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?

Does him retiring change your life in any type of way other than the resenting him?

You've raised all your children this far, if he hasn't contributed so far and you don't expect him to in the future, then I don't get it.

He's only going to be more available from here on out, but you seem like you don't want that at this stage ?

Is money gonna be an issue?

You've smashed it all out so far, no point holding a grudge for the final 5 years tbf. He can either do it, or you can continue

But don't worry too much - raising your children, being there, showing up for all the events and thinking they are still going to call you for help is an absolute fucking blessing tbh. You aren't losing out here, you've already done it all my love.

Let go of the stuff you can't control and go with it, do not let the bitterness eat you up, he can take alot more on from now than you think. Not just school stuff but also life admin, the shopping, cooking, and you can take some time for yourself too, you will have a better quality of life from him retiring and the kids growing, I'm sure. Don't let what could have been stop you from appreciating what now is.

Start as you mean to go on

If you do some high school stuff etc after DH retires, he'll expect you to continue

So just drop the rope

This is a turning point for you. Good luck

My dad retired just before we started secondary and he did all the cleaning and it meant we could get a dog! He also took my mum to work (she was a primary school teacher) and collected her every day.

The decision on retirement would ideally be a joint one taking finances, family and both of your wishes into account. For instance is he taking early retirement and given your pension was presumably adversely affected by being a SAHM when will you be able to retire? Will his decision to go early impact on your retirement plans? If there is a large age gap then obviously he will retire earlier than you but if you used an inheritance to provide for yourself as a SAHM why were you not supported by your husband? How are your finances arranged?

The secondary school years are much harder. There’s not as much supervision but the emotional needs are much greater. Kids need support for exams, uni applications, driving in a car without duals controls… Surpport when kids have boyfriends / girlfriends. Making sure they understand contraception and having some available. Support when fall out with boyfriend / girlfriend. Not being too negative about boyfriend / girlfriend in case they get back together…

I don't think the problem is the timing of his retirement. It seems to be that:
-He has never really done any parenting and that you have always got on with it and had low expectations of him.
-He assumes that he will now just please himself and continue to not parent.
-You have completely separate finances.

He is retiring very young, whether it is standard in his profession or not. The people I know eg firefighters/military who were able to retire very young mainly took on new jobs and continued to work. Those that did not had fully grown up children.
He has chosen to have ? 3 children later in life. He is therefore jointly responsible for raising them still.

You need to nip this in the bed. Have a conversation with him (or several) about how he needs to take on responsibility for managing the children's lives: school/hobbies/social lives, and how positive it is that he will have so much time to spend with them. He should be expected to be the default for lifts. He should be shopping, cooking, doing the laundry and keeping the house clean/tidy. It would be completely unfair to expect a partner of a similar age to work a full time job and also do all the above just because he has the £££ to retire so early. Make that clear to him.

You were obviously a young parent! I had my youngest when I was 39.

Not picking on you Oliveoy, but you've listed lots of things which in reality don't take up that much time. Why do people make such a fuss of things like this? It's part and parcel of family life. School admin, or whatever one wants to call it?

'Endless consent forms' - really?
Parents evenings - one per term per child at most.
Awards evenings - surely a pleasure for all concerned?
Concerts - another pleasant evening.
Topping up lunch account/making payments - takes a matter of minutes. Less time than posting on Instragram!
Food tech ingredients - very few food tech lessons during the secondary phase.
Meetings for overseas trips - again, very few and far between.

Because who wants to retire at 55 because they put 5.5 month old twins into childcare?

Depends where you go to school…. There can be plenty of parents events, and concerts feel like several times a week from what I see from others with musical kids. My friends childrens high school has a daily parents email and a weekly parents email summary but you have to read both or you miss things…

Your bitterness is shocking! Maybe he does look forward to spending time with the kids, get on with home duties and enjoy his hobbies.

It sounds you were all too happy to be a sahm but think this privilege should only be yours.

I hope he has a fantastic time.

I get the point about lifts etc but the physical and mental drain of doing everything when they were little left it’s mark on me and now it feels like they are a bit more independent, he gets to chill out

Yes, because working to support a family up to retirement causes no mental or physical strain whatsoever.

FFS

Come on, you don't have concerts 'several times a week', not even here in Wales, and we're very keen on concerts!

The e-mails are a quick check-in, at most.

I just wonder sometimes why people even have children!

Er, @PerfectTiming1 says she used her inheritance to fund her 50% during her years as a SAHM. He was not funding the family alone.
The OP did what sounds like all the parenting while her DH avoided it. That's very poor of him. Also, retiring at 55 is very young and a very privileged position to be in. Many people work 10+ years longer having done what you say. He has not had a hard time.

It doesn't sound as if he has any intention of getting on with 'home duties', having avoided them for 15 years or so. I'm pretty sure the OP knows her own DH better than you do!

Act excited and play dumb and confused why he would expect you to both work full time and be the default parent when he’s at home, not working. Get him to agree now, before he realises how much work teenagers actually involve.

But tbh this last comment has me concerned you have deeper problems if you can’t communicate honestly.

Also, finances absolutely can be completely merged even if one of you is retired. You treat your income streams as family income, whether it’s from salary, pension or investments/inheritance. It all goes into one pot.

They aren’t literally several times a week but they actually are sometimes several times a week and every few weeks. Mini ones develop performance skills as well as bigger ones and if you’re musical and in orchestra, band, choir, jazz band and a smaller ensemble or two (which is normal, I was not musical and at a much less full on school and in all of those, my friends kids are musical with spades and very much in all those) they are pretty frequent!
mine aren’t even high school and once you have more than one child you find you have to be at school Tuesday night and Wednesday night for the different age groups science fair and then the singing concerts to name recent ones. My work has evening meetings and my volunteer roles for children’s things have evening meetings and evenings are when I do the volunteer work and my own exercise and any family admin and housework and we are pretty capped out. But you can sniff and say why bother to have children, you do you.

op, what about hey kids dad is going to be doing your forms and practices starting in 2028, it will be the year of dad. What do you think he needs to learn to cook? We can start practicing.
id kick my dh out if he thought he could just amuse himself while I did everything. What would be the point of a man like that? Why keep him?

So basically his career and pension benefited from you doing all the childcare for free. He didn't even support you while you were at home; instead, you used your inheritance to support yourself. Meanwhile he swanned off to work and accumulated a nice pension for himself while you were spending what should have been your life savings.

I think what he's doing is selfish but you laid the groundwork by acting as if your childcare deserved neither compensation nor a quid pro quo nor respect. Basically, as if it was both valueless AND only YOUR responsibility. Now he's set in that mindset and it's going to be difficult to change his thinking.

I agree. The whole family arrangement so far has been greatly to his benefit. I'm sorry to say it but he sounds like a selfish man and a poor parent.
If you are not be miserable in the future and end up divorced, you need to speak to him. You have let him have his cake and eat it for far too long.

Why do you wonder why people even have children? How is that relevant to what the pp said?

Just act as if he will be doing the parenting. He's retiring, in order to be a sahd.

Not a retiree.

You'll be working... He'll be doing all the graft of a stay at home parent.

You've got the date, so you've got plenty of time to do the messaging and setting of expectations. To everyone, now your father has retired, he is the SAHP and he is the person you call first. All school stuff - H pay attention as you will be taking this over when you retire. Clubs etc, H it's up to you to take them and get to know the routine as that is what you will be doing when you retire. Cleaning, here is where everything is. Vacuuming is twice a week etc etc etc

Set the expectation that when he stops working he will be doing more family chores as he has the spare time to do them.

This is spot on.
You need to announce that seeing as he'll be home with the kids, you can pick up some more work to top up your pension pot for when you retire.
And don't back down

Btw Bondi isn't as nice as it seems, I'd go for Byron bay instead....

Agree, although Byron Bay is nowhere near as nice as it used to be either.