Stay at home parent looking forward to retirement

[Equalitystreets]

One partner is and has always been the sole breadwinner.

Other is a stay at home parent who as the children have gotten older has gradually had more free time during the day.

They always share the household chores equally.

When the children go to University, the stay at home parent has said they will be retiring and ‘they can’t wait’.

The partner with the job has at least another 15 years of work to do (and all their retirement funding will come from this partner’s investments, or investments set up in the stay at home parent’s name that were set up and funded by the working partner).

Is the stay at home partner being reasonable to declare their job is completed when the children are 18, even if the other partner has another 15 years of work to do?

Does you DH stay overnight in a UK location several hours drive away/work in Sweden for 4 days away? Do you have GPs locally? Many do not and happily manage everything single-handedly.

Why have you always shared household chores equally when they've been the SAHP. It's fair to share childcare equally when both parents are at home (weekends etc) but the deal surely is the SAHP does everything else - especially when children are school age. I'm not surprised you're annoyed OP. I'm surprised it's taken you this long so start realising what an unfair set up you have.

Jesus Christ, how do you think the poor neglected children dumped at after school club are getting home? Might they not be walking home with their parents, talking and having a snack, just at a slightly different time of day? Also it’s news to me that after school club gives them their tea, does their homework with them, takes them to extra curricular activities and cleans them. Where do I sign up?

I think they're a female same sex couple

Fascinated that you see your FIL as such a tragic, passive victim in his own life.

Rather than as a highly successful adult who makes active, free choices that repeats patterns in his own life. I sure hope it’s only you, not him, that reframes the foreseeable consequences of his own free choices as ‘tragic victimhood’.

Marriage should be a partnership, the best marriages I have known are the ones where roles change as you age due to the life cycle we go through. Finances are shared and it’s “our money”.

No SAHP should do all the chores, life admin, childcare e.g. night wakings etc but logically they will do more but equally they should also have downtime.

As children age and leave home it is reasonable for the SAHP to seek work to contribute to the finances and there should be a corresponding change/rebalancing of chores etc. so it’s equal.

I suspect in your situation the SAHP is quite scared of going back to work as they are likely to be early 50s and work has changed a lot. Forgive me if my assumption is incorrect, but as a woman they may also have the impact of the menopause such as brain fog making it more scary to learn something new. There are pathways back to work and 15 years is plenty of time to build a career if they want.

My advice is approach this from a different perspective. With 15 years to retirement you both need to be planning ahead. Sit down, not once but several times, and

• discuss what you both want from retirement - do you want to travel, down size & buy a camper van, learn new skills, take up new hobbies etc.
• as part of this consider how you want to taper working e.g. from full time 5 days to 80% 4 days, then 60% so you have more time together and time for hobbies etc.
• do retirement planning start by drawing up an expenditure spreadsheet to see how much you need to maintain your current life style, what you will need in retirement.
• Then go through your pensions and investments to see where you are and where you need to be. Perhaps look at FIRE threads on here and MSE etc. FIRE = Financial Independence Retire Early
• Then get a state pension forecast for each of you - this should be later down the line, use this as a discussion on how the SAHP can build up their qualifying years e.g. job or voluntary contributions.
• As part of this process the SAHP should start to appreciate if they contribute financially you both might be able to retire earlier.

I think it really depends on how much you earn. My aunt and uncle did this and my aunt didn’t go back to work as she had been out of the workplace for nearly twenty years. My uncle was fine about it as he earned a lot of money.

How long have they been out of the workplace? What kind of work can they do?

Retiring from what exactly?! 😂

So my friend who has days experiencing both says that both her and her children hate the 2 after school days as they are all tired and it’s all a massive rush, rushing home in worse traffic, shoving food down, rushing on to the next activity. She much prefers her 3 days picking up straight from school, and hers are older than mine. I detest being over-scheduled and rushing around everywhere. Horses for courses though!

Cause this is all that actually matters

It's untrue in some very specific cases but also true in many cases.

Ours aren't school age yet but we'll be able to flex around each other which will mean one of us will always be able to collect them at 3 and do all that you have described. Both of us because we both want to spend that time with our children and not have one parent always missing out on that time just because the other one wants to be a SAHP.

Eh? How can a stay-at-home parent retire? Retire from what? Bit cheeky given the other parent has funded everything. Fine when the kids are small - less so once they are in school (but they obvs should have discussed and sorted it before now..) And no f-ing way would I be having my non-working partner ‘retire’ for me to fund while I had to keep working! If the working partner in this set-up goes along with this they are even more of a mug than they have been up to now..

Fucking hell working partner has been absolutely mugged

I'm not quite sure which way the voting is meant to be but if I was the bread winning partner I would be extremely pissed off.

Why are they sharing chores 50/50 if one doesn't work? I used to work PT when the DC were small. Once they started school I had two days a week where I was at home. I did the vast majority of household chores as that seemed fair.

DH is 5 years older than me and nearer retirement age. He has recently dropped to working 3 days per week and so now does far more of the chores than I do.

The SAHP sounds like a. CF

A

Again you need to ask them what ‘well my job is done and I’m retiring' means.

What exactly are they retiring from in the first place

Then suggest they are not retiring, but their role is redundant and therefore they either need to step up and do all the housework (or at least the same hours the other person does) or get a job

Find this weird! Had the stay at home parent worked part time when kids were at school then they could have saved enough money to retire when kids leave home whilst you wouldn’t have to worry about carrying on working! How bizarre!

They collect them at 3ish, then spend a full 6 hours (as they go to bed much later as they get older) supporting them with reading/homework, cooking their dinner, transporting them to and from swimming/gymnastics/brownies/play dates, often at completely different times/venues for different children, along with all the extra washing from their sports kits.

Yeah DH and i split that on top of me doing a 30 hour work week& him doing 40. I really wish sahp would stop trying to make out that they do as much as working parents. Most homes don't have a sahp these days and the swimming/gymnastics etc all still happens, working parents just do it AND work.

I think it would be reasonable to get a job to help with retirement savings and potentially reduce the time the dh has to work before retirement. I have a friend in this situation. I doubt she will work. But she does 100% of the household stuff. I think she'd find it hard now to find a reasonable job.

So, what's it going to be OP? Are you going to let her keep leeching off of you, or insist the lazy cow gets a job, just like everyone else.

If you let her use you as a wallet and workhorse for the next 15 years, the resentment you have already discussed will be huge. I don't understand doormats, never have. Would love to hear an update.

True. It doesn't sound like that is the case here though.

I would be having discussions centred around what would happen if you are ill/ die early. Discuss the financial gaps still to be plugged before you can both retire. Discuss when you would like to retire. Discuss any likely elderly care in the future. Discuss the housework share. Could you plan to downsize in a few years to release money so you can both retire? As soon as I mention downsizing dh shudders and drops discussion of retirement! I think you need a serious sit down (perhaps after A levels/ IB are finished for your youngest) and form a financial and practical plan for the next 10-15 years.

I work full time, slightly lower wage than dh reflecting my years of part time work and that I still work flexibly around my dc's needs. My dc have fairly high needs due to disability. Although I am not sure how they will cope with uni, part of me is looking forward to the reduction in day to day support I still need to give to them. So I do have some sympathy with your partner's perspective.

What’s this ‘she chose’ crap. THEY chose together to have a SAHP deal for THEIR family.

I think people like you enjoy the thought of ‘punishing’ SAHP with the dire jobs no one wants to do.

The truth is, even 50 plus aged people who have worked all their life can struggle to get jobs. Fifty plus people with NO work experience will really struggle. What employers value most is work ethic and work experience, neither of which a SAHP can demonstrate. I know people think ‘stacking shelves’ etc are worthless jobs anyone can do, but to employers they are work critical jobs and they want employees who will last at the job. Someone who hasn’t worked for twenty plus years and doesn’t even need to financially, does not look like a safe bet to an employer.

If a family chooses to have a long term SAHP you really are agreeing to financially provide for the SAHP for life.

(ps I’ve worked all my life, so no skin in the game here).

I was a SAHM for 19 years (and loved it, it was what we both wanted) Oldest started uni and I got a job. I now do 2 days a week and love it. I have the best of both worlds. I do all the chores - that was, and remains, my contribution

Assuming you both agreed the SAHM would be a SAHM when the children was born . So you was free to work your way up in your industry. Never have to worry about childcare children's appointments, house admin etc. So Assuming the SAHM hasent worked in a job for decades. What job do you actually expect her to do. Think it's unfair that you now look down on her for being a SAHM . After giving up her chance to have career . To make your life easier while the child was growing up.