My retired husband is driving me bonkers

[sevilleorangemarmalade]

He retired a couple of years ago (he's now 65). I'm coming up to 60 and will be retiring (probably) next year.

We've lived in a very community-orientated small town/ large village for many years and when he retired he threw himself into local life and events. He was part of the VE Day planning committee for celebrations this past weekend, but he's also a school governor, he's on the gardening club committee (there are two community gardens here and more planned) and is also on the management committee of a charity in our local city. It probably adds up to a three-day week's work.

When he was working he was pretty good at separating work and home, but now his work is all voluntary and involves local people I know, he brings it back with him. Every evening, when I get home he wants to offload the latest drama onto me. The rows, the fall-outs, the fury at being expected to do the impossible, the in-fighting and back-stabbing: he's like a one-man soap opera plot. He's constantly on his phone messaging at all hours of the day and night. His committee mates are all up beyond midnight What's Apping each other. The gossip and manoeuvring are epic — and I don't care about any of it and hate it all. He seems to expect me to get as caught-up in it as he is, and I can't be bothered. I've never found this level of drama interesting or attractive. So many of the people he's 'working' with seem to be unhinged and he seems to enjoy it.

We've had several sit-down sessions where we've agreed boundaries: no phones at the dinner table, 10-minutes for him to tell me about the latest drama when I get home and then no more. I've started sleeping in a separate bedroom because he won't turn off his alerts and some of these committee folk ping each other through the night. He sticks to the rules for a few days, then I'll come home and get an hour of it, or he'll go out to one of the committee meetings and come home and want to discuss the situation and see what I think for hours afterwards. I'm sick of it all, beyond caring.

Anyone been in a similar position? How did you sort it out?

No advice for you OP but DH is a member of a community garden and rose to the lofty rank of head of compost last year. He left his post after one year. The politics were epic - the recriminations, the accusations, the fighting. I was sorry he left in some ways as the emails/text were jawdropping.

Are there any historic buildings of gardens he could volunteer at nearby? He could then speak to a lot of different people showing them around the area

I don't think he sees himself as self-centred. I think he just assumes that if he's interested in something/ got something going on, and it involves the place we live in, that I'll be interested. I think he's also a thrown by how difficult some people can be: quite a lot of our conversations are him asking for advice on how to handle some prickly fellow volunteer. He worked for a small company for more than 20 years: low turnover of staff, a happy sort of place where people cooperated with each other. This has come as something of a shock.

You're right, they are! So it seems that all community garden groups are hotbeds of insurrection and unrest. I had no idea there were so many batshit people living here. I knew the community council was a total cesspit that's dominated by a man who could give Hitler a good run for his money, but the community garden group?

A couple i know almost divorced when her DH retired (she had been a SAHM and never gone back to work when the kids got older). He started organising stuff in the house and calling meetings, which he would minute and assign arising actions. It was touch and go but they managed to get through it. I think he had to find a time consuming hobby to get him out the house.

I actually mentioned on another thread my friends husband who left her children unfed when she went out for lunch with me.

He had spent the day in his office on Community Association affairs....such a pompous arse....."they need me and my skills"....he worked in academia and was very fond of his own voice.

She had been very/too tolerant of him over recent years and his over involvement in everything local.

She eviscerated him upon finding her children unfed.
She just had enough of him and she held nothing back.
He was genuinely stunned....arse.
He had a huge issue trying to stay married as she was beside herself with annoyance.

Among a lot of changes that he quickly made, his involvement in every local dog and pony show, quickly ended, as he "needed to spent more time with his family" ........before he was thrown out.

They are still married, he's a very considerate husband since.
She stopped being a quiet wife that day.
He remains a pompous arse though.
She's so lovely.

OP, forget his being hurt.
He has brought terrible stress and annoyance to your day.
Tell him you will be making your own plans for a peaceful retirement elsewhere.
I couldn't be putting up with all that twaddle and drama.
Volunteering is notorious for it.

I expect he is lonely and maybe feeling a bit inferior as you are still immersed in the work world.

Once you are retired and you can do things together, the groups will probably lose some of their appeal.

as a side note, mumsnet is changing my retirement plans. I was going to encourage DH to join a choir as he's got a lovely voice and I have NOT, but then I read the thread about an affair that started a choir so kiboshed that idea.

Then this one is putting paid to my plans to retire early. I am good at bossing people around, maybe I should just keep doing it for money all the time I can. At least at work people have to mainly do as you ask.

Head of Compost 😂 😂

When (if) you retire, you will be very pleased that he has hobbies to go to, op.
Mine has taken to following me around the house to complain about Keir Starmer.

I'd suggest staying at work for longer, or arranging lots of daytime events for yourself 😂.

I have just finished reading J K Rowling's 'The Casual Vacancy' about a parish council. Brilliant.
Read it and enjoy making sly comparisons to the characters you know in real life.

OP, this sounds like the Male Online strip in Viz.

Sounds like Martin from Ever Decreasing Circles to me.

This is hilarious.

I am new to volunteering at an organisation and there is a manager role that’s just come up. It’s literally 15 hours per week close to min wage.

The POLITICS. It’s as bad as that film Conclave about the papal election 😂

Tell us some community garden gossip OP! Give us a giggle!

If he managed this Ok whilst in paid work, either his work was easier or he’s not making the effort to compartmentalise in the way he did then.

would once more make clear that you’re not invested in the voluntary things locally and to revert to whatever he did then to manage himself, and be more considerate of your time, sleep etc.

If he continues to behave like this towards you perhaps try couple’s counselling?

No, he's not lonely and he's certainly not feeling inferior. Are you projecting your own feelings?

No, he isn't anything like Martin from Ever Decreasing Circles. But he's trying to volunteer alongside people like Martin, and the Martin's of this world insist on everything being done the way they want it done.

It’s the retired male equivalent of Amanda from motherland - bored people who have previously had clout and need to still feel ‘of importance’ - personally I think he should get 1 part time paid job or paid consultancy if he was at that level and tell him why ! My H intends to carry on working , just less of it , for these very reasons. The chairman of the company we do all our work for is 78 , a millionaire , loves being ‘involved’ and hasn’t retired as such for similar reasons - he loves networking, events , involvement and couldn’t be arsed with all the hassle of people politics on a voluntary basis

Our village had a local events committee and such were the politics that there was a Great Schism and we ended up with two rival committees. 😂

People get very excited about this stuff.

The infighting is so vicious because the stakes are so low. I've heard that about academia but it could equally apply to volunteer environments. I actually think people often take these things MORE seriously than paid work, maybe because it is a passion vs the fake passion we're supposed to feel at work.

Is he the Lord of the Harvest?

I can totally see this happening in the environments you describe OP. There’s a lot of this in my local community and people develop these weird fiefdoms and ways of doing things based on a whim from 1982 / getting on the vicar’s good side, except that that vicar retired and pissed off five years ago / an agreement with Brenda but she’s changed her mind since anyway. So he may well be perfectly reasonable and (reasonably) losing it at the inefficiency and ineptitude he encounters in all these places. Or he may be battling with the adjustment to retirement. Or both.

I run a charity and one of our newer volunteers is a newly retired bloke, who seems to have spent his career in the back office of a major bank. He’s lovely and has a lot to give but needs to be directed / given a scope of work, much more than others, and it’s clear that he’s still finding his feet post retirement. But he’s a great asset too and loves being involved.

I think you need to call Jackie Weaver to sort this out.

I came here to say exactly that! I recommend “accidentally” insisting you and him binge watch the whole series - hopefully the penny will drop! I was on the committee for my block of flats and it was horrific. Some (always men) love it though. I’ll never do it again - feck the lot of them

Think yourself lucky he’s not in the Rotary Club. The tales of the internal politics of the committees and sub committees my husband is on would bore the hind legs off a T Rex. I was stunned when I discovered they only had a total of 35 members.

I work in the voluntary sector and this thread is golden! Some very funny posts: ‘…the stakes are so low’! Sorry OP, I am not sure what to suggest - does he want to change at all?

I have had my own run-in with volunteering and came to the conclusion that I would never, ever join another WhatsApp group!