AIBU to retire significantly before my husband

[Iampondering]

So this is planning ahead as we are early 40s (he is 18 months older) but a bit of an argument came up last night and I genuinely don’t know if IABU.

Context, I am the main breadwinner and always have been. Currently I earn 3 x my DH’s salary but that has been more at some points. He is not ambitious at all and is very happy in his low paying job. I am very ambitious and have always had well paying but very high stress / long hours roles. Housework and childcare is split 50/50. All money goes into a joint pot, there is no mine vs his.

We are financially very comfortable due to my work (and generally not being big spenders) and should be on track to retire early, by 60ish. I’m feeling increasingly burnt out however and was musing about retiring earlier or going very part time at 55ish, but him continuing to work until 60 so we don’t eat into too much capital too soon.

He strongly objected to this and said we should retire together. I wondered what people thought? I appreciate it’s a very first world problem to have and we are very very lucky.

You plan by getting a good pension in place and building up as much savings. You can’t plan for health. There’s no sense in having an argument 15 years before when you have no idea how you’ll feel physically or mentally at the time.

As long as you’re not on any ‘final salary’ type pension then I think if you’re stressed now then you should do something a lot sooner than 10/15 years away!

It's up to you what you do with your time.and energy. I wouldn't be feeling pressured to keep going if you're burnt out snd feel like you've out earned your partner during your career. Sadly, that's where the issue is. You have earned significantly more this more in a pension etc. If you can do it. Do it. Personally I'm older than my partner by six years. I work in property development. He's a teacher. I have passive income to replace a salary from property. And do one project a year which pays me five time his gross salary. Massive disparity. He likes his job. I don't pressure him to retire. But also don't see why I would continue to work for both of us while he did nothing. Do things on your own terms and if more income is required due to you reducing hours or income then it's a shared challenge. Not yours alone.

Thank you all for the comments - loads of interesting comments. To try and answer a few questions:

Why thinking about this now? I’m a planner, and I think any form of early retirement necessitates activity planning to save / increase pension pot contributions. Yes there is no guarantees as to future health / job losses etc but better to have a plan IMO that has to pivot than no plan at all.

Burn out - ironically I dropped to 4 days a week a couple of years ago and ended up working the 5th day for free. I regularly work 60 hour weeks - it’s just not possible to be part time at my level / in my industry

How can we afford to retire early - we live in a cheap area of the country and (happily for us!) have very boring lives is probably the easiest answer 😂

Him saying “no” - to be fair to him it wasn’t as explicit as that. He just looked very unhappy and seemed really sad / disappointed about it

He is a really good man, genuinely. I just don’t think he truly “gets” the weight of responsibility I carry day in day out and how unrelentingly exhausting that can be.

I think the suggestions of picking up some consultancy as a mid ground are a really good shout.

Apologies if I’ve left any other questions unanswered by accident!

@Iampondering are you sure he's "very happy in his low paid job" rather than just plodding along?

If it's actually low paid surely it will be a drop in the ocean and not make much odds when he retires?

Could you put more into his private pension from the joint pot (no, of course you don't have to, but it's one option).

If he did more of the childcare and kept things running domestically (or moved around the country/ world) to facilitate your career I'd say putting money into his pension pot to recognise that he's sacrificed his earnings and pension for you to maximise yours would be morally the right thing to do, and not doing so if you can afford to would be pretty shitty. However if everything domestic has really always been 50/50 and he genuinely hasn't enabled you to work as much as you do by being very flexible and carrying extra domestic and child duties then this doesn't apply.

He is as happy in his current job as I’ve ever seen him, but would rather not be working if it were a choice.
Re childcare, one of the perks of my job / seniority is that I get to WFH 4 days a week. So I do most school drop offs, whack some food in the slower cooker in the morning etc as he is out of the home much longer hours than I am.

His salary pays half our living costs (mortgage free.) Mine pays the other half, holiday, then all the rest is split into 2 x ISAs for us both and pensions.

So whilst a drop in the ocean it would still be 50% of our living costs if I was retired.

He's being unreasonable.

As a first step, I think I'd work on helping him to better understand the amount of stress your job brings.

Can he take his private pension at 55? There must be a lot in pensions and investments from what you described.

It'd be soul destroying to have most of your low wage from a job you'd rather not be doing going into paying 50% of living costs when you have enough in savings and investments to retire at the same time as your spouse, who has retired but essentially told you to keep working because she (or he, makes no difference) earnt more so gets to decide that you can't retire yet.

It's fine for you to retire whenever you want to retire.
It's not fine for you to tell him he has to work an extra five years beyond that.

I don't think consultancy is necessarily easier. I say this as someone currently sitting at my consultancy job. You have to be super flexible and adaptable and able to hit the ground running and pick things up really quickly. It's very stressful. You have to learn new systems and where things are stored and quirks of the business frequently. Generally companies get you in because they are under pressure and struggling for resource so they don't necessarily have time to bring you up to speed as thoroughly as you would like. I think its far more stressful than a regular job where you know how everything works.

So you earn 3 times more than him, you’ve had children with him (dealing with pregnancy, birth and maternity leave), and you are in a very stressful job that is probably having a long term impact on your health. While he is happy in his low paying, low stress job?

He has just told you exactly what he thinks of you OP. He doesn’t care about your health and is happy to ride on your coattails.

YANBU No doubt you would have been able to retire even earlier if you hadn’t had to prop him up financially. He is being very selfish.

Will you have protected retirement age of 55?

Put more into your pension now - you’ll get the tax relief and will give yourself the best chance of retiring at 57 (or it might change to 58). If you are feeling burnout now in your job you’ll really appreciate having the choice when you get to that age

Or even make sure you’re putting into Isas in your name each year to give yourself the chance to retire even earlier than 57/58

If he is earning much less then it might be that you can both retire early and not miss his salary so much?

it would annoy me slightly that he doesn’t take on more stress to get more money but if you have an otherwise good relationship and don’t feel resentful of it then enjoy early retirement together!

How is he selfish paying working longer hours than she does, outside the home while she works from home and paying for family outings 50/50?

He's not asking her not to retire, he's disappointed that she doesn't want him to retire at the same time but to continue working. It sounds as though they could afford to both retire but she wants him to keep paying 50/50 from earnings rather than use his private pension and ETAs.

As a breadwinner I think you plan more holistically for you both. It sounds your plan comes from a sense of pressure rather than a desire to punish your partner for not earning as much as you. The best plan would consider you both more centrally but it almost certainly hasn’t been made yet. On a good wage with good savings I would be looking to go earlier for both of you. Have a big overhaul - house, finance, lifestyle and listen to puts of pension podcasts then plan together.

We are in a similar financial set up as Op. I ‘retired’ early, ended up continuing to work PT for a further 6 years. Fully retire in 2 weeks. DH fully retired a year ago after being made redundant, having done serious health scares and just not loving life. Honestly, iIt was the best thing that we did.
It’s not about who earns what, it’s about quality of life. It’s only since he stopped working that he’s really had a weight lifted off his shoulders. Looking back, he was so anxious, unhappy and generally hating his life. Now it’s like he’s 10 years younger.

Wise words

Hi OP. Similar situation on the financial side. Do it. I got an IFA last year to help me plan to part-retire when I'm 50-55. I know full well that my partner cannot at the same time, and will likely be working low end jobs leading up to his state pension and paltry private pension when the time comes - such is life. I imagine at your level / wage, you've earnt it, so f*ck it, you do you and retire early and enjoy it. I plan too and hope you do too!

Terrible advice. Are you retired?

Quite.

Retire by stealth, when you've had enough tell him you've been laid off, promise to find another job but dont actually look, lock all your money away somewhere & make him pay the bills.
In other words, think like a man.

Fucking hell. Are you being serious or is this just dark humour?

I’d be royally fucked off if DH said “I’ll retire early, but I will need you to carry on working so that we don’t eat into the capital too much”.

I am shocked at the number of posters suggesting that 40's is too young to be having these discussions, and planning. WTF!!

OP, you should absolutely be having these discussions and planning for what you want for the next 20-30 years. I'm early 40's and started to plan for retirement a couple of years ago, having paid into a private pension a few years before that. I got an IFA to help me plan and be more tax efficient, savings, getting a will done this year for my house etc. etc. etc.

Please don't pay attention to questions and comments about your age. You're 100% doing the right thing and setting yourself up for a good few last decades irrespective of your husband / partner / boyfriend situation now and in years to come. Best advice I ever got was from my grandmother - never rely on a man financially. Keep going! I'll be here doing the same, like a smart woman that can in 2026!