Dh has announced his retirement date and I feel irritated by it

[PerfectTiming1]

DH has been talking about retiring for a few years. He has just told me when he would like to finish work and it coincides with our youngest starting secondary.
I feel a bit irritated by this timing. I was a sahm to our DC until youngest started school. I got a job that allowed flexibility and I did all school admin. Concerts. Assemblies. Sports Days etc.
It just feels a bit… convenient. Like he has waited until the DC need (significantly) less support to then be available. AIBU?

My H announced his retirement and just does .... nothing. Im younger and still working. I'm om the brink of leaving him as he's just very dull and I've got lots going on!

Well lucky you and lucky kids.
You have been around in their primary years, got to be at home with them and now in Secondary they get Dad.
There is a downside to anything if you look hard enough.

That’s ok. You’re working and that means yes he can do his hobbies but he must be around for picking kids up from school when they are ill, food shopping, making meals for everyone, housework, gardening, running kids to after school activities.

he will soon find he is busier than he was when he worked.

I feel for you but you need to find a way to let that go. You can’t change what has happened. You’ll either make yourself or both of you miserable if you continue down this path.

Yes.
This is the biggest problem the OP faces.
Not minor bullshit about school admin and 'on call parenting'.
What does the latter even mean?
The children need picking up once or twice a week?

Aren't parents, if they're half decent, always on call as parents?

I’d be fuming op, I get it.

things run differently in my home though. My dh was the stay at home parent for a good while. I was the higher earner. I could have retired next year but I’ll carry on (part time these days due to mobility issues) as we are topping up his pension from years lost to him being out of work.

It’s only fair and that’s probably what your dh should now be doing

No problem with him doing his hobbies but he needs to do them around the family. I really don’t get these types of men, DH is 50 and he would just get on with it. I would definitely have a meal waiting for me at home and he would turn his sauron like gaze onto DC’s education (they are so lucky he’s not retired).

You don’t have a magical house elf so he’s going to have to start pitching in isn’t he. I would have been like “oh thank fuck, I’m never cooking again”. Start divying up the chores immediately.

No offence but this notion of finding life busier than a full time job is nonsensical.

Any reasonably organised, intelligent and able person need not spend an average of more than a few hours a day on all of them.

Unless he becomes a complete fusspot where even the most trivial stuff is pondered over for ages thus turning the OP right off him.

I've such a difficult day doing a load of washing and doing the dishes darling..

I’m in a similar position. Was a SAHM for 18 years, I’ve returned to FT work to fund kids through uni. My youngest has just finished A Levels and DH retired as the exams started. We’re older parents and he is older than me. I’ve made it very clear that he is now in charge of the home and everything associated with it. We have a dog walker 2 days a week for when he went into the office, he said he’ll keep the dog walker so he can have days out, he didn’t like it when I pointed out I had 2 kids and never had a dog walker for 18 years. The dog walker will be going at the end of the summer. DH has actually stepped up and I really didn’t expect him to. He’s doing the housework (he’s getting better at it every week), cooking dinner (he’s worked out lasagna will
last for 2 nights), a bit of gardening, along with walking the dogs. I do feel a bit bad as I’m not sure where he will fit in hobbies but he can work that out and see if it fits into my schedule, which is what I did for all those years. A couple of years ago he actually told me that the mental load doesn’t exist, I’m enjoying him realising it does - eg arranging DC’s travel insurance while they’re on their way to the airport. It’s taking patience and I’m biting my tongue, I hate the way the dishwasher is loaded, so I just add my own dirty stuff in his disordered way and leave him to. I figure it’s no longer my circus or my monkeys.

You're missing the fact that when dad is 55 their youngest child is 11. Fuck off to Bondi beach with your husband in that situation, and hope social services deal with the children?

Also if you want, you could back to work full time to build your pension given you don’t seem to have fully pooled funds.

I retired after DH but children had already left Uni. DH always planned to stay working till this point so that we could financially support both kids. I carried on longer because I enjoyed my job and because I had not got a full pension due to the job I had to do at the start of our relationship.

I had been telling him that things would change once he stopped work. He knew shopping would be his thing - he does enjoy going for walks to the supermarket. He volunteered doing the floor. He does his own laundry (bit bizarre for me when our things could go together in washer but hey his choice). I no longer had to try and juggler things like plumbers visiting around my lunch break.

So the drip feed about changing responsibilities has to start early. But also you have to accept that his version of doing tasks may not be like yours. DH never got the floors as clean as I would like them. I did not comment, I did not criticize. I let him get on with it. Floors were no longer in my headspace.

The kids will have to be trained to go to their father.

OP it is your behavior that will shape this.

You’re the problem here not him. You need to look inward and discover why you’re so bitter towards someone you claim to love

What would you want him to do?

Anything at all that is more than watching sport on telly and scrolling through FB all day. He's 62, not 82!

I’d be saying, ‘That’s great. You can take over all the school and life admin now. Fab!’

Presumably return to work.
Call me sexist, but a man not working when men of similar age still are turns a woman off more than it does the other way around.

It may not matter when two people are in OAP territory but at middle age there's still a bit of a drive to find somebody else.

My husband did a similar rug pull (that is how it felt anyway) and I changed my mindset to be more like him, ie putting my own needs first instead of some vague idea that “my time will come.

to be honest, kids need a LOT of support in the teen years in a way you may not yet foresee (small kids small problems, big kid big problems) and got our boys it worked out well to have a very hands on dad who was around a lot

In the meantime I worked on setting my own boundaries and following my own path a bit more.

Try to make life work for you NOW instead of some imagined future date. Also, why did you have to “pay” for your time looking after the kids at home with your inheritance, did your husband not support you? Did he use your time and money and effort to set up his own financial freedom? You guys not share finances????

Are you jealous because he is stopping work and you aren't stopping. I feel this is the issue here and not that you did the satay at home thing

You don’t need to look inward at all, haven’t you been reading? You need to just read a few lines and go doesn’t parent, doesn’t do stuff around the home, didn’t financially support his wife to look after her kids as the only parent who was, and now that’s he’s comfortably off because he’s worked like he doesn’t have kids and saves through not funding his family, he’s planning to retire, look after himself and do bugger all for his family as that’s his working wife’s second job. She’s bitter because he’s an asshole, it’s not rocket science.

Turn it on its head.
He will now be able to do all the family admin and you will be the going out to work, prioritising work person.
He does need some hobbies but they need to fit round family.
You need a long talk about how this will look in practice and who is doing what.
You then really need him to do the family admin, yes he may need prompting but you need to leave him to sink or swim.

I don't understand why you are annoyed? If you had an inheritance that funded you staying at home with children (so you are trying to make out your husband wasn't carrying the financial load) you clearly chose to stay at home, you could have funded nursery and returned to work, but you didn't want to. Now he's planning to retire you sound jealous some how? Staying at home with children is hardly taxing compared to working ft and having small children. We have 3 primary aged children and both work ft, they are in school all day, much like they are in high school, I'm not sure there's a big difference between the 2? Our kids won't stop their hobbies when they leave primary school so we'll still be driving them around most evenings, but they are still in school 6+ hours a day. So what are you actually annoyed about? Him having time to enjoy himself in the day when I assume you still have to work?

You say “fair enough” but this is not fair at all

he used YOUR SAH labour and YOUR inheritance to fatten up his OWN pension pot that he is now going to use just for himself and hood own benefit

not a true “partner” in my book

Has he actually said he's doing no parenting and only doing hobbies or have you made a presumption this is his plans. Maybe you need to have a conversation and lay out expectations. He will be able to do hobbies and still do stuff around the house, parenting etc. just as sahm have time to themselves when kids are in school.

Not his fault you chose to be a martyr though. Never do things that cause you resentment, it’s absolutely corrosive. He can do everything round the house though, that will be good surely? Mines retired and had a little job four days a week- does all the cleaning and shopping.