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.

Agree. It didn’t dawn on me until l’d read the whole post that the poster is a man. Very brave (or stupid) of him to come on to a womens’ forum and essentially turn the whole issue around so that OP is the selfish arse and not her DH, who has basically planned a retirement he can’t afford and which will put their finances on a knife edge.

Do you honestly believe you'd give the same response if it was a woman who had a job like his? That you wouldn't believe the woman had thought this through and could believe that she was justified.

Honestly, I have no time for people who dismiss what men go through as trivial. If he knows their is food in the fridge and petrol in the tank and he needs time off, the world needs to listen. That man is going through something and he's preparing his family for his recovery period.

You know, for an overly feminised "feels are facts" world that the 4th wave has created, society still can't gather enough compassion to see men's mental health as a real concern.

I was thinking the same.

@Luannaa

This.

The arrangement needs to adjust with this retirement. And the fact that this is not what he is thinking at least a bit is concerning, especially as they’re still quite young.

Massive opportunity for resentment to breed otherwise. I’m sure you also work hard, and carry more of the load by the sounds of it too.

He needs to step up as a dad and get involved, learn how to manage what he struggles with. Just sheer avoidance of doing it should not be an option anymore.

Take leave if you’re having family holiday time, sure, but not if he’s buggering off for his hobbies, but also take some ‘you’ time off too.

Does he need trauma therapy? Then maybe some, ‘right, what now?’ life coaching?

My concern is he’ll fall into a depression when the novelty of retirement has worn off, typically about 3months in, so watch out for that. How long will he hold the ‘but I paid off the mortgage off’ card over you?

God luck!!

The hours may reduce but the bills don’t. The £950 they are saving by paying the mortgage off is meaningless because there is now only one wage - OP’s. The plain fact is that he simply can’t afford to do it.

So many responders are bashing this man while giving opinions on surface level details.

Has anyone, including the OP, thought that this man might have some psychologic issues or trauma that's causing him to recede?

Seriously, if this was a wife and mother doing this, how would you respond? I guarantee you'll be telling her husband to be compassionate and have her seek mental health advice.

Men deserve better and it looks like this forum won't be the source of that.

Also this.

@Luannaa

I’m sorry to say, but I think the ‘wannabe cocklodger’ is potentially an accurate phrase!!

Be careful!!

@Luannaa I also would now vote YANBU. **

My response would be exactly the same if it were a woman. If you have to shift the financial load onto someone else to achieve what you want, then you can’t afford to do it. Simply paying off the mortgage, which represented 50% of the outgoings doesn’t reduce the overall financial commitment because you’ve also lost 50% of the income.

it’s understandable that he would want to take early retirement due to the stress of hiss job, but also entirely unacceptable that the result will be to shift all of the financial responsibility onto his partner, who has contributed 50/50 up to this point. There’s nothing stopping him from securing alternative employment before he takes the retirement package so that he can contribute equally to their joint reduced outgoings.

He will know there’s food in the fridge and petrol in the tank because it will be OP putting it there for all of them. If he’s forcing her into taking on that responsibility alone and indefinitely, then very soon his own mental health won’t be the only thing he has to worry about.

He isn’t in a good position to retire early. He has dependent children. If he takes his lump sum now he will significantly diminish his retirement income. His wife has poor provision herself. He will probably not find it easy to find a job in his mid fifties after a year off, even if he wants to. It’s not been properly thought through by the sound of it, and he isn’t working as a team to develop a sensible retirement plan which benefits the family unit.

I would have written exactly the same to a woman.

He has children. You don't get time off from being a father.

He is burnt out by his job, which is shifts and stressful. He would find a 9-5 job shelf stacking peaceful and restorative in contrast. He doesn't need to stop work altogether to recover from the previous job. If he is so ill he can't do this, then he needs to see a doctor to obtain medical help to enable him to do so. I don't think this is the case or he would have gone for retirement on the grounds of ill health, which would have got him a payout and a bigger pension.

He has always been unreasonable in his expectation of how much of the household and child duties he expects his wife to carry. She has been foolish to allow it. It is double double unreasonable to expect to have no job, reduce the family's income so they can no longer have a holiday and require his wife to pay for additional child care.

I'd love to hear your explanation of how he's preparing his family for his recovery period. The mortgage was paid off without her consent using money which was half hers. Her future retirement income both with him and as a widow have been reduced, without her consent. Her and her family's standard of living has been reduced overnight. Prepared? For a future divorce, maybe. I suspect that's actually what he's future planning here.

Nobody is bashing him. We just see this for what it actually is. A man looking after his own interests at the expense of the woman in his life. Happens all the time. Women have mental health problems too - l haven’t seen many proposing to give up work to sort them out, while pushing the entire financial and mental load onto their partners and having no regard for the children involved. Which is what is happening here.

Why hasn’t he sought mental health advice before now instead of waiting until he can no longer face the stress of his job ? Hey hasn’t he changed jobs ? Where is the responsibility we all have for our own mental wellbeing?

You’re a man on a womens’ forum, suggesting that women should take on the responsibility of mens’ mental health to the point where they are forced to accept a unilateral decision resulting in a sea change in their circumstances, and you expect that forum to support you ?

You say he can’t cope with the kids, but that was while he had a stressful job. Now he’s retired/SAHP he needs to take on the childcare as they’re his kids as well.

edited to add that while you have young kids, there’s no such thing as ‘retired’ just working parent or stay at home parent.

This.👏👏👏

In no way could I describe what he is doing to his wife and children "surface level details".

I have three good friends who were police officers who retired at 55 and another who is married to a serving officer who is about to retire. If he is as bad as you suggest he would almost certainly have been spotted by the team around him. Everyone in the police knows someone who has retired early on the grounds of ill health with a better pension than just retiring at 30 years service, and that's the direction I would have expected this to go.

I think you'll find that even on this female biased forum there would be plenty of us saying to a woman "you plan to do what to your children? ".

while you have young kids, there’s no such thing as ‘retired’ just working parent or stay at home parent.
I think this is really important - your dh is acting like his only part in this drama was the £1000 per month he paid into the pot. That's not the end of it. He does not get to ride off into the sunset to play at his hobbies. He has young kids, it doesn't matter if he's 55 or 65 - he had kids late in life and now he has to bloody well man up and parent those kids.

I think the majority of parent would like to help their kids get off to a good start in life - find ways to financially support them through uni and buying their first property. There's not many who think whilst their kids are at primary school - job done, I'm off to fish for a few years, to hell with supporting them, it's all about me.
And if he needs a few months off - why didn't he take leave? I think he is being completely irresponsible. His decision will impact the whole family.

Yeah, it's not 'because you're a man', it's because of your misogynistic attitude and language. 'Estrogen laden' indeed. You're not bringing some kind of rational approach here so stop deluding yourself.

I haven’t read all the comments but the ones I have don’t seem to be bashing the man. The votes are strongly in his favour.
Personally I think they need to look at this with a financial advisor - maybe there is a better way of doing things eg pay most of the mortgage off but have some left to go towards bills and a tiny mortgage? I’m sure the plan will be the best but what doesn’t sit right with me is that the OP is going to be entirely responsible for bills whereas both used to jointly be responsible for them. Their quality of life will take a drop because he can’t / won’t contribute towards the bills. Yes he may be paying off the mortgage but it may well be their original plan benefitted both if they both worked to normal retirement age and shared the bills and whilst I don’t see an issue with DH retiring and it sounds like it is supported fully by OP, I think a bigger conversation needs to be had because at the moment it seems like the DH will be able to enjoy his hobbies and have a nice relaxing life whilst OP continues working (and has probably equally worked as hard as DH has throughout the years) and her quality of life and the children’s will suffer eg no holidays, and she will still be picking up school run and other elements of keeping the home together.

It just doesn’t seem very fair to me! A better balance is needed otherwise this will cause resentment and could have a significant impact on the marriage / family life!

All mothers and fathers have a responsibility to look after children they have brought into the world. OP’s husband wants to check out for a year (if not more). At least up till
now he has contributed financially. He now only wants to think about himself.

I’d say the same to a man or woman.

Spot on. From what OP has said, this reads more like him seeing the retirement package as a means to get what he wants, without thinking it through properly. He will be reducing their immediate and future circumstances and leaving them woefully unprepared for older age, and he simply hasn’t given a thought to the needs of their children. It will all be on OP to provide.

I’m at a loss to understand why posters would think that simply paying off the mortgage on their home would be such a great deal for OP, when she would be left with the sole responsibility of ensuring they could afford to keep living in it.

Do you know what? We can tell you are a man just because of the way you are talking to at us.

Stop emoting and start thinking.

I'm trying to slow down the army of pitchfork wielding hate factories

the din of estrogen-laden bad advice

You, sir, are a patronising misogynist.

This may very well be the case but his aversion to his own children is not the result of seeing horrible shit over the course of his career. He has the benefit of his wife working FT all their lives together, paying half the bills and doing most of the domestic chores whilst he's also worked FT, pushed the hoover round and done some cooking. (It also sounds like she earns less than him but still contributes 50% financially and 90% of the domestic chores). That arrangement isn't trauma driven. It's driven by innate misogyny. And him telling her that this is how it's going to be or I'll spend my lump sum on golfing or holidays is a form of threat to get her to acquiesce to his plan. He's just not that great a partner or father and that's who he is, traumatised or not.

Agree, if it was a SAHM the replies would be different, but it's a man so the bashing continues.

If he's at home OP, he has to do the SAH duties, not liking them isn't a reason.

Most people don't like house jobs but needs to be done.