Dh has announced his retirement date and I feel irritated by it

Exactly this

Could your DH just retire from full time work?

Working a day or two per fortnight will keep him in the loop in case you lose your job.

Secondary school is when all the costs increase for school camps, extra tutoring. School fees etc.

Could your DH just retire from full time work?

Working a day or two per fortnight will keep him in the loop in case you lose your job.

Secondary school is when all the costs increase for school camps, extra tutoring. School fees etc.

You just sound resentful full stop
I think you have to factor in the age difference
and whilst you don’t say his profession
it’s police,fire,or military there’s a reason they can retire in there 50’s
I think you just need a discussion around who does what
but ours at secondary had there own alarm clock sorted there own breakfast and lunch
it can be as hard work as you make it with kids that age

Absolutely. DP is retired and he is the ‘go to’ man in the family for car lifts, car repairs, car tows, odd jobs, decorating, DIY, shopping trips, his side’s emotional and medical stuff, grandparent duties, AND our food shopping, a lot of cooking, most of the laundry, cleaning, gardening and DIY. He does some of the admin (ie his own stuff), online orders and collections, and all the car maintenance. He’s good to my two adult DC and their partners.

I’m still working freelance full-time, and I pay for more.

He’s loving life being ‘useful’ and I feel appreciated. (My ExH was awful to me.) He still has time for a past-time / hobby, and watching bizarre YouTube videos about prehistoric cave atmospheres

And you just don’t answer the phone when school calls. Text dh 20 minutes later - ‘I had a missed call from school, assume everything is under control? Let me know if it’s serious.’
remember you keep saying hes a police/fireman type. He can handle a school issue.

Sorry, what? Why? He’s retired now. Don’t just accept that!

Agree, although Byron Bay is nowhere near as nice as it used to be either.

This is spot on.
You need to announce that seeing as he'll be home with the kids, you can pick up some more work to top up your pension pot for when you retire.
And don't back down

Btw Bondi isn't as nice as it seems, I'd go for Byron bay instead....

You've got the date, so you've got plenty of time to do the messaging and setting of expectations. To everyone, now your father has retired, he is the SAHP and he is the person you call first. All school stuff - H pay attention as you will be taking this over when you retire. Clubs etc, H it's up to you to take them and get to know the routine as that is what you will be doing when you retire. Cleaning, here is where everything is. Vacuuming is twice a week etc etc etc

Set the expectation that when he stops working he will be doing more family chores as he has the spare time to do them.

Just act as if he will be doing the parenting. He's retiring, in order to be a sahd.

Not a retiree.

You'll be working... He'll be doing all the graft of a stay at home parent.

Why do you wonder why people even have children? How is that relevant to what the pp said?

I agree. The whole family arrangement so far has been greatly to his benefit. I'm sorry to say it but he sounds like a selfish man and a poor parent.
If you are not be miserable in the future and end up divorced, you need to speak to him. You have let him have his cake and eat it for far too long.

So basically his career and pension benefited from you doing all the childcare for free. He didn't even support you while you were at home; instead, you used your inheritance to support yourself. Meanwhile he swanned off to work and accumulated a nice pension for himself while you were spending what should have been your life savings.

I think what he's doing is selfish but you laid the groundwork by acting as if your childcare deserved neither compensation nor a quid pro quo nor respect. Basically, as if it was both valueless AND only YOUR responsibility. Now he's set in that mindset and it's going to be difficult to change his thinking.

op, what about hey kids dad is going to be doing your forms and practices starting in 2028, it will be the year of dad. What do you think he needs to learn to cook? We can start practicing.
id kick my dh out if he thought he could just amuse himself while I did everything. What would be the point of a man like that? Why keep him?

They aren’t literally several times a week but they actually are sometimes several times a week and every few weeks. Mini ones develop performance skills as well as bigger ones and if you’re musical and in orchestra, band, choir, jazz band and a smaller ensemble or two (which is normal, I was not musical and at a much less full on school and in all of those, my friends kids are musical with spades and very much in all those) they are pretty frequent!
mine aren’t even high school and once you have more than one child you find you have to be at school Tuesday night and Wednesday night for the different age groups science fair and then the singing concerts to name recent ones. My work has evening meetings and my volunteer roles for children’s things have evening meetings and evenings are when I do the volunteer work and my own exercise and any family admin and housework and we are pretty capped out. But you can sniff and say why bother to have children, you do you.

Act excited and play dumb and confused why he would expect you to both work full time and be the default parent when he’s at home, not working. Get him to agree now, before he realises how much work teenagers actually involve.

But tbh this last comment has me concerned you have deeper problems if you can’t communicate honestly.

Also, finances absolutely can be completely merged even if one of you is retired. You treat your income streams as family income, whether it’s from salary, pension or investments/inheritance. It all goes into one pot.

It doesn't sound as if he has any intention of getting on with 'home duties', having avoided them for 15 years or so. I'm pretty sure the OP knows her own DH better than you do!

Er, @PerfectTiming1 says she used her inheritance to fund her 50% during her years as a SAHM. He was not funding the family alone.
The OP did what sounds like all the parenting while her DH avoided it. That's very poor of him. Also, retiring at 55 is very young and a very privileged position to be in. Many people work 10+ years longer having done what you say. He has not had a hard time.

Come on, you don't have concerts 'several times a week', not even here in Wales, and we're very keen on concerts!

The e-mails are a quick check-in, at most.

I just wonder sometimes why people even have children!

I get the point about lifts etc but the physical and mental drain of doing everything when they were little left it’s mark on me and now it feels like they are a bit more independent, he gets to chill out

Yes, because working to support a family up to retirement causes no mental or physical strain whatsoever.

FFS

Your bitterness is shocking! Maybe he does look forward to spending time with the kids, get on with home duties and enjoy his hobbies.

It sounds you were all too happy to be a sahm but think this privilege should only be yours.

I hope he has a fantastic time.

Depends where you go to school…. There can be plenty of parents events, and concerts feel like several times a week from what I see from others with musical kids. My friends childrens high school has a daily parents email and a weekly parents email summary but you have to read both or you miss things…

Because who wants to retire at 55 because they put 5.5 month old twins into childcare?

Not picking on you Oliveoy, but you've listed lots of things which in reality don't take up that much time. Why do people make such a fuss of things like this? It's part and parcel of family life. School admin, or whatever one wants to call it?

'Endless consent forms' - really?
Parents evenings - one per term per child at most.
Awards evenings - surely a pleasure for all concerned?
Concerts - another pleasant evening.
Topping up lunch account/making payments - takes a matter of minutes. Less time than posting on Instragram!
Food tech ingredients - very few food tech lessons during the secondary phase.
Meetings for overseas trips - again, very few and far between.