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In another posting I talked about my brother who was forced to retire at age 60 because he could not find a job after losing his senior management position. His wife is still working and is always angry that she is still working and her husband (my brother) sits at home retired except for part time his volunteer gigs.
This made me think about couples and retirement. I wonder if this is quite common with couples where one is still working and the other is retired and not going to work. The one who is still working is angry that he or she is still fighting the traffic and office politics all day.
My brothers wife is bitter and thinks he did not try hard enough to get a job. (He did, I never so anyone work so hard to get rehired after a layoff, but at his age and with his salary and appearance, he was sent out to pasture.)
In your household is one spouse working and one retired and is it causing bitterness? Explain.
My wife retired last year at 68 and I remain working. She worked for many years and began to dislike it alot, feeling miserable after each day of work. I enjoy what I do and plan to continue for one more year. I am neither angry or bitter that she retired before me. Why should I be since she "paid her dues" after working for so many years. She looks forward to my retirement so we can take trips together during the fall and winter months.
Since we were both fortunate enough to be continuously employed so long there was no opportunity for any anger to arise. If If I were out of work and made no effort to seek employment I could understand why my wife would be upset. However, since your brother made efforts to regain employment, his wife should be much more understanding and supportive.
....................... However, since your brother made efforts to regain employment, his wife should be much more understanding and supportive.
There is no point in trying to be rational and objective about it. The OP's brother's wife resents the situation because she is a b______. Some people don't need a rational and objective reason to be angry and bitter.
Well -- if I retire first, I will take up the reins in the house with housecleaning and cooking and other household stuff.
If he retires first he will do the same thing. Oh -- right now we share household duties.
Now -- I have friends whose husbands don't believe in men doing women's work. Piffle. And yes -- during the odd times of unemployment, when the husband sits on his "three letters" and the wife has to work and then come home and work.... yes -- there's animosity.
In OP's case -- if Brother indeed is "sitting at home", he needs to stop sitting and start vacuuming and wielding a toilet brush.
I have some friends where the husband has been retired for a couple of years and the wife still needs to work about three more years before she can retire. The big problem is not that he is retired but that he appears to be a lazy bum. He had always been a "old fashioned" type husband (bring home the major salary and let his wife raise the children and do ALL of the housework, even though she was working full time, too).
Well, she is working fulltime (40 to 50 hours a week) and still doing ALL of the grocery shopping, ALL of the cooking, ALL of the cleaning, ALL of the laundry, ALL of the bill paying, ALL of the everything and she is getting pretty fed-up with it.
What does he do all day? Play golf, exercise, watch TV, play on the computer, play pick-up sports with his buddies. She even does the yard work and mows the lawn (on her days off).
She really is not angry that he is retired but angry that he has not stepped up to do more of the work around the house now that he is not working.
Last edited by germaine2626; 08-14-2015 at 09:25 PM..
My husband is essentially retired at age 63 due to a work related injury he sustained last year, but is able and does all the house chores, cooking, and all else needed to run the house except pay the bills as I am the money manager. I could not be happier with this situation as it is so nice to come home from work to a clean house with dinner waiting for me
It takes a LOT of work to retire. It took me nearly 18 months to wrap up all my affairs in Illinois, decide where to relocate to, purchase a new home, sell the old home and getting everything moved.
That does NOT include the time that it took to put together a retirement plan, a budget and a financial plan and to begin its implementation. I have been retired for 27 months and we finally complete the renovations on the house and wrap up some loose ends.
i gave over a years notice i was retiring but i threw that switch when the day came and it took zero time to get right in the groove .
learning to live within a week that has 6 saturdays and 1 sunday is the only hard part. we keep going , what day is this ?
Again 430 AM and mathjak is putting in two cents. LOL omg I cant wait to retire. I think I will get up at 2am to beat you to the punch. LOL.
Now back to the original intention of the thread. I have to point out that there must have been some signs in the past that the spouse would once retire expect that it would be from everything to include household chores. I expect that once I retire in March I will hold up my end of the house by working off the honey do list. I of course will add in my golf tee times when I can and take trips with other retired buddies for golfing, drinking and socializing while DW continues to work. It will do several things to include getting our next step in life in order and maybe even get her into the mindset that she does not need to work anymore and can join me.
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