I recently ERed this year when I closed down my business, and after a couple of months DW decided to go back to work as a public school librarian. She doesn’t make big money ($41K gross), but the health benefits are pretty good and she gets summers off plus big breaks for Christmas and Thanksgiving, so that works out well for traveling (going skiing this Christmas and we were able to stay a month this last summer in Costa Rica, for example). She quit working when our kids were born 10 and 12 years ago, and she was getting bored around the house doing house chores. When the market crashed soon after I started ER we both figured it wasn’t a bad idea to have a little extra income coming in for awhile.
It was a big adjustment for me mentally becoming the “house husband”-- cleaning, cooking, taking and picking up the kids from school and events, grocery shopping, etc. I’m still trying to get used to it, but so far it has been a very satisfying change of pace for me. I do feel a little guilty when DW has to get to her school at 7:15 since she is not a morning person, so I try to do as much as I can around the house during the day so it looks good when she gets home and sometimes I even cook a meal that doesn’t suck! Frankly, I do feel a little silly doing some of this stuff, and I’m very sensitive to any comments made by others about our status—my usual response is, “F off—you’re just jealous”.
Obviously I’m not the most accomplished or polished communicator, so please keep the more socially acceptable comments coming. I can use them!