DH to pay off mortgage then stop house bill contributions

[Luannaa]

DH will take early retirement at the end of the year from a job he has worked very very hard in and made a huge difference to people’s lives and it has also taken its toll on him with things he has had to witness- hence earlier retirement.

This will give him enough money to pay off our joint mortgage which he wants to do so we can be mortgage free. I am extremely grateful for this as it’s huge security for the future and our dc.

However DH then doesn’t want to go into any work for at least a year, for his hobbies his small pension will see him through but this means he cannot pay anything towards the weekly/ monthly bills.

As it stands we combine £1k per month for all joint and household bills, one of these being the £900 mortgage.
With that gone, technically he doesn’t need to contribute any more as he has paid his bit but I feel a bit miffed to carry on working 40+ hours a week and sometimes overtime while he has no job, no bills to pay and just enjoys his hobbies (they are free/ low cost).

AIBU?

Please share your opinions and be honest as I want to get this right for us both.

FML reading and comprehension skills are at an all time low here.
They each pay £1000 into the bills pot, of which £900 is for the mortgage alone.
He will clear the whole mortgage using his pension but then have just pin money left for hobbies. This leaves bills of £1100 so there's now a £100 shortfall on his monthly bill contribution.
This is not, according to OP, a big deal as there are non-essential spends they can drop to make up for it (although she is forgetting that her energy bills will increase with him being at home.)
OP carries on working FT paying her share as she always has done.
She also said she has a shit pension to look forward to so her doing the same in the future is not an option.
HTH

If he uses his lump sum to pay off the mortgage that leaves him with a small pension, which he will use for his hobbies. So OP is left footing the bill for literally everything else from her salary.

What about holidays ? What about food, unexpected bills, household repairs ? She will be responsible for the lot, with no end date - she works 40 hours a week to support them all while he swans about doing as he likes.

And what happens after a year if he decides he doesn’t want to go back to work ? What if he can’t find another job - at 56 he will have been out of work for a year, which is considered long term unemployment. He’ll be at significant disadvantage.

And what if OP loses her job ? I think he’s being incredibly selfish to consider retiring at 55 with no useful income and no savings to buffer them. By all means retire from the stress of the current job, but l think it’s massively unreasonable to do this without securing alternative employment first, and to expect OP to effectively support him with no guarantees or even a safety net. He’s not in a position to retire, or even take a sabbatical if the responsibility for their finances is being shifted wholly onto OP as a result. It’s cocklodger territory.

Sometimes people misunderstand and sometimes people are rude.

I know which camp I would rather be in.

You do need to sit down together a write a timetable of how this year off for recovery develops into further work. He is too young to stop already. He should be doing a supporting role to you and the children if you have a 40 hour working week or he's going to have an exhausted wife and children who think he doesn't care for them.

I am not sure why a few people are implying 55 is no age to retire? Surely anyone should been entitled to retire at the age they can afford to retire if they so wish?

I am in a similar though completely different situation to your DH, OP, as I am much younger than him (aka just entering my 30’s), but I am also semi-“retired” already (as in I only work 6 months of the year max, by choice) and in a relationship with someone younger (similar age gap to you).

For now the time off I have hasn’t been an issue as my partner still studies and we live in different cities so it’s actually been useful for me to have more time off + I currently pay for most things if not everything, but the reality is I can see the issue potentially arising as we will soon move in together and while my plan is to continue to drop working time (to be fully retired by the time I am 50) she is only getting started in her career and likely won’t have the same opportunity to only work a few months a year as we work different fields. So I can see how someone might begrudge having to work most days while the other doesn’t.

But personally I see it that way, when I do work, I work insane amount of hours, and ultimately I have worked very hard the last decade+ (started working at 17) to get to where I am at financially, and made many many sacrifices to get to live the life I live, and the way I do, including being mortgage free already (and owning a second property).

So while I could still work full time, I don’t want to because I don’t need to, and I do plan to stop working as early as I can afford to (not saying never working again, but only working when I want to, and IF I want to rather than because I must.)

Currently still working half of the year because I always want to make sure that I can afford everything for the both of us (if need be) + saving for having a child/ that early retirement I want.

I don’t plan on bailing out of finances or her having to pay for everything once I am “retired” but I do feel like I am giving her a massive leg up by her starting her career mortgage free, she will never have to pay rent while with me, (and anyway the goal is that everything that’s mine become hers also) & just that fact will save her thousand and thousands of euros over the years in rent (so even if we split she will still likely be able to live with a lot of savings she wouldn’t have otherwise). And while I don’t expect her (in my case) to pay for all the bills in exchange of being mortgage-free, I would still always expect bills and expenses to be split fairly if we live together so it would mean her working (be it part-time or full-time.)

So yes, in some ways it’s unfair that likely she will get to see me not go to work much while she does, on the other hand I do feel I have earned the right not to work full-time and that I am saving her years of financial worries and money in rent and she is technically benefiting from all the years I did work full-time by being financially set up in a way I absolutely wasn’t when I was her age, and in a way that puts us way ahead of most people financially in our age range.

So yes, I fully understand why going to work while your husband chills can be annoying, I also think he is technically providing you with a massive amount of financial safety and savings (in interest) by paying off the mortgage. And if you were happy paying 1000 a month it really shouldn’t matter how he affords his half (because by paying off the mortgage he is likely paying upfront years worth of monthly contributions.)

I would more look into whether or not you could both work part-time once the mortgage is paid off so he never have to go back to full-time work and you can also drop hours.

I would expect him to look after the kids and take on most of the house chores if he does stay home though. Him taking a year off from work doesn’t mean taking a year off of household responsibilities.

They are a family with children. Your circumstances seem very different.

Agree with this. I assume they don’t have any savings to fall back on and if all of his lump sum will be used to pay off the mortgage there is no safety net. He will have no useful income and at 56, having been unemployed for a year, he will be at significant disadvantage in finding another job.

If he was single and supporting himself he couldn’t afford to retire or even take a sabbatical, so why does he think he can afford to do so now by shifting his financial responsibilities onto OP ? OP mentioned that he had always said he would be a house husband. For me that would be a huge red flag that he has no intention of finding another job at all.

I am not sure why a few people are implying 55 is no age to retire? Surely anyone should been entitled to retire at the age they can afford to retire if they so wish?

Fine if you can afford to. But he won’t be able to contribute to household finances after the mortgage is paid off, which leaves OP with all of the responsibility and nothing by way of a safety net. This being the case, he can’t afford to retire.

What wouldn't sit well with me is the fact your DH has stated his intention without the consensus you'd expect in a marriage.

it's a big deal this day and age to give up work (is it really a retirement?) for a year's worth of jolly, doing hobbies and probably a lot of the chores still falling on you. The fact he is choosing to pay off the mortgage seems to be part of his run for freedom, but at 55yo he has potentially a decade still of working life.

You say he will resume work after a year, but will he want to get back to the routine of getting up, doing a days work after being a free agent for a year. He will find it very difficult to get back on the career ladder, possibly in a different sector.

if you had said, DH wants to give up his stressful job, pay off the mortgage and spend the next 6-9 months reskilling in a new sector (possibly using some transferable skills and acquiring new skills eg IT /project management type career) then tha would be really impressing.

he just sounds rudderless, no plan for the future and expecting you to do the heavy lifting, potentially indefinitely. Has he seen the job market out there??

please express your concerns, you should be a family unit, he should be continuing to think like a family man, in all senses not leaving it to you.

But he is not planning to retire, he stated he wants a year off.

He clearly can afford to take a year off.

i was referring to people making general statements such as « 55 is no age to retire ».
which is bizarre to me because I more feel it’s outrageous we live in a society where we have accepted being worked to the bone until pretty much our 70’s.

The other thing OP is to seek financial advice on his plan because there may be implications down the line that you're both unaware of. After his year off, it doesn't sound like he would want to return to the job he had, even assuming he could. There's a risk he envisions a part time job that he'll enjoy which pays well but doesnt, in reality exist so he carries on pootling at home, getting bored because he can't go out and do stuff because funds are actually tight. Some serious thought needs to be given to what happens after the year of rest or can he just pick up a less stressful job and do that instead.

He’s 7 years older than you - surely you knew he was going to retire first? I don’t see how this can have come as a shock?

He's retiring 12 years before State Pension Age. He's on a small pension and has school age DC who he might have to support through university.

I'd be cancelling the before and after school clubs and he can do some of the school runs before his day of leisure commences.

He's a relatively young man and no matter how stressful working in the frontline services might be, he shouldn't watch his wife work 40+ whilst he's off cycling or practising his origami.

Life isn't always fair. If you loved him you would let him have this. He's seven years older than you. Maybe in seven years time he will have a new job and you can take a back seat for a while.

My DH became a SAHD at 55 so I could return to work full time. I’m self employed so it was easier for me to fit my hours around childcare, but my income is 5x DH if I work full time.

I was very surprised by some people’s reaction to our change in dynamic. Funnily enough it was the friends who are SAHMs who were the most judgemental.

DH had planned to return to work (part time)when DS was able to drive himself to school (we live rurally and even the school bus is 3 miles from us. Unfortunately DH had a stroke so has been unable to work I am so glad that he had a few years to fully enjoy retired life. None of us know what the future holds.

I’m now semi retired and have sold my business. DH did most of the household jobs before his stroke. Now I’m pretty much his carer, physically he’s fine but the cognitive damage keeps me busy. Some of it is due to chronic fatigue but it’s combined with mild depression, the old DH was very much glass half empty and a little obsessive at times, the new post stroke version is so much more laid back. DS and I joke that the updated version 1.2 is a definite improvement.

I think as long as your DH is happy to fully embrace the SAHP roll it will make your stressful job less stressful. I found that just going to work then coming home in the evening was infinitely less stressful than combining work,school run, household necessaries, out of school activities, food shopping etc. Because I’d been part time I’d shouldered much of the domestic stuff, I loved being the bread winner. I do think that you have to be very firm about what will be expected though.

What are people whining on about. She wont have worked the amount he has, for another 7 years even if he stops for 7 years. They aren't the same age.

This is all petty, pure envy. The only thing that matters is if the same things are covered. He is covering more than the years worth of equal financial commitment, and there's no suggestion he wont do the same amount of general work. So it comes down to people having a tantrum that someone might have reached a point where they can have that equal input, and have extra time as well - something he has built up being 7 years older.

A future outline of a plan is a good idea, but some of the responses are very childish.

Sounds like you are in a precarious position and neither able to retire early. DH should take some time off and find a less stressful role that enables him to carry on until retirement. You need to get your house in order and prepare for your own retirement, and get a job with good employer pension contributions, while loading as much as possible into your pension yourself. Also if the kids are older what about university etc? And teenagers are expensive. Will you be expected to support them on your own?

It also will depend on how well he picks up jobs that you do now around the house. A lot of men will vegetate and do fuck all.

He’s 55. He’ll be 56 by the time he is ready to return to work - massively at a disadvantage in finding work at this age and having been unemployed for a year. And if he’s expecting OP to take on responsibility for all the household expenses after the mortgage is paid off, with no further contribution from him and no safety net, then no, he can’t afford to take a year off. What if she becomes ill or loses her job ?

This appears to be a unilateral decision and given what OP says about his stated intention to be a ‘house husband’ l wouldn’t trust him to get back to work at all. It’s hugely entitled and clearly neither of them have thought it through properly.

You will be mortgage free at 48.

I think some people would consider that quite an achievement. Him "retiring" at 55 cannot have come as a surprise to you. Firstly you said "He has always said over the last few years he’d be a house DH and I can be the earner" so what was discussed at this point when he said that?

He has a pension he can draw down at 55, you must have talked about whether he would access the 25%. You are 7 years younger so of course you were not going to retire at the same time and you sound bitter.

A lot of people in the emergency services "retire" at 55 and then do another job my BIL being one of them. I cannot imagine the things he has seen, the smells he has had to endure, the horrors of his job. He now works part time. My sister is the same age and has dropped to a 4 day week but that is all she can do. No amazing pension for her either.

I assume you had at least one maternity leave whereby he supported you financially. He is still paying for the year he intends to take off and I doubt your remaining mortgage is the £12k. You need to change your mindset on this.

Dh and I have been pension planning for the last few years and he is only 50.

I do think he should take on more household responsibility. If this was my Dh I would be saying he gets a month of lies in, swanning around and then you divide up the household stuff including him doing some school runs and if you need the wrap around care and how long that goes on for.

Your own response is also pretty childish. He clearly can’t afford to retire or take a year off because that necessitates OP working flat out to support them all. He will have left himself with no useful income and reduced his future prospects of finding work by deliberately making himself unemployed for a year at the age of 55.

What good is paying the mortgage off if all the other financial commitments are piled onto the only wage earner ? What about food, children’s costs, holidays, unexpected expenses ? What if OP loses her job or falls ill ? And given what she’s said about his stated intention to be a house husband l wouldn’t trust him to go back to work at all.

That he wants to give up a high stress job that’s taking it’s toll is totally understandable, but the responsible choice would be to secure alternative employment before taking the early retirement, so that he can continue to contribute. As things stand l don’t think this can be regarded as him paying his share in advance. I think he’s found a way to opt out so he can do what he wants while OP supports them all. And you know what that makes him.

He could also just take the year (or many years) off, not pay the mortgage off and continue to pay is £1000/month in contribution, is it better?

He would have a lot more of a safety net but then OP would be paying a lot more on interest over the years and still have the same issue.

He can afford to take a year off (whether he should or not is a personal opinion) and he could do it in a way that solely benefit him or in a way that also benefit OP, which he is choosing to do.

He has worked for 7 years more than OP already, and clearly has gone through some traumatic events at work. Mental health is as important as anything else, and if I was OP and I loved my husband I would make the year off work and like stated in my post, then discuss the possibility of both of them working part time after a year so she feels she can catch a break too or drop hours. Though again, her husband is older and has already worked almost a decade more than her so it’s also okay for them to be at a different stage of life work wise.

It’s also different working full time but not having to worry about childcare, housework and cooking than having to do it all. So I would expect most things to fall upon her DH and not OP

All well and good @frowningnotdrowning but what if he decides he likes living the life of Reilly and free of obligation, deadlines or the grind of life admin. Then the significant burden falls on the OP by default, I can understand the DH not wanting to be in a high stress role, but opting out of any life constraints with no guarantee he will actually feel inclined to get back after a year and leaving it up to the OP doesn't sound like a partnership to me.

If he is paying the mortgage off, like as already been said, this equates to.more than a yearly contribution of 12k. It is not as if he is therefore not paying his way.
The issue i would have is him.making a decision without any discussion. He is not a single man. , In his head he probably thinks he has done more than his ' bit' and contributed so what's the issue?
If he is not working outside the home he has to.pick up the slack for the other things. You say that you.like being at home with the children after school- it's not unreasonable for him to have his turn too.

Before this all happens you.need to discuss what happens when any unexpected costs occur during the year and where the money will come from. If ur 1k contribution includes some savings for this that would mean that for a year he will not be adding to this pot. He may have contributed more than a year's worth via paying off the mortgage, I understand.

Lastly whilst u might be miffed that he won't have to cope with the daily grind, by ur own admission he has had a difficult time. He needs to recover. I would be questioning my own feelings of empathy and tolerance if once the practicalities had been sorted out, if it continued to be such a massive source of discontent OP.

This. Utterly selfish. Some of the responses here are deeply misogynistic.

Similar position. I have another 20 years of work ahead of me and the only upside is having paid off the mortgage I will have money left over for the first time since getting married that I can finally save.

I am not happy about having to work but I have had perhaps more time to deal with my I feelings (it’s been a 3 year plan)

Our agreement now is he does all the laundry and cleaning in the house. We both cook although he is doing more now. I do the morning school run and he does the evening one.

It frees me up some time but you have to reconcile your feelings about still working against him not. It took me an about a year and a half to make it not turn bitter inside.