DB wanting to give up work, is he BU?

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My DB is 50. He is married with adult DC who have now left home and has had a successful career in finance whilst SIL has worked part time to fit around the DC. She has continued to work part time even when they left home but to be fair she does all the housework/cooking as well. Anyway, he hasn't been enjoying his job for a while, he gets no satisfaction from it and finds it frustrating, although he is paid well and has good benefits so he's stuck at it rather than look for a job elsewhere. Recently an aunt of ours died and left us a chunk of money between us, and DB has worked out that if they are careful, he will have enough to be able to give up his job and live off this money until he gets his pension. His DW however is very unhappy about this and has kicked up a bit of a stink. She says that they had all these plans for the future which now won't happen because they'll be on a tight budget, I've suggested that she works full time but she isn't really qualified to do anything that will make up the shortfall financially (they have no mortgage so just bills to cover). I've known her since before she was married to my brother and we get on really well, so I'm trying to sit on the fence as I can see why he wants to make this decision, but I can also see her point of view!

@greendale they outsource don’t they?

You can buy NI credit though. It’s not expensive.

True, you can buy extra years, apparently it's £733 a year. I had no idea it was so cheap.

That’s actually more than I thought it was, but not bad in terms of what it buys you.

Erm SHE is the one who doesn't want to live on a right budget so SHE is the one who can do something about it and get a job... utterly unreasonable to expect your DB to stay in work to please her.

Surely the sensible solution here is some kind of compromise. He works part time (very very rare to have a job you can’t do part time these days!) and does the housework on his days off. She increases her hours / changes job in order to save for their “future plans”. And maybe he fully retires a couple of years earlier than planned.

No one is guaranteed a long life. I hope I have a job and wanted to continue doing when I am that age, but in your DB’s shoes I can understand why he would rather quit as soon as it is financially viable.

In terms of them speaking to you, why not start to try and introduce the idea of compromise.

They may need couples therapy to help them resolve this. It could be a good way of future planning in a way that becomes “fair” to both of them.

Bluelady as I've already mentioned, he has a very healthy Work/private pension pot that he can draw from age 55, so I don't think he's too concerned about his state pension. It's just the fact that he wants to leave now and whittle away their savings/his inheritance to live on for the next five years that's causing the disharmony.

I'd say the key is talking and coming up with a solution together and compromising. At the moment it sounds like your brother is saying 'this is how it's going to be, so deal with it'. Which is fundamentally unfair when it's a decision that affects them both. There is surely a middle ground. Work a bit longer, take another role that's less hours or stress, etc. It's very black and white to say I don't like my job so I'll give up all work completely, forever

Pink she does work, along with doing all the housework.

enter what is his view on what this would entail - would he take on housework at all does he get that bit?

5 years is a long time to whittle away money

OK - so what if it were the other way around? She had worked FT at a job that causes stress and unhappiness and he had worked PT and been a SAHP for some of that time? Would opinions differ then?

Being the FT higher earner in a stressful job is just awful when you have reached the end of your tether. If he can afford to finish work and he has had enough then he should. It's now up to the other partner in this relationship to step up to the plate if they want to maintain current finances.

but noidea that isnt fair either if she steps up and takes on earning more plus doing what she has

it either has to be a role swap (if realistic)

so he works part time and takes on the household duties (what she did)
She finds a job that allows her to work full time (if she can)

or and what should happen is he goes part time and splits the household stuff between

Because at the moment he wants to stay at home doing his hobbies and spending their inheritiance while she continues to do everything

A women who was happy to stay at home earning nothing and doing nothing would be slaughtered on here

MN is a very strange place sometimes. I've seen threads where posters have had their arses handed to them for daring to suggest that a SAHM of teenagers consider going back to work to ease the financial pressure on their DH. Yet here we have OP being told that her SIL, who already works outside the home part time and does 100% of the housework, is being unreasonable for not wanting to work more hours so that her DH can do nothing at all. We're not talking about a woman who sits on her arse all day eating bon bons. She works, she contributes financially and has enabled her DH to progress in his career by taking complete responsibility for their home life. They had plans for how they were going to spend their retirement and now she's well and truly having the rug pulled from under her. She knows full well that her DH's promises to do all the housework are worth nothing. If he has done absolutely nothing around the house for the past 30 years he's not suddenly going to start now.

So basically OP's DB thinks that because he's the higher earner he is entitled to a stress-free life at the expense of making his wife's life a lot more stressful.

He should work out what he's really giving out. How much his pension would increase in the next 5 or more years if he stayed.

Then he should ask for an unpaid sabbatical during which he lives on less money and does all the house stuff. Then decide.

Also at his age he should be manoeuvring for a redundancy, not just walking.

I think he's foolish and hasn't thought this through but it's not their inheritance, it's his.

Giving up,not out.

If he were not working I would think it reasonable that he do all the household stuff if his partner were working FT.

I don't really think he has any idea what looking after the house entails, and sees it as the odd bit of vacuuming, mopping and an evening meal.
He also seems to have the attitude that "it's her turn" to contribute more financially while he has his turn at home, but I can see that's unfair considering it's just the two of them now, she did the tough part when the boys were little.

it's not their inheritance, it's his.

Well that's clearly how he sees it. Marriage is a partnership though and it tends not to augur well when one of the partners decides to making unilateral decisions like this.

And of course, legally, it's both their money.

exactly noidea but the OP has said she thinks her brother just wants to do his hobbies

I dont think he has ANY idea what his wife has done to enable him to work full time if he has never done any. He is in for a shock

OP I think the compromise is he takes time off for a week and takes on all the chores and I mean everything and see if he still thinks its a good idea

I don't really think he has any idea what looking after the house entails, and sees it as the odd bit of vacuuming, mopping and an evening meal.

Bar the laundry (not much for 2 adults) and loading the dishwasher (again infrequent) surely that is exactly what it entails? Plenty of adults manage to both work full time and “run a house”. Obviously if you are going to go for hysterical amounts of cleaning / ironing etc then it takes a lot longer, but that’s a personal preference so shouldn’t be imposed on the other partner in a relationship.

It's really unfair if he thinks it's his turn to take it easy. Looking after kids, doing everything around the house, and working PT isn't taking it easy. They have both had busy lives up til now just in different ways. It's not fair if one of them gets to relax while the other has to 'step up' and do much more. They need to work out a solution where they both have the same amount of leisure time (working out how much work doing all the housework cooking shopping etc is and including that). Also it isn't his inheritance - I thought legally it was both, and morally if one of you has given up work to look after kids, then money should be joint.

If she is now forced to work full time, the danger is she will resent him, realise she is actually better off on her own as she only has herself to look after, and leave so she can do all the things they'd planned to do in retirement with someone else

So clearly he can manage the house work if he fully retires, and have plenty of time for hobbies.

Even meal planning, cooking and clearing up after breakfast and dinner, food shopping, probably adds up to an hour a day. That's almost a full days work a week just on eating unless you get takeaway or ready meals every day