mis-matched retirement dates?

[albireo13]

Hi,
I just turned 62 and am itching to retire. I am thinking that mid-2019 is the latest I can handle working at MegaCorp without needing a lobotomy. I would then be 63yo.

Anyway, my wife is 4 years younger and she wants to work at least until she is 65 so, this means I'd be retiring about 6 years before she does. I sense that this may be a source of some angst on her part, although she hasn't admitted it.

I wonder how this kind of disparity has played out with other retirees here?
Good strategies for making it work well?

I am thinking that I could pick up a lot of slack by making the meals, doing shopping, handling all the pet maintenance, doing the house cleaning, etc.

Advice?

 

[braumeister]

Assuming she doesn't need to work (you are really FI), then she will work only because she wants to (enjoys the social aspects and the routine). So it shouldn't actually be a problem (no angst needed). But I'm just going by my similar situation, where I retired 12 years before DW. She liked her job and her coworkers, and she had no problem with me hanging it up.
Sounds like you need to have a full discussion of it with her.

 

[athena53]

It worked very well for DH and me. When we married I was 50 and he was 65; we relocated for my job and he retired and started collecting SS. He was in B-2-B advertising so had slim job prospects!

DH was a good cook and took a lot off my plate: car maintenance, getting multiple bids for major stuff on the house, etc. I have to say he wasn't a great housekeeper but that was his only shortcoming. He once handled the selection and purchase of a car while I was out of the country- narrowed it down and sent me pictures. I HATE car-buying so I was very happy with that.

I finally retired at 61; when I was considering it he said, "This is selfish of me, but I'd like having you around more". We had 2 good years together after that before he died in November, 2016.

If you're good with taking over a lot of the work on the home front (or delegating it out), it could be good for both of you,

 

[MBAustin]

DH retired 4 years before me due to disability. It wasn't an issue for us.

There have been a number of other threads on this topic recently such as
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/what-issues-arise-when-one-spouse-keeps-w-rking-89027.html so you might get some ideas by poking around the forums - Life after FIRE is probably where most of them are.

 

[JustCurious]

Take a look at this thread...

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...-with-mixed-retirement-for-couples-72460.html

 

[albireo13]

Well, we are FI at this point but, my wife wants to save up enough to cover another 1 year at college for our youngest. That's her motivation plus, I think she is still a bit pessimistic about our cash flow in retirement.

 

[Bir48die]

My wife retired six year before I did. She took care of everything except the bills. She had a decent pension to draw from so it really was no issue for me. I hadn't hit my financial goal yet and she had to put up listening to me b*tch about work. That was her penance.

 

[Niuatoputapu]

I retired in 2015, and my wife (who is 2-years older) wants to work as long as she continues to love it. She is a 3rd grade teacher. For us, it works beautifully. I mind everything outside of school, and she concentrates on her students. A continuing paycheck and health insurance adds to our FI, but she would happily work for free. (Please don't tell the school district). We spend thousands each year on school supplies, (inter-city, low income school) so it was never about the money.

I travel some while she works, but only to locations she would avoid at all costs anyway. (genealogical or American history gatherings, camping, backpacking, sport events). We have decided to do a cruise every July while she continues to work, and will sail on our third one this summer. Her tentative retirement is 2019, but she will decide year by year and already talks about waiting until 2020 or 2021 so she can teach the younger siblings of existing or former students (endless pipeline, BTW).

Her primary condition for me is that, if I am in bed, I arise in the morning with her (4:30 am) and get her out the door.

 

[homestead]

My wife retired in 1978 I retired in 2008, how is that for a mismatch.
Worked out well for us. She worked just enough for SS benefits.
BTW some women think staying at home & raising kids is a job.

 

[braumeister]

Another thought that just occurred to me:

DW and I have different hobbies, and most of them have opportunities for travel. Things like classes, workshops, etc. that are in distant places. So we each took advantage of many such travels. She did it on her vacation time, and I did it whenever I wanted. It's handy to have the other person stay home to take care of the cat.

Of course, we also did plenty of travel together. Since she retired, we still do both solo and together travel, we just do more of it.

 

[W2R]

I keep reading about these wives who say they love their jobs so much that they don't mind a bit slaving away at work for 5-10 years or more after their husbands retire and are off playing on a beach or golfing or something. These women are absolute saints compared with me. In their situation, I'd have a few choice words to say before I packed my bags and left.

But then, I have never been a saint and I am not very patient. I am a divorcee as you might imagine. And while I loved my job, I am of the opinion that any job, even a good job, is work.

 

[Walt34]

After we retired and moved to WV I stumbled into a low stress job nearby and worked an additional five years (it really didn't seem that long!). DW did look for a job and we both thought it would be easy for her to get one but that didn't happen. As it turned out that was a good thing because her father began to need more and more assistance keeping up his house, making it to doctor's appointments and the like. She told me more than once that the best gift I had ever given her was the free time to do that and not have to hold down a job at the same time.

No resentment on my part at all.

 

[neihn]

In 2001, my wife came home and kept complaining about her works for several days. I told her to quit, she did it the next day and called it a career. She took care everything inside the house. I took care anything in the garage (two cars) and the outside (yard works).
That works out great, not a problem - although, I did fill the pressure to hold on to the job. Fast forward to 2018 - I am going to say bye bye to mega-corp at the end of June and join my wife.

Feel very blessed.

 

[jazz4cash]

My situation was similar to OP. I chuckled at the lobotomy joke. I remember that feeling. I'm retired 3 yrs and DW will go another 2. I had the same concern that feelings of resentment would emerge but it's been great. You have the right idea to be sensitive and take on more household chores. It really helped that DW switched to a lower stress position about the same time I ER'd.

 

[Bigdawg]

BTW some women think staying at home & raising kids is a job.

And some don't

 

[Bigdawg]

let me get this straight: Our kids were raised, our laundry got done, our dinner was prepared and our house was cleaned. IF DW stayed home and did all that then that was HER JOB(SAHM). But, since she was active duty military the whole time usually working 45-50 hours per week the house stuff WASN'T her/our job? But if we paid someone to do all of those things that would have been their job? I am so confused. My annoyance comes from the idea that a SAHM is somehow so much better than a non SAHM. Also the crazy idea that god forbid the man wants to stay home. He get's labelled a lazy selfish SOB. Sorry for the rant. Good parents can have a job or not. Moms can be awesome whether they are SAH or work full time jobs.

 

[Al in Ohio]

I retired last year at age 55 and my wife who is 5.5 years younger is still working now at age 50 and will continue for at least 5 more years while our youngest finishes HS and then college. We used to both be covered by my employers company healthcare benefits, but now we are both on hers.

Things are going fine as planned and we plan to ramp up travel together as well as me traveling more separately while I explore potential retirement spots to consider for annual visits. I still occasionally consult some and get an influx of income that was not budgeted for and she likes to know that. She is now the bread winner, but I still draw from taxable non retirement savings in an account in the six figure range that I built up ahead of time. Ie I still created a yearly income bucket for me