To leave DH over lack of pension

[Champagneforeveryone]

So long story short, DH has been self employed for most of his life, and recently sprung it on me that he has zero pension provision aside from his state pension.

He's 68 now and still working 3 days a week, insists he will "work till he drops". However this will simply not be possible, for one thing his employer is unlikely to pay for him to renew his professional qualifications when they expire, and the work is physically fairly demanding.

He was furloughed during lockdown and loved every moment of it, lamenting about having to return a few weeks ago. Prior to returning to work he's always in a bad mood and complains endlessly about being tired afterwards. I know he's resentful as we live in a fairly well off area where all our older friends and neighbours are retired and living happy and financially comfortable lives.

Today he was telling me about how he has refused to do a job that he was asked, I don't know the ins and outs but by his telling it sounded like he spoke quite rudely to the secretary. He then said that it would be better if they sent him home. This is not the first time it has happened.

It's suddenly occurred to me that if he was sacked then he would have no choice but to "retire", much against my wishes.

With his state pension and my wages we could get by, but it would be a much diminished life and I am resentful that I will be picking up the slack. I think I would feel happier with where we are if he acknowledged it was in any way his fault or attempted to come up with ways to make the situation easier. Predictably he doesn't.

I'm not a gold digger and I don't have extravagant tastes, but I feel increasingly resentful that I will be working harder for a worse quality of life, while DH's poor choices will have little effect on him. I have in the past considered leaving and now wonder whether IABU?

The state pension is £9K for people who will take their pension this year. For anyone older, they might fall into the lower payment category which is less than £9K pa. He is 68 and he may just miss the new increase.

So many people here seem to be pretty clueless about pensions and state pensions - it is not substantial! Best it's £175 per week. That's if you have made full contributions over 30 years. If any of his work was cash in hand and he didn't pay NI, he won't even get that!

This is not really about pensions pot but rather savings.
I am sorry if I have missed it but I dont see where your savings have gone too. Were you spending all your monthly income? where has the equity gone from when you did own a property?

Sorry in my view YABU. Your DH has shouldered the joint cost of bringing up your child ( and probably more considering he was the larger income ) for over a decade, now you think you may need to shoulder more you want to get out?
You are worried he may get some of your pension but dont feel the need to pay him back for the cost of you DC?
My point is that this is a situation you should be resolving as a team, as I assume you have been doing when you felt he would be able to financially look after you.

who took on a single mother

Took on? She's not a pet.
*
He took on your child. No doubt has paid towards their upbringing*.

He's their child. Adopted remember?

The State Pension is more than enough to potter around doing some garden and watching TV, reading books, doing puzzles, etc. Being retired is about relaxing, not spending lots of money and going all over the place (though you do get a free bus pass if the urge comes).

@BubblyBarbara and what about such luxuries as paying rent, bills, insurance, car repairs and food?

The State Pension is more than enough to potter around doing some garden and watching TV, reading books, doing puzzles, etc. Being retired is about relaxing, not spending lots of money and going all over the place you really think it’s enough to live one when you’re still having to pay rent and all your bills out of that?!

bubbly
The state pensions may nor even cover their rent and basic bills.

@VanGoghsDog

A 68 year old who has worked all his life will have substantial state pension.

There is no "substantial* state pension, the maximum is about £9k pa.

Sorry that's wrong. The maximum state pension is £175.20 a week. However if he didn't pay into a Occ pen he could have a goodish sum in the additional state pension.. or SERPS especially as he is 68.

@BubblyBarbara

The State Pension is more than enough to potter around doing some garden and watching TV, reading books, doing puzzles, etc. Being retired is about relaxing, not spending lots of money and going all over the place (though you do get a free bus pass if the urge comes).

You are joking right ? Potter around the garden ? Not going all over the place ?

700 a month ? Its lucky if you cover your utilities , council tax , tv licence , house insurance, car insurance etc with that !

@JinglingHellsBells

Why should she retire at 40-odd? If she was single she'd need to work. If she was married a man her own age, she'd presumably work or even want to work!.

Where did I say OP should retire?! Stop inventing stuff!

You have no evidence he frittered away his income.

OP says he made ‘bad choices’ , ‘spent unwisely’ ‘opted out pension at a young age’ and went part-time without telling her. Yet we’re supposed to believe you over the OP? Yeah right

“who took on a single mother”

Took on? She's not a pet.

Agreed. Interesting that men get congratulated for ‘taking on’ the children of the woman they marry, or the woman herself if she’s perceived to have some sort of defect like, you know, being divorced with a child.

Whereas a woman becoming a stepmother is pilloried the second she complains about anything and is expected to pay towards anything her stepchildren want, because “she knew what she was getting into”.

I have some sympathy for the OP. Whilst it would have been better if they had spoken about retirement plans long ago, she has every right to feel shafted. Why did he unilaterally go part time, for example, and why did he think it was ok not to make pension provision after he had married the OP and adopted her son? He has a family, to whom he has responsibilities.

If he lived alone, fine, he gets the consequences. But he doesn’t. He knows his family’s outgoings and has unilaterally decided that he won’t make any plans for paying their rent or bills in the future. He must know that that puts pressure on the OP. If he’d bothered to open a pension even ten years ago, four years after they married, when everybody knew that they were a good idea despite what the accepted wisdom might have been in the 1970s or 1980s, he’d have been in a better position to contribute to the household after stopping work.

It’s nothing like a SAHM situation. A SAHM stops work because she and her husband (I hope: it would be very unwise to give up work for children if you are not married) mutually decide that that is the best solution for the family in the short to medium term, and they share the financial consequences. A SAHM can’t contribute to a pension, because she isn’t earning. The OP ‘s DH was earning; what was his excuse? I bet that the OP did most of the caring for her son and arranged her working life around him. Now she gets to support the household solo for years.

As an aside, I often read posts on here from people who, for whatever reason, have not made adequate pension provision and announce, rather dramatically, that they will ‘work until they drop’. The reality, of course, is that they won’t do that. They will work until they are too tired, or become ill, at which point if they don’t have the funds to live comfortably, somebody else - usually their children or other family members - will need to step in. This is what has happened in the OP’s case.

Hi op. Is it fair to say your dh was the higher earner during the time you were together?

If he was, he has even less excuse for not saving into a pension. The OP managed it.

Sounds like you are both impulsive people who live for the moment - not buying a house, not planning ahead financially, getting married to someone a generation older, these suggest to me you both don’t generally worry too much about your life in the future.

I would draw on the positive/fun aspects that this has given your lives and try not to be resentful now. I think it would be unfair to divorce him at this stage.

Why not sit down and make a plan of incomings and outgoings, how you see your career growing, where you should live etc.

Questions that come to mind...

Is saving for a retirement flat an option (I mean the ones where they’re very cheap to buy and they reclaim it after your death). I don’t know the rules - would you be allowed to buy it jointly given your age, could you live there until your death (if so could be a bargain).

If DH needs to go into a care home, would you have to contribute from your savings? Or would the state pay?

Does he have funeral costs set aside (sorry I know that is still some time away, but it’s apparently about 6k needed so might be worth putting this away).

If you are planning on helping your son through uni, do you have something set aside for that?

Financial advice might be a good idea.

Sorry I know this sounds really horrible and morbid!

A 68 year old who has worked all his life will have substantial state pension.

There is no "substantial" state pension, the maximum is about £9k pa.

Sorry that's wrong. The maximum state pension is £175.20 a week. However if he didn't pay into a Occ pen he could have a goodish sum in the additional state pension.. or SERPS especially as he is 68.

£175 x 52 = £9,100. So my "about £9k" wasn't far off.

And I was clearly responding to a post about the basic pension, not SERPS/S2P. We have no evidence he has gained any SERPS at all, we don't know how much he earned.

But even with SERPS, the state pension is never "substantial".

This thread really highlights how desperately we need some kind of public service announcements covering financial basics.

It surely can’t have come as a surprise to the OP that a man 20 years her senior would be retiring while she was still in the workforce.

No but it is clear she assumed he had made at least some financial provision for his retirement.

@PerfidiousAlbion

This thread really highlights how desperately we need some kind of public service announcements covering financial basics.

There used to be a good ad on TV for a pension company - one was a person with no private pension just literally doing nothing and the other was a woman going to zumba classes etc etc . There was another with a person working and alongside a mini version of them showing their pension . They are out there !

There is a Gov advice website www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk

Sadly this situation is only going to get worse as there is an epidemic of people who live on credit and have a spend it all today attitude.

Nrtft but this sounds like your dh has had enough and really wants to retire but can’t.

You otoh are working a stressful job and bringing money in and feel resentful because he won’t be able to have an income and doesn’t want to work.

Neither of you sound really happy with the status quo.

I think you need to sit down together and discuss the future.
Is there something that he could do that won’t take too much out of him so he doesn’t mind working a few days per week.

Can you change your job or do something that is less stressful.
Sometimes a stressful job doesn’t necessarily equal higher pay

I would go though your income and expenditure with a fine tooth comb.

You say you are renting in an expensive area.
Could you move to a cheaper rental property and/or buy a place even if it is miles away and it is rented out so that you get an income and one day you can live there or sell it and buy somewhere you can live.

Do you have any savings?

Has he been drawing his state pension?

I would also look at your jobs and add up all the expenses of going to work. Is it really worth him going to work p/t in a job he doesn’t want to do when he could earn the same or more doing something different that was less stressful.
Pre lock down Dd managed one off events. There were many retired and older people working these events as servers or behind the bar etc it is quite long hours but you can do as many or as few of these events as you like each week. They pay £8ish per hour but they can be 12 hour shifts and you can get tips.

Would something like that be of interest.

Obviously that example is not possible at the moment but if you look around he might find agency work maybe in the field he is in might pay more for the same amount of days.
You could decide that opening a B&b or running off to France to grow grapes would make you both happy and gives you a sustainable income.

I think both of you have been so wrapped up in your jobs and trying to get from month to month that you are missing how unhappy both of you have become.

I think after this lockdown there are a number of people out there who are reassessing their lives and their work life balance.

When you are going through your finances make sure you put everything down so every penny is accounted for.
Another reason to have a job you enjoy is because if you don’t enjoy your life then you can be prone to treating yourself more (meals out here and there, bottle of wine, new clothes etc) just because you feel you have earned it.

Sometimes a less stressful job that makes you happier can mean more savings as you don’t feel the need to treat yourself each week or because the cost of the train ticket to work and the traveling time eat into your take home pay.

It could be worse, we don't have a pension and are not even entitled to a state pension, so fuck knows what will happen to us when we are forced to retire.

No but it is clear she assumed he had made at least some financial provision for his retirement.

why would anyone in a marriage assume anything about long term financial planning?

It's a joint conversation.

FGS.

@JinglingHellsBells

No but it is clear she assumed he had made at least some financial provision for his retirement.

why would anyone in a marriage assume anything about long term financial planning?

It's a joint conversation.

FGS.

Agree. I just can't imagine not having those conversations. Surely people discuss plans and the future when married given you are financially tied to each other.

There used to be a good ad on TV for a pension company - one was a person with no private pension just literally doing nothing and the other was a woman going to zumba classes etc etc . There was another with a person working and alongside a mini version of them showing their pension . They are out there !

That wasn't (isn't, it's still on) for a pension company, it was to tell people about auto-enrolment. The govt scheme.

Obviously the adverts didn't have much impact.......

I suspect the Op has left in a hurry because she didn’t realise if she divorces her husband he will get her pension.

It's a joint conversation.

FGS.

I never said it wasn't I said OP had assumed he had made provision for a pension.