for being upset as my dh has retired early (at 60) and expects me to keep working until 60 too, even though he is 10 years older than me

[MrsPuddle]

I dont particularly enjoy my job or it would be ok, but now he is 65 and I am 55, I am getting resentful as he is out and about enjoying himself, going on lads holidays etc and I am stuck at home behind a screen. I just cant do this for another 5 years, but he cant see the problem. If we wait until I am 60 he will be 70 and he will be older and who knows, maybe not well, and not inclined to be active with me. We will have enough money, if we just tighten out belts in retirement. Has anyone else faced this issue with an older partner? thanks

So you made sacrifices for the family which has made his pension pot a lot more than yours. It seems you’ve been together a very long time so there should t be an imbalance in your lives. I don’t think retiring at 55 is unreasonable seeing as he’s been retired for 5 years already and enjoying the life of Riley. If he genuinely cared for you he would want you to be enjoying it with him. If you divorced you’d be entitled to half of his pension so maybe put that to him haha

I can 100%see why you feel like this it natural to be jealous and envious

but it’s not unreasonable for you to work to the same age as your husband did

Well I've been an changed my vote.

As he didn't retire, he just decided to sponge off of you. Time to do what you should've done when he started that shit, and set yourself free from him.

I think 55 is too early to retire( not unless you are wealthy/ and/or have sufficient pension provision). Your husband has every right to enjoy his retirement, hopefully you can join him in 5 years time. As hard as it is, please try and adjust your mindset to find enjoyment in your work. Otherwise, you will become increasingly unhappy and resentful. You can have a happy social life and work too!

I think you have been a bit disingenuous OP. There are pages and pages of posts that believe your husband chose to retire early and is off living his best life with a large pension, but you are now saying he was made redundant and spent the last 5 years living off your wage. I think the replies would have been very different if you had said this originally.
My DH is older than me and was made redundant some years ago but he took a part time job doing something completely different to his trade. I earned more than him so i was happy to support that and I pay all our household/car expenses, however, he does all the housework and washing and cooking and that suits me.
Even though I still work, we manage to find time to spend together and have holidays together.
I hope your DH pulls his weight around the house

Did he try to find work after being made redundant?

Yeah that's a huge drip feed. So he was unemployed with no income for 5 years. Did he try and get a job? Even if it wasn't in his own field, there's lots of jobs he could've done.
I'd be pissed off subsidising him for 5 years (unless for medical/ disability reasons).

No, but when that happened you would have discussed next steps. Your dh decided to retire? You agreed? It's fair to point out it doesn't sound like you thought it through. If you post on the forum you're going to get comments and advice of all sorts, blunt, nice, whatever. No point in arguing or mocking. Sounds like a lot of people here have planned and discussed future plans. You didn't, but should have.
FWIW, I think your dh needs to go back to work in some fashion, you need to seriously plan your own retirement and you need to be honest with him about how you feel.

@@MrsPuddle did your husband get a redundancy payout? Would that enable you to drop your hours to have more time with DH? Assuming if he did he isn’t just keeping it for himself.

This changes things - if he's been happily unemployed, living off your paycheck and refusing to get a job then that's not acceptable. Have you not discussed this during the 5 years he's been unemployed? That's a really long time to be unemployed for without getting any kind of job at all, was he not trying for one?

Surely you discussed this as a couple long in advance of his retirement?

It sounds as if not retiring is the least of your issues- divorce may be more what you need!

I cant believe how many posters keep saying that we should have planned for this ages ago. How exactly? you cannot predict the future, you can only make ma stab at it.

Oh come on!
Most couples set out some retirement plans long before they stop work.

Saying you can't predict the future has nothing to do with this.

You both had years to discuss when he wanted to stop work, and when you did.

Did he really say 'Look, Mrs Puddle, I'm leaving work on X date.'
When- a month before he stopped work?

Blimey that’s some drip feed. Mr “Lads Holidays” has been sponging for five years, could he not have taken a supermarket job or something? I bet you do the bulk of the domestic stuff too. He’s been playing you like a fiddle. And ten years from now he’ll be an old man with even less to offer but he’ll be expecting plenty.

No, he was made redundant and is living off her income. As we have now been told. Lots of other stuff hasn't been divulged such as division of housework, weekends away or not..

Just in case anyone missed this nugget of information that totally changes the situation:

MrsPuddle · Today 18:15

Theres no pension, we live off my income. But last month he hit 65 and now has a pension. Its not big, hence the belt tightening if I stop.

Well@MrsPuddle , I really think you needed to share this with us in your OP:
Your husband has not been "retired" for five years - he's been unemployed and living off your wages! (More questions: did he get a redundancy payment? What did he do with it? Did you use it to live off? Why did he not sign on or look for part time work?.........)

So actually, since he hit 65 your financial situation has improved slightly as his pension supplements your income, but in fact you have proved that you can live on less because you have done so successfully for the past five years.

You need to do some serious calculations which factor in how much extra pension you would get by continuing to work, and at what age you can afford to retire, and take into account the fact that you have supported your husband financially for five whole years, so if the figures show that you can afford to stop work at a younger age than he did, he can't claim that it's not fair.
Only then will you know if YABU to want to stop work at 55.

I cant believe how many posters keep saying that we should have planned for this ages ago. How exactly? you cannot predict the future, you can only make ma stab at it.

We both worked full time all our lives and then paid off the mortgage, then dh
got made redundant. at 60. You cant plan for that, and you cannot know how you are going to feel when dh has been retired 5 years and you havent.

But @MrsPuddle these are TWO very different tings.

The first is his redundancy (which you've thrown in very late in your thread.)
No that wasn't predictable.

But he was 60 then! Most couples discuss pensions and retirement long before 60.

The second is that he wasted 5 years from 60 to 65 with no work. So he didn't retire at 65.

He stopped work at 60 and never went back (ie found another job.) And his pension kicked in. I assume this is an occupational pension and he will be eligible for the state pension at 67.

During those 5 years from 60-65, where were the conversations between you about 'what next'?

Did you never ask him why he wasn't looking for work?
If he intended ever to work again?

I can't believe that for 5 years you were in some kind of la-la land, thinking that as he got closer to 65 he'd find work. It was surely obvious that when his pension was available at 65, he'd take it.

Surely you could see that?

He will also presumably get his full state pension in 2 years which will be around £10k-12K then.

Is that not something you have put into the calculations about your future?

My DH retired at 61, he’s six years older than me. I carried on for another 2 ½ years. When I retired at 57 it was to be a carer to my parents so not much retirement for me. I didn’t resent him being at home when I was working because he had done so many years, including when I was a SAHM.

It depends what retirement means to you both. In our case it freed him to work on the house and finish DIY projects that would eventually benefit both of us when we downsized. I wouldn’t have been thrilled at “lads’ holidays”.

@CharlotteRumpling Yes, I've caught up now!

Honestly this is a perfect example of how not to explain a situation fully.

I'm guessing Covid and lockdown played a part in him not getting another job. I do think it's a bit cheeky for you to want to retire right now though. It's not his fault he is older than you. He was always going to retire before you. And the fact that he hasn't worked since he was 60 means you can retire then too, instead of at 65. Fair's fair.

I have the same age difference between me and my partner, and I am completely expecting to work to my pension age as will he. Putting equal time working. I thought it was a no brainer?

My husband is 18 years older than me, we have been together for twenty years. We are still young ish (me more so than him! And have an young family) Our plan is, and always has been, that he will retire at state pension age and I will reduce my hours but not stop working entirely - probably something like three days a week. It maybe that if there are clear health issues which evolve I give up earlier and we just live on his pension so that I don’t reduce the value of mine by claiming it early as, inevitably, I will be on my own towards the end of my life and we need to make sure I am financially secure.

This has always been discussed and a rough plan formulated to make sure that it is convenient for us.

I have a friend who is in a similar situation but they are a few years older than us, she gave up her career and does a job in a school part time and term time only. They have decided on a similar plan to ours.

FFS… if the OP and her husband planned for their retirement as well as this thread has gone,, no wonder it’s a mess.

That was the entire point of my earlier thread you should be planning for that as it’s pretty damn common for that to happen as you get close to retirement age. At a certain point if you are made redundant you will likely not find a comparable job so that needs to be included in the “what if” scenarios.

Which now brings me back to the OP’s original question… nobody here can tell you if it’s ok to retire. Sit down with your DH and start running the numbers (better late than never, eh). Feelings have nothing to do with whether or not to can feed, clothe, and house yourselves for the next 10, 15, 20, 25 years.

Absolutely. AND they get paid more on average for the same work.

You need to find something for him to do! We are almost the same age as each other, but my DH retired at 60 (good occupational pension), while I couldn't until I was 65 (thank you government), and working from home. Mine became a local councillor, so he was out and about a lot of the time. He loved the opportunity to interfere with everyone locally!