Husband wants me to change my job - who is BU?

[RetirementWoes]

NC for this as it's outing.

DH is high earner, but hates his job. Wants to retire early (mid-40s now).

I gave up my job when I had kids to stay home by mutual agreement with DH. When kids were in last year of junior school I got a job as a TA which I love. But it pays poorly compared to my previous job.

DH wants me to give up TA job and go back to my old role (I would need retraining and commute to London so longer hours) so we can retire early.

I can see his point, but I love my TA job supporting children (I was relieved to give up my old job when I became pg!).

AIBU to stay in my TA job that I love at the expense of DHs early retirement? I wouldn't be able to retire early as my pension is only worth peanuts!

(For full disclosure, I live for now, having lost a close family member to cancer in their 50s who didn't get to retirement age having worked hard for their pension!)

I think yabu. I guess you must have the skills and education to earn more money seeing as you have done so in the past. I think I'd be annoyed with my DH if he chose a lower paying job when he had the potential to have a higher paying one, and vice versa.
It doesn't sound very equitable

OP hrth but can't work out how old your DC are now.
If you can't downsize then he can't retire. I'm pretty sure running a house, looking after DC's and holding on to your job even if low paid, is your part of keeping the family well provided for.
He needs to carry on too until the time is right for him to retire.
It doesn't sound like you're there just yet.

Hrth on this occasion means I have read all of your posts OP.

If you’re out of the house 12 hours a day will he be picking up all the household chores and childcare stuff? Who would have the kids over the holidays?

If you wanted to do teacher training you could look at school centred teacher training. Some schools will pay you a salary and you train with a training provider over a year a lot of the time you can work for a PGCE alongside gaining your QTS. I assume you have a degree.

If your husband hates his job so much he needs to think about changing it.

I’m confused so you have 2 kids and you took 10 years off to be a sahm? With his agreement and he supported you? Before becoming a TA?

If so I do think he’s carried a lot of the financial burden and is entitled to wanting you to earn more but equally he could take matters into his own hands and work part time or change jobs.

Has your DH actually done the maths on you returning to your old job or is he just taking your salary from when you quit and added 5/10 years of pay increases to that?

You’re going to have to retrain to go back to your old job (besides the fact that retraining for something you hated seems ridiculous), so you’ve got the cost of that. A junior salary plus buying a season ticket into London, is there going to be much difference in your take home pay straight away? You might need to look up the costs of training and junior salaries and show him it’s not going to bring in as much cash as he thinks. He also needs to be aware that you might not progress as quickly this time. You will have men and women who are both younger and don’t have young families to balance. You don’t want it as much as last time, which is going to make progressing a really hard slog.

I think there are a few compromises but he has to compromise too. It’s not just you changing your work/life balance that is needed here. So you increasing your earning potential comes with an increased amount of household management from him. You took on all the household management so that he could progress in his career. If he wants you to progress in yours (for his benefit), he needs to take on the bulk of the household management. If his job doesn’t work with the household management he needs to make a decision whether he changes jobs or continues to leave the household management to you and you have a job you enjoy.

A couple of options - you get your teaching qualification, it’ll be long hours and so DH needs to do more household management. He will still get the benefit of you being off school holidays should your kids be young enough to need it. You pick a different area altogether, something with a slightly higher earning potential that you might not love as much but don’t hate as much as your old job with a short commute. You pick up extra work in the form of tutoring or running a school club.

I don’t know - I have some sympathy for the husband here as I’m in that position myself. DH is mostly a SAHD (we have one child at primary school) but earns about 10k a year basically doing his hobby which he loves. I work full time in quite a stressful job earning around 10 times that.

I don’t hate my job but I do sometimes feel that it would be nice to have the option to cut my stress down a bit. If DH had a “proper” job then I could either retire earlier or take a pay cut to move to a lower stress sector.

** It seems odd that you cannot see it is unfair to live the life you want knowing he is funding you at the expense of his own happiness/mental health.
Yabu for this.**

^I agree. Why does OP get to have an easy job? She’s already been a SAHM for 10 years.

I was in this situation- I was a freelance artist, lived my job and with freedom.to structure my time but with an income that varied month to month, and my partner earned a regular income but worked 12 hour day and night shifts. We moved from London to a less expensive seaside town, paying off our mortgage and enabling her to do a small part time job. She died less than three years after the move but at least experienced life by her beloved sea, with time to lean back.

*loved my job

@drpet49

** It seems odd that you cannot see it is unfair to live the life you want knowing he is funding you at the expense of his own happiness/mental health. Yabu for this.**

^I agree. Why does OP get to have an easy job? She’s already been a SAHM for 10 years.

You say this like being a SAHM is an easy job?

If OP goes for the 12 hour day and commute into London do you think her H is going to pick up the slack and do all the after school care, school runs, holiday child care etc that OP does now? Doesn't sound like it to me.

When comparing the workload of both parents it's important to include all the household stuff as well as their paid work.

It’s not an easy job but it’s not the same as working full time in a stressful job particularly if the kids are at school 8-3

Having children and providing them with a 3 bed semi + sahm + activities + help with uni, etc - sorry, that costs money. If your dc are now grown and gone, fair enough. You can both live for now in lower paid jobs that make you happy in a 2 bed flat.

You two need to decide how to make enough to fund the life you find acceptable ( which may not be the life you have) and not be miserable and resentful.

I think funding your life with someone else's unhappiness is unreasonable. And that's what you have been doing. He is also expecting you to step into his financial role after over a decade out of that earning power, which is also unreasonable.

I think your dc are in for a big change in their lifestyles.

I never went back to my old job after being a SAHM and then a TA.

I'd never 'enjoyed' the old job. It was OK and paid very well but took up too much time - long days, trips abroad - and wasn't compatible with parenthood. Even with older DC I couldn't face it again.

You could try teacher training - a PGCE only takes a year (you said you'd have to retrain anyway) but the job is VERY different to being a TA, even an HLTA. It takes over every evening and most of the weekend. I couldn't hack it despite the holidays.

In our situation DH and I both changed jobs. We looked at moving areas - same school catchment but cheaper area - so that DH didn't have to earn so much. He is now doing a similar role in a smaller company and the culture is massively different.

I also stopped being a TA, the pay was too low, and got a different job which will never pay as much as my old one but is a lot more than a TA role. It's fine. Not too stressful and doesn't encroach too much on the rest of my life.

In your situation your DH definitely needs to change jobs. Life is too short to spend most of your waking hours doing something you hate. Too many of my family members have died before 60 so you can't count on only living your life once you retire. It may never happen.

I don't think your husband should expect you to do a job that makes you miserable in order to ensure he doesn't have to do a job that makes him miserable.

Seems kind of self-defeating really, it's like his misery is just being passed back to you.

The root problem is that he's unhappy in his work... Like you say, he just wants to retire as early as possible. But then what's his plan? Is he going to be happy when he's retired? Why will it be different?

I think there's a lot going on here really and I'm interested why your husband thinks that retirement will be better than his working life.

I think you’re right, he should not be staying in a job he truly hates with a view to retiring early, but instead move jobs now.

If he decided to become a TA (for example) tomorrow, would your finances cope?

If not then some compromise has to be made.

Either he does something better paid than a TA but still less stressful than current job (probably needing to work twice the hours of a TA over the year as per vast majority of jobs), or you downsize drastically.

I think having been the combination of a SAHM and now a HLTA means you do all the housework, shopping etc and the mental load of school children albeit in secondary school.

If you were to take up this job and be out of the house 12 hours a day I don't think your Dh has considered that he would have to take all of that on.

He is unhappy and should look at speaking to a career coach to see what his options are. Dh is the sole earner in this house I am a long term SAHM due to disability. His happiness in his job is the most important thing to me however he isn't selfish that he would remain in a job he hated and use that as a stick to beat me with. Your Dh needs to look at changing his job. He is being unreasonable to stay miserable in a job and then in turn force you into being miserable in a job. It doesn't sound like it would be a harmonious household.

Retiring early is only possible if you have built a significant pension pot. He needs to speak to a financial adviser about what it would take to get to that.

I think you need to work out the money you need to come in each month to support the household. Then see if there is a middle ground - e.g. he gets a minimum wage job. When my DH was having a crisis about hating his work, while he couldn't countenance another 'professional' job (out of the frying pan and into the fire etc) he was very happy, and excited, about doing a minimum wage job where he left his stresses at work. He looked into tesco delivery driver, B&Q store assistant, stately home facilities manager etc. In the end, with career coaching, he learned to change his mindset about work (stopped letting it define how he feels about himself) so continues in his job, in an uneasy truce, but much happier at home.

You don't necessarily need to go to uni to train to be a teacher. There are teacher training schemes such as 'Now Teach' that mean you qualify after a year whilst doing most of the training 'on the job.'

Has he forgotten that you looked after his children.
Can he drop a day at work.
He choose his career path.

Yanbu to stay in a job you hate, why can't you encourage your dh to change jobs, maybe he can look into taking a pay cut, go part time and do something he loves, or at least likes.

You might not be able to retire early, but I'd rather work in a job I like that suffer one I hate just to retire earlier. Life isn't all about early retirement, you need to enjoy the 'now' as long as you can still pay the bills, taking a cut in your standard of living is easier if you enjoy your job

I sympathise - I am in a v v similar role to you in a school - the money is shocking for what we do.
Is it possible to supplement somehow - i have hosted foreign exchange students in the past and also been a guardian for those private school students who cannot go home in the school holidays.

@RetirementWoes

Can't downsize whilst kids are still at school as we need the space (3 bed semi).

I've talked to him many times about changing job but he won't. He sees work now as something you have to do, you don't need to enjoy it, just retire ASAP. I'm more of the belief that you work for years so should enjoy it, I'd have no problem him changing jobs at all, even with a pay cut. We'd have to make cut backs on our lifestyle.

I would have to retrain significantly to get back to my old job - it would take some time and I would have to go in at a lower grade.

As a TA I have trained and progressed to HLTA, which still doesn't pay huge amounts but I do get teaching responsibilities. I looked into teacher training but that would take a number of years (I'd have to go to Uni) and I'd be late 50s by then with a debt round my neck).

Must add - have you spoken to your head? I am in the process of making the leap (!) to teacher training (salary direct / assessment only) as I can't afford to go back to Uni

He seems fixated on a sum of money in order to ‘retire early’.

If he found a job that was more fulfilling and less unpleasant he might not be so desperate to retire early.

I wonder if it would help if you both had a few sessions with a life coach type person to re-evaluate your plans together?

There are several different routes into teaching and they don't take years. If you have a degree you can do a one year PGCE. There are on the job routes too. I know lots of TAs who have / are doing this. If you work as you train you get paid as an unqualified teacher.

I think your husband should consider a different job if he is unhappy. Why should you make yourself unhappy, if he doesn't like being unhappy? Life is too short to waste on a job you dislike.