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?

Just talk together about your concerns. Personally life got more difficult for us when kids were at secondary school not easier!

FYI Having children changes all equations.

For God's sake stop with the martyrdom!
He's now the SAHP and you make sure he behaves like it. You're at work, he's at home. Change your mindset. Just be delighted he's taken this decision as now it frees you up to concentrate on your career and you'll have a dinner waiting for you when you get home!!

She isn't bitter. She's worried.

I think its sweet that you think the shitwork stops when the children reach secondary age. Honestly, if you're wanting to get back to work then his timings perfect.

He might say yes and mean it and then do it really badly 🤔

Sounds like you could have afforded childcare and or a cleaner if you didn’t want to do it yourself.

I think YABU to resent him sorry. If you’ve been SAHM until youngest is 11 then what have you been doing while they’ve all been at school? You’ve done quite a bit of relaxing I’m sure. Now it’s his turn.

You're confused. He's retiring from his job, not family life. Just tell him "Im going back to work so youll need to pick up x/y/z". He'll have time to do his share plus some hobbies.

That makes it sound harder than it is.

mine left the house at 7.45 and came in at 4.15pm

the rest of the day was a nice quiet time!

i ageee with the OP. The timing is convenient.

I’d be clear that if he isnt working it’s his turn to do the house/kids. Make sure all the contacts for clubs/school etc are all his phone number and direct the kids to him. Any late night pick ups he can do because he’s not working.

I think my main surprise is that you say he announced it, you are a couple, did he not discuss this with you first?

Because had he, then you would have had an ideal chance to discuss handing over the baton and explaining what "retirement" looks like?

This is it, isn't it? Can you as a couple afford it? If you can, first hurdle jumped. Then you have to talk and draw new lines.

It all sounds pretty good to me. You got to be a SAHM until the youngest started school - which is a pretty fortunate position to be in. And then had a flexible job that enabled you to go to school sports days etc throughout primary - seems like an ideal situation again. And now your DH is retiring at 55 and gets to support the secondary years and you can change to a less flexible/more senior job if you want to. Sounds like it's all panned out pretty well overall.

My DDs are Year 10 and 11 (just finished her GCSEs) and they’ve needed me loads more than when they were in nursery and primary.
Make sure you delegate.

My OH retired nearly 10 yrs ago, from a similar line of work and with the same comments of having time for himself etc. I took that in much the same way as you, that he was going to sit on his backside all day and I’d still be picking up the lions share of housework and child care. The reality was so very different, whilst he still considered himself retired he was more than content doing all the kids taxi-ing, picking up his grandkids, fetching shopping, even housework, and still found time to take up new hobbies. He just couldn’t sit and do nothing, although 10 yrs on he is managing just this every now and then! I found it really helpful having someone pick up all the ad hoc tasks, running around, collecting kids, grandparents etc, gave us more free time at the weekends. Your OH may well find it very difficult to clock out of family life into his own version of retirement and in reality probably won’t want to when it actually arrives. I know why your worried, just hope your experience follows the same as mine xx

I have 9 dc over 16.. trust me it's much harder once they hit secondary school...

Seems obvious to me, you physically hand off all responsibility to him. Give him a list of his responsibilities and if your child defaults to you, send them his way.

As an ex-cop who retired at 52 and went back to work to fund DC at university but nothing to do with policing, I absolutely think you should be having some difficult conversations.
He should not expect to retire and just do hobbies whilst you work an continue parenting.
this is your time now as well - discuss together what that’s going to look like.
Before you do, have a think about what YOU want now, as it sounds like you resent what you have had to do to enable his career and ultimately his early retirement.
His retirement if he chooses not to work is a gift to both of you for the next steps

Not all partners in this role are unable to specify and insist on what they need and follow through when red lines are crossed. You can do it. i'm not dismissing the difficulty of challenging the family narrative but you can do it and you must be clear : your youngest gong into secondary is your time to go and earn outside the family household. Great that their dad is now going to be there to take the baton of bringing up the teens from the other parent who had been thus far responsible for raising the tinies, the toddlers and the tweens. Hooray for his retirement to spend time being a fully-present parent. You make your plans and you compromise them no more than he has ever had to compromise his own desires for you.

you make it clear to him before he retires that he is retiring from his job - not his responsibilities as a parent - and that you expect him to step up and take on the mantle of default parent

That. There's plenty of room for him to chill and have hobbies, as well as being the default parent.

My late husband had to retire on I'm health grounds when our kids were in their teens. We didn't need to have that conversation. He just took on a lot of that stuff, and it was really helpful.

Obviously I didn't set out to, or want to not parent at all, but his availability during the day and willingness to be the provider of lifts etc (as well as being the person who cooked dinner and took on much of the life admin) made my life much easier. And that continued when the eldest went to uni, which was great as he could take her and pick her up regularly.

And he still chilled (which he needed to, health-wise) took daytime courses that interested him, and occasionally took short break trips.

It's not an all or nothing thing @PerfectTiming1

My dad retired when I was 10. He then did all the housework, school runs, ferrying us to friends' and clubs, while my mum worked part time (after a few years it became more like full time, but she loved her job and stayed doing it till she was 70.) It was great having my dad so involved in my life and we are still really close 35+ years later. He didn't do any of those things before he retired.

He's retiring from work, not parenting!
if you continue to be the default parent, the dynamics will never change. It's time for him to step up. Work out what you want from now and ensure it's in place before his retirement takes effect.

It was great having my dad so involved in my life and we are still really close 35+ years later.

I would definitely say the same happened for my late husband and DDs. He even took each of them in turn for short holidays, to have quality one to one time. And their memories of those holidays are very precious to my DDs.

I like this post. Sounds much more like the men I know.

You need to sit down and discuss expectations for how your day to day lives will work once he is retired. I would expect him to do the majority of the day to day admin/lifts etc. Same as you did when you funded yourself so you would have more time to spend on your kids.

He quite possibly has no idea how home life runs because he has had a magic fairy doing it all for years.

Start by asking him how he thinks a typical day will go - in detail. from moment of waking up to going to bed. See whether he mentions things like checking ds has lunch and kit, dropping ds to bus, picking up ds for drs' appointments, doing the grocery shopping, prepping dinner.