To want to murder recently retired DH?

[ŁadnaPogoda]

He’s been desperate to take early retirement for a couple of years and finally took the plunge. Although he’s not doing anything with his time. I wfh 2-3 days a week and when I am wfh, he just stands behind me and listens in to all of my Teams calls, making comments. I have to say to him “Please go away, I am going to turn my camera on and speak shortly.” I was interviewing last week and he spent the days lying in bed in a huff, because I wouldn’t let him into the room where I was interviewing. (He could have gone into the sitting room or indeed anywhere else.)

I am going to London tomorrow to spend some time in the office and stay in our London flat to get away from him. He’s just announced that he thinks he will come up to London tomorrow as well, and meet a friend for a drink on Wednesday. Which means he is going to be looming around for three days. Although he can’t follow me into the office, he will be there every evening. I am going to a friend’s big birthday/retirement drinks on Tuesday and he is hugely pissed off that he’s not invited (he doesn’t know friend, has met him a couple of times at most) and thinks he should be invited as my plus one. I’ve said there are no plus ones, it’s not a fucking wedding, and he is now even huffier.

I’ve said I can’t carry on like this and he needs to do something meaningful with his life, or at least do some of the cleaning and cooking, rather than expect me to do it all, but he doesn’t like that suggestion either. I swear I will kill him if he carries on like this. I have a work trip overseas planned next month, and he has said he “might come along.” Nope, not going to happen. It’s a city I lived in when I was growing up, and he is going to want me to be a tour guide “I can’t go out on my own, I don’t speak the language.” It’s like he’s morphed into this giant, helpless baby since retiring, and I can’t stand it.

When my Dad retired as a teacher he started volunteering at a local school, reading to the children. He loves it, less hassle than full on teaching - still doing his favourite part of the job. He also gardens, reads, has started learning German and goes on long walks with the dog. It sounds like your DH needs help adjusting to retirement. Otherwise he will get depressed and lonely. He sounds lost. Is there anything he loves to do that he could get into now he has time?

He's grieving. The loss of title, status, team, colleagues, objectives, workplace, clients, purpose, achievements - it's like a bereavement, especially if he heavily defined himself by his work.

I took a year to get over taking early retirement with no support from our employer - I didn't know who I was or what I was for, after 25 years.

Since then I've started a business, have a temporary contract and a side hustle, several social things I organise and run - but that took time to build.

Your work life though is ongoing. Put your foot down about confidentiality and privacy for work. This is your employer and colleagues' private business and he cannot impose - in the same way as you wouldn't impose on his office when he worked.

He hovers because he's desperately missing the purpose and buzz of a professional role and he's getting it through you and doesn't like being deprived of it.

He knew you have to work from home a lot - this is the reality. I'd say work in office every day you can book a desk if only to get privacy and keep those boundaries. Get a headset to keep your WFH calls private.

His entire world has changed - it's important to understand that. And honestly? You need to bend and change a bit, too, in this altered reality. You're a partnership.

Re the hobbies tho ... OMG.

I know of someone who is writing a book about synthesisers. It’s not your husband is it?

All the best op

He is having difficulty adjusting.
Did you get along before his retirement?
Pay him lots of attention for half an hour a day and then expect him to create a non working life for himself. Talk about how he needs to entertain himself; he is not retired from life.
Ideas ...

Set up an office at your home with a kettle etc. and install a lock and go into work for set hours. Leave DH with emergency numbers and ask him to meet you for lunch in the kitchen at set o'clock.
Make a physical list of one or two household chores - like the washing or cleaning - and ask husband to complete those on days that you work.
Stick to your routine of going into your office.
Complain about the state of the garden.
Complain about the windows needing a wash.
Suggest that you set up a vegie garden. You do some planning but leave most deciding and digging to DH.
Join in with a community activity or hobby that you think DH would enjoy. Go together and encourage DH to take on extra hours or being on the committee.
Temporarily work from a friend's house.
Get a dog that needs walking.
Volunteer your DH skills as a driver for the elderly.
Suggest DH have catch up with friends, learns golf, collects parcels from Post Office (order your Christmas shopping)
If you have children, seek help from them in utilising their Dad for things.
It is bloody annoying but if you do want to stay married to a live person then help him focus on possibilities and insist that he not accompany you to work - ask if he'd have liked you at his work place, sitting behind him.

The over seas trip would be horrific unless he has spent a lot of time planning for himself, knowing that you will be busy.

😂

😂You sound like Charlotte Collins (nee Lucas) talking about her husband.

MILs just in the process of digging up her garden , I'll pop you the address OP.....there's a hole big enough for a man, I'm sure. I was eying it up for DH but it sounds like your DH is more deserving 😂😂😂

Well I'm up for the Mumsnet "Strangers on a train" group. There'd be enough of us to baffle police nationwide
DH retired recently and it was only then that I realised how much I appreciated time to myself. He is either following me round , talking over the news or barging in asking if I want a drink after I have told him I will be listening to a mindfulness session. I have tried delegating dinner or the washing but who knew there could be that many millions of questions!

What the hell does he think he's doing, interfering with your actual paid job? Surely basic confidentiality rules mean that he shouldn't be in the same room, and ideally, should not be able to overhear your work conversations, by phone, or Zoom, or whatever?

Does your employer know he does this? What would they think if they did, I wonder?

It sounds very annoying. He needs to find a hobby in the first place!

Be sure to plant endangered flora on top so that it is illegal to dig them up.

How is any of this relevant to the OP?

Plus she's made it clear that she has talked to her husband.

Golf can work out on the pricey side. But it might be worth it...

I'm going to presume this is a fairly niche hobby. Otherwise you could suggest he creates his own Synthesiser Collectors Club. However there might not be enough people to create one.

Unless this is actually the hobby of many DHs that posters wouldn't reveal because its identifying. (Which would make way more sense than it being golf.) If so, he could head up an international club, and use your London flat as the headquarters. This would be even better as he'd be out the house.

One of my best friends has one of these. He has no hobbies aside from watching videos on YouTube/Facebook, if it weren't for her he would never leave the house unless strictly necessary, and now whenever I go over to their place for brunch he just seems grumpy! I've always heard about how some people become "old" in addition to being actually old and I never understood it until I met her DH...

Ask him if he's given up eating and living in a clean house too, now that he's retired. Then ask him what he's going to do to make sure his life includes all of that.

His answer should include:
Doing the shopping, cooking, and cleaning himself,

Or

Not pissing off the person most likely to get all of that accomplished.

Tell him he either goes to marriage counseling with you to establish the rules of engagement from here on in, or he packs his things and finds a couch to surf on for the foreseeable.

Where would you get the endangered flora from without digging them up yourself?

😂😂😂

Bless him😭 he sounds like he has no purpose in life and doesn’t know what to do with his time. He absolutely needs to find a hobby, something to get him out of the house or even further any personal interests he has.

I understand that he’s retired but surely that doesn’t mean he can’t even volunteer once or twice a week? What does he plan to do with his life? Just follow you around the house, follow you to London and come on your work trip? Hell no!

I have no advice. Maybe he just needs time to adjust to retirement in order to start enjoying life. He can’t be like this forever! Surely not….

It's really time for you to insist he do something.

There's heaps of cooking tutorials on YouTube and he can get some fancy gear and get serious about cooking. Tell him chefing is attractive.

Set of golf clubs and a bicycle.

Coach kid's sport team.

My Dad was the same and it deove my mum Nuts. As you described. BUT it got better with time.and he adjusted yo bot working. He started focusing on Hobbies and DIY anf being helpful and going out without my Mum. They both have a better relationship 5years later.

It might take some patience and a little time.

@MereDintofPandiculation

I love the idea that OP might brutally murder someone, but then her scruples about digging up a protected plant would prevent her from burying the body. 😂

If they need a research assistant we may have a solution without digging up endangered flora murder!

No, I would have to divorce him. Has he any redeeming features?

My DH loves gardening so that's where he will be upon retirement.

I guess this is why couples split later in life.