortgage was paid off without her consent using money which was half hers. Her future retirement income both with him and as a widow have been reduced, without her consent. Her and her family's standard of living has been reduced overnight. Prepared? For a future divorce, maybe. I suspect that's actually what he's future planning here.

He isn’t in a good position to retire early. He has dependent children. If he takes his lump sum now he will significantly diminish his retirement income. His wife has poor provision herself. He will probably not find it easy to find a job in his mid fifties after a year off, even if he wants to. It’s not been properly thought through by the sound of it, and he isn’t working as a team to develop a sensible retirement plan which benefits the family unit.

My response would be exactly the same if it were a woman. If you have to shift the financial load onto someone else to achieve what you want, then you can’t afford to do it. Simply paying off the mortgage, which represented 50% of the outgoings doesn’t reduce the overall financial commitment because you’ve also lost 50% of the income.

it’s understandable that he would want to take early retirement due to the stress of hiss job, but also entirely unacceptable that the result will be to shift all of the financial responsibility onto his partner, who has contributed 50/50 up to this point. There’s nothing stopping him from securing alternative employment before he takes the retirement package so that he can contribute equally to their joint reduced outgoings.

He will know there’s food in the fridge and petrol in the tank because it will be OP putting it there for all of them. If he’s forcing her into taking on that responsibility alone and indefinitely, then very soon his own mental health won’t be the only thing he has to worry about.

@Luannaa I also would now vote YANBU. **

@Luannaa

I’m sorry to say, but I think the ‘wannabe cocklodger’ is potentially an accurate phrase!!

Be careful!!

Also this.

So many responders are bashing this man while giving opinions on surface level details.

Has anyone, including the OP, thought that this man might have some psychologic issues or trauma that's causing him to recede?

Seriously, if this was a wife and mother doing this, how would you respond? I guarantee you'll be telling her husband to be compassionate and have her seek mental health advice.

Men deserve better and it looks like this forum won't be the source of that.

The hours may reduce but the bills don’t. The £950 they are saving by paying the mortgage off is meaningless because there is now only one wage - OP’s. The plain fact is that he simply can’t afford to do it.

@Luannaa

This.

The arrangement needs to adjust with this retirement. And the fact that this is not what he is thinking at least a bit is concerning, especially as they’re still quite young.

Massive opportunity for resentment to breed otherwise. I’m sure you also work hard, and carry more of the load by the sounds of it too.

He needs to step up as a dad and get involved, learn how to manage what he struggles with. Just sheer avoidance of doing it should not be an option anymore.

Take leave if you’re having family holiday time, sure, but not if he’s buggering off for his hobbies, but also take some ‘you’ time off too.

Does he need trauma therapy? Then maybe some, ‘right, what now?’ life coaching?

My concern is he’ll fall into a depression when the novelty of retirement has worn off, typically about 3months in, so watch out for that. How long will he hold the ‘but I paid off the mortgage off’ card over you?

God luck!!

I was thinking the same.

Do you honestly believe you'd give the same response if it was a woman who had a job like his? That you wouldn't believe the woman had thought this through and could believe that she was justified.

Honestly, I have no time for people who dismiss what men go through as trivial. If he knows their is food in the fridge and petrol in the tank and he needs time off, the world needs to listen. That man is going through something and he's preparing his family for his recovery period.

You know, for an overly feminised "feels are facts" world that the 4th wave has created, society still can't gather enough compassion to see men's mental health as a real concern.

Agree. It didn’t dawn on me until l’d read the whole post that the poster is a man. Very brave (or stupid) of him to come on to a womens’ forum and essentially turn the whole issue around so that OP is the selfish arse and not her DH, who has basically planned a retirement he can’t afford and which will put their finances on a knife edge.

Nope. This is pure fantasy, and if you don’t mind me saying so, the assertion that he damaged body and soul for his family is romanticised bollox. His line of work was his choice. He did what every other responsible husband and father does, he worked to support his family, as has OP, and up to this point it’s been 50/50.

The reality is that he wants to take early retirement, pay off the mortgage and leave himself with no means of meaningful contribution towards ongoing household and children's expenses. He’s expecting OP to take on responsibility for the entire financial load until he decides he’s ready to go back to work, by which time he’ll be late fifties and out of work for a year - significantly disadvantaged when it comes to finding another job.

There is no foresight involved here and no planning for adverse events. It’s a unilateral decision which will only benefit him - the only thing that changes for OP is that she is now solely responsible for ensuring that they can continue to live in the house that’s now paid for. If he has to shift the whole future financial load onto someone else, then he can’t afford what he’s planning. The only feasible option is that he secures ongoing employment before he takes the early retirement package, so that he can continue to contribute towards their now reduced outgoings..

I think as a man, you’ve got a bit of a nerve coming onto a womens’ forum and trying to repackage this as DH sacrificing himself for his family and OP being selfish and intransigent if she doesn’t comply with what he wants.

You missed the bit where she works full time and he refuses to do any care for his own children or help with running the household.

There are plenty of men in his position who manage those things.

He didn't damage his mind and soul for her he damaged them for us, society.

He could have changed jobs any time he chose. Again, there are plenty of men who have middle career crises and manage things better than to make unilateral decisions that will disadvantage their young family now and their wife now and for the rest of her life.

Did you not read all of op's posts?
At first, the one year of down time did sound perfectly reasonable. But there is concern that he just won't go back to work at all, when they still have primary aged children to pay for, it's not just the two of them. He also doesn't do any school runs or the 'day to day' stuff related to the children and that won't change. He intends to just do his own thing, whilst op continues to do all the child related stuff and work full time. Theres no such thing as 'peace' from parenting young kids.

Your man damaged his mind and soul for you and your family. And still he had the foresight to pay off your home early, saving you thousands in interest. Your man, your husband, your partner wants time off to make some attempt of washing away the wretchedness of his previous life, which he stayed in for all of you.

The very least you can do is truly think of him and give him this time to come down and unwind. Believe me, he might not show it, but if he's asking for this time off, he absolutely needs it. Men communicate in different ways. When it comes to our internal struggles, it's often a more subtle form of acknowledgement.

Give your man the peace he deserves, and frankly, has paid for.

This just screams of… ‘i’ve done my bit now I’m out’. Mortgages can be paid off, bills, food etc can’t. A marriage is team work. Maybe if he has a plan, in 12 months time to return to work so he can contribute to the bills then that’s ok, but I think a conversation needs to be had about it.

Bet this DH is in the police. He's got a 19th century view of being the man of the house and now he wants to forget he's got kids and be a 15 yr old and just lie in and have fun all day long. He also sounds a teensy bit on the dim side re money and retirement planning, unless all males in his family have dropped dead before they're 60.

In a similar situation to you, DH a few years older, retired from a very stressful position with a decent small pension. He used his lump sum to pay off our mortgage.
This gave me the freedom to leave my equally horrible stressful job and start a new career in something less lucrative but much more stress free.
If you hate your job it may be worth having a discussion about you doing the same. You are still relatively young and shouldn’t spend your life being miserable.
As other people have said, he also needs to take on more household work, this is a non negotiable.

To be fair, the OP doesn’t appear to know that this is her issue either as this wasn’t the crux of the initial post.

…. ahem … NO! You are not being unreasonable. Firstly, I doubt if DH’s redundancy package has been entirely swallowed up by clearing the mortgage. I would therefore expect a continuation of contributions to household running costs. Perhaps slightly reduced in recognition of his ‘generosity’. Secondly, if you are to proceed on the basis DH suggests, then it should only be accompanied by your counter suggestion that henceforth, whilst you’re at work, DH undertakes a substantially increased proportion of the unpaid tasks which you routinely perform… e.g. shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry ….. and on, and on …. Your hard working, stressed out hubby has been expending all his time and energy on external people and situations. It’s high time he started to give YOU a bit more consideration now that he has time on his hands ! As my dear Mum used to say “Live horse - and you’ll eat corn”. Don’t get saddled with that.

It may be very relevant to DH's position. OP said he has a very demanding job, so did mine. He would have retired at 55 because of the nature of his job, but the fool is still there and he's 63 now - all because he doesn't want to share his pension. He doesn't need to work.

Many people took on stressful jobs specifically because they could retire at 55 so he's not doing anything out of the ordinary. People think everyone has to work until they're 67, they don't.

with the mortgage paid off cant you reduce your hours / contract? Look at Rewire retirement. Get him to look at it too. I can understand him wanting a year off to recharge. But you should also be looking at phasing work down. Hopefully after a year he will want to do something even if PT. You should be planning your own Rewire retirement. You could start this with knocking down your contracted hours after a year of supporting the bills etc on the house.

OP, you def need to get some financial advice. What are you going to live on in the future etc etc. agree with PP that this is better coming from someone else not you.
Also, wtf with school runs?? Cunting behaviour there! He works professionally and can't be nice to his own children? What a dick. Of course he's doing all of the childcare, cleaning, housework while he's off. It's not early retirement, it's a career break, cos he needs to get back to it after a year so as not to be living in poverty in future.
I say this as someone of similar age as you, with dh same age as yours, he does all the childcare and housework. He is a sahp/house husband. End of.
He's not paying off the mortgage "with his money" btw, you are a family and it is all family funds! If he bought a yacht with his payout there would be uproar on Mumsnet with you and the children going hungry.

It's like you didn't even read that post of hers that you quoted, before typing your reply.

He refuses to do school runs. How hard is this to understand? You can't force another adult to do anything just by willing it to happen.

What will he do if DC aren't got up and taken to school by OP? Fume at OP, grump at everyone, yell at DC. Neglect them instead of parenting them. Stay in bed while they try to get their own breakfast. Not take them to school.

What will OP end up doing? Same as now, she's not a neglectful parent so she'll end up getting up early, getting them ready for school and taking them before she goes to work, because he's left her with no other options.

For the same reason she'll end up paying for childcare or taking annual leave if they're off school, just like she has to now regardless of what he's doing.

It's coercive control. He's an abusive husband.