DH surprising me with possible (very) early retirement

[Aggyagro]

Ok so I know this is his decision, but it will definitely affect us both. We are both early fifties and I am in the situation where due to taking time out of pension contributions and doing freelance work when the 3 DCs were young I know I’ll need to work to retirement age.
We go halves on bills, he is the bigger wage earner and I pay the mortgage whereas he does loads of other things. All ok. But now he has started saying that with the DCs all moved out and nearly independent he’ll be looking to take early retirement in the next few years. He’s been paying into his pension and doing all the sums. He says it will mean a sacrifice but it’s ‘doable’. It just means that we will have to do fewer things like takeaways and cut back a bit. Call me mad but I’m struggling to see the advantage to this. When I ask what he plans to do with his time he says ‘nothing,’ with a grin…
Then he says maybe travel more, but then I point out that I’ll still be working and that we’ll have less money, which doesn’t seem to work logically. I can see a few problems ahead, or am I just being selfish?

Doesn’t sound feasible if you still have a mortgage. And doing nothing will get dull very quick. Retirement would be grand if you can travel, meals out, hobbies but that takes money.
Would be better to keep working till you at least 60 id have thought. I’d want to be able to help my kids financially too, plus save a bit for possible care home bills!

It’s her financial sacrifice that’s giving him this option.

Now the OP is to expected to give things up, again to his advantage, so he can do what he wants. While she had to work for years more

He is a selfish arse

Thanks so much everyone for responding. It is really helping me get some perspective. When I was earning less than him he definitely did pay more to the bills etc and in the past he has put some money into the mortgage to bring the repayments down, so it’s not completely one sided, but I still feel that this shouldn’t be a unilateral decision and that I’m being penalised for taking on the childcare early on. It was always me up in the night or called from work back to nursery and I have no prospect of an early retirement like him.

I’d tell him you’ll be splitting the mortgage if he retires so he’s not going to have much money to travel.

Selfish of him at best - financially abusive at worst - and suggests he lacks care for you. Barring severe ill health or other specific circumstances, this would be a relationship ending issue for me.

Would you have prospect of an earlier retirement if he properly shared his wages and pension? (As a good partner would do).

Well maybe divorce isn’t a bad option then

This is a big decision and should be made together as both will be impacted. If he earns more why is he not paying more?

I say mine and his because they’re in our names, but trust me, I know where all the money is and he sees everything as “ours” (I often joke and say what’s his is mine and what’s mine is mine as his wages get paid into our joint account and my self employed earnings get paid into my own personal account 🤣)

So he gets to retire very early and you have to work until retirement age? That is not ok. I will likely have a bigger pension pot than my DH but our retirement funds including pensions will be considered as one and we will be retiring at the same time (unless one of us chooses to work longer).

You should both be aiming to retire at the same age when the combined income works to support the retirement you would both like

Id reply thats great I will retire the same time. Let's see what our joint income would be.

If he takes early retirement presumably you can’t. What would happen if you wanted to take it too? Could you both cut down your hours?

My dh is older than me so has retired, he’s made it clear I can quit working too if I want but I’m choosing to stay working to get a full state pension (3 more years from April)

Good news if he's retired - as if you're still working, it means he can pick up the household chores as he has time available to do them. Or is his expectation that he takes early retirement to do nothing, and you carry on doing the cooking and cleaning and laundry (because if you were the one up in the night and on call for sick kids from school, I'm betting you're the one doing the majority of the household shit).

Good grief, my vagina would shrivel up if my DH told me with glee he was retiring to do "nothing" whilst I still had to work and we couldnt do anything even remotely nice like getting a single bloody takeaway.

Yeah, no thanks. A life of restriction and him doing "nothing" whilst I was still working would make me miserable so fine, he can do it, but he will do it alone I'm afraid.

It’d still be a shit deal for OP even if he did all the domestic work, which a man who treats his wife like this for many years won’t.

Putting aside the unfairness of him taking a decision that impacts both of you in this way - I just couldn't respect a man who wanted to spend possibly 40 years doing nothing!!

I love life and yes relaxing is part of that - but it would be a huge burden on a marriage if you were at work daily and he was literally doing bugger all.

I would find it unattractive that he was so uninspired.

If he actually wants a change of pace and could afford to quit - he could change jobs/ careers/ do something he has alwasy cared about for a lower salary - he could retrain etc

I'm one of those and you can do one.

I've been running around after 3 very elderly people for the best part of 20 years now. I'm exhausted and there's not a chance in hell I'll be going out to work, particularly after putting in provisions for mine and DH's retirement in plenty of time.

You both need to sit down with a spreadsheet and spell out the financial future.

Your main risk is paying for care.

So you make all the sacrifices while he worked and bumped up his pension. Why didn't he pay into yours too while you enabled his work by cutting back?

Yes, I agree. It would be interesting to see his reaction to it though. I suspect it would be quite telling.

So you pay half the bills & all of the mortgage?

Is that how he has been managing to pay extra into his pension?

I’d divorce him and take half his pension 🤣

Either he plans with you and your shared plan sees you both retire at the same time or I would divorce the shameless advantage taking twat and the smugness would soon disappear along with a good chunk of his pension pot which would head your way.

If your partner has a lower bar for your personal finances than your husband then his is pretty fucking selfish.

My dh did this but there wasn't any effect on our cash flow as he was able to take his private pension at 50. He lasted 6 months and is now back at work full time 😂