working wife w/retired husband support group

[vicente solano]

We have a housekeeper, too. She does most of the hard chores, including cooking.

[rescueme]

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Originally Posted by vicente solano We have a housekeeper, too. She does most of the hard chores, including cooking.

Cooking isn't hard, if you enjoy it. I'm no great cook, but I do prepare somthing once in awhile to have ready when my DW returns from wo*k.

I don't know if you realize that there is a great "desire" as to different modes, styles, and results of cooking in the US. We have more than a few "cooking channels" on TV that celebrate food ...

Not to take away from your housekeeper (I'm not letting my wife see this post). However, since retirement I've been involved in those "wife duties" (yea, I'm an old phart), and have done some of the cleaning, food shopping, and other "wifely duties" since I retired, a bit under four years ago (OK, I know I'll be slammed for that statement) in retirement.

The thing is - in retirement, I don't mind doing/helping in ways I did not do when I was employed. Maybe I'm getting old, more "fem" in nature, or just bored, but I feel that I'm contributing more than I have in the past.

I guess sometimes it's good to be in partnership rather than count on traditional roles (for me, based upon many, many years ago) of the past.

[clifp]

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Originally Posted by ERD50 My DW is not so optimistic I also noticed that this was all in the negative (but maybe I'm sensitive to this): How about "what has he done to make your life even more wonderful since he retired". Leave plenty of space -ERD50

Dude I am not even married, but I am sure that this isn't a frequent subject of discussion when working woman discuss their retired husband.

[rescueme]

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Originally Posted by clifp Dude I am not even married, but I am sure that this isn't a frequent subject of discussion when working woman discuss their retired husband.

True. My wife has mentioned to her friends (and also me ) of how much of a "stud" I've become (even more so, than following our courtship, some 45+ years ago) since I don't have the pressures of wor*k interfering with my "mojo"...

[bbbamI]

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Originally Posted by chinaco Interesting. How many wives that ERd with the husband still working picked up the man duties?

I did. (well except for peein' on the bathroom floor)

When I left Megacorp in 1998, DH put gas in his car and went to work. I took care of everything else. I got pretty good at whacking weeds, mowing the lawn, trimming bushes, staining the fence, eliminating fire ants, ripping up old carpet, painting the inside and outside of the house....etc.

After he retired almost two years ago, I 'let' him play for about three months. Then...he started playing house with me. He's doing pretty good...he's still learning.

[freebird5825]

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Originally Posted by gizmo ..."share" the experience of working with a retired husband by outlining a few things: *He has not decided yet to take over any chores-but he does help a little(I am hopeful that this will change some after he decomposes )

Sorry, I haven't been in that situation.

May I gently suggest that you leave chores undone and let him naturally gravitate toward doing them? Either that or hire a housecleaning service on an occasional basis.

[Nords]

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Originally Posted by freebird5825 May I gently suggest that you leave chores undone and let him naturally gravitate toward doing them?

Are you suggesting running a gross-out competition against a guy, let alone an ER'd guy with the time on his hands to devote to a world-class effort of winning such a competition?

Sorry, I keep meaning to bow out of this thread, but the slow fat pitches keep hanging right over the plate...

[Stevewc]

I've got to be sure my DW never See's this thread.
This fix her breakfast & pack lunch stuff is frightening.
Steve

[brewer12345]

Funny. I cannot help but think that a thread by a man complaining about his lazy housewife spouse would get a slightly less warm reception than this one.

[haha]

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Originally Posted by Stevewc I've got to be sure my DW never See's this thread. This fix her breakfast & pack lunch stuff is frightening. Steve

And don't forget to shine her shoes.

[Moemg]

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Originally Posted by Stevewc I've got to be sure my DW never See's this thread. This fix her breakfast & pack lunch stuff is frightening. Steve

Leave her an instant oatmeal package and a few bucks for lunch and you are good to go !

[Katsmeow]

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Originally Posted by gizmo how much longer do you plan to work

My answers are sort of semi.

DH retired and I work part time doing part of my work in the office 1 or 2 days a week and then the rest at home. I'm 7 years younger than DH and I guess I'll do it until it isn't fun any more. Right now, I have the advantage of being able to do the fun part of work but without the stress and things I didn't like when working full time.

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how long has he been retired

Since last June.

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what does he do that drives you crazy

Not a lot. Or, rather, nothing new. However, I noticed recently that now that he is home all the time he seems to, well, get irritated by me more than in the past. Certain things that never seemed to bother him before now seem to perhaps because he is around them more. We were sharing an office at home until a few days ago. I had to laugh at your mention of World of Warcraft because DH and I are avid players. We both play quite a bit. However, we have entirely different playing styles and things we want to do in the game so we rarely play together. Anyway, in the same office all the time together (except when I went to the office) I think we at times got on each other's nerves. A few days ago I suggested that he move his office in the other room and he did and that is seeming to work better although in my ideal room we would share an office half the time and not share it the other half but that hasn't been practical.

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what does he not do that drives you crazy

We are jointly homeschooling our daughter (9th grade) and that is going well. We also both drive our son to and from college (he is younger than typical so doesn't drive yet) and to other activities and share those. he doesn't give me a hard time about staying up until 2:00 even though he is still an early riser and early to bed person. He got used to that when he worked and had to be at work at 6:30 and has stuck with it largely.

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did he take over some of the "chores" on his own or did you have to push

We still have a 14 year old and a 16 year old at home so they do a lot of the housecleaning type chores. Beyond that we've always had a very equal division of labor since in the past we both worked full time although my work required more hours than his did. And my work always required me to do work at home so he was used to coming home and having to do tasks when I was still at work or doing work at home.

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does he want you to retire soon

Yes, but right now he thinks it makes since for me to not fully retire. We currently own two houses and want to sell our big house. It makes it easier to maintain both houses with me working a little. However, as long as I'm enjoying working he's cool with me working however long I want to and he's cool with me quitting if it become stressful and unfun.

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do you have any special plans to do together when you are both retired

Well, once we sell this house we plan to build a new house on land we have so that is a big project (I'm sure I'll want to be working during that though just to get away from the stress of it). We will still have at least one child home for at least the next 3 1/2 years. However, I'm not big on travel so that isn't a huge goal for me. Maybe a little bit but not tons of it.

[Katsmeow]

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Originally Posted by Silver We are both avid players...end-game raiders primarily...and our guild is made up of several married teams. I'd say learn to play so you can appreciate what he's talking about sometimes. It's great fun.....certainly a challenge sometimes....and the headsets with microphones are so attractive!

For DH and I it is good that we both play since it gives us a common interest and we enjoy talking about it and we can help each other at times.

On the other hand it is bad as our play styles are so different. I'm the end game raider. DH is the altoholic who loves to level up. I have plenty of alts too but when I level an alt up I then start gearing them up to at least starting raid level. DH is sort of done with them for all intents and purposes when they get to 85. He gets annoyed with me for telling him everything he is doing wrong and I get annoyed at him for not taking my good advice (a little bit of an exaggeration but not much).

For a few months last year we were living in separate houses 10 minutes apart (we had our house on the market and he stayed in our other house with our pets while we were trying to focus on selling the house). During that time we both had headsets with microphones and we would talk on Skype while each of us was playing. I would be doing heroics (I obviously couldn't talk to him while in raids) or something and he would be questing and we would have a grand time just chatting.

When we both got back into the same house sharing an office we talked less because we each had our headphones on so we couldn't hear anymore what each other was saying...we actually talked less than when we were in different houses.

[audreyh1]

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Originally Posted by gizmo oops! I guess decompose was not the word I meant to use but with DH's inactivity of late it probably was not that far off the mark!

[braumeister]

The situation is very satisfactory for us. I retired nearly 10 years ago, but DW has no interest in quitting, despite the fact that we're FI.

She enjoys the social aspects of her w*rk so much that she's much happier going there every morning. I'm perfectly happy handling the household chores (I enjoy cooking, for example), and her only complaint is that I don't leave her enough of them to do (to make her feel more useful around the house).

We're unusual, because we married when we were both over 40, and we both had fully developed lives. For example, we often take separate vacations to pursue personal interests.

I'm very lucky.

[travelover]

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Originally Posted by kombat This whole topic seems alien to me. I've got to say, I can't really relate to the mindset where one half of a couple is able to retire, but the other half isn't.

In my case I got a generous buy out with pension and paid health care at age 54. DW will not qualify for a pension and paid health care until she is age 60. I sure as heck wasn't gonna work for 9 more years to make it all even. She enjoys her career still and I do all the heavy lifting at home. I can't imagine that she would be happy holding my retirement hostage. It works for us.

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We've always treated our marriage like a partnership. We're a team. There's no "my money" or "your money," it's all "our money."

You might change your opinion if you divorced midlife and wrote a check with enough zeros. When you remarry in midlife and there are step-kids, things get much more complicated.

[freebird5825]

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Originally Posted by Nords Are you suggesting running a gross-out competition against a guy, let alone an ER'd guy with the time on his hands to devote to a world-class effort of winning such a competition? Sorry, I keep meaning to bow out of this thread, but the slow fat pitches keep hanging right over the plate...

I knew someone wouldn't be able to let THAT one go over the plate.

In all seriousness, a lady still w*rking should not have to do double time when her spouse is home all day, or vice versa. It just doesn't make sense.

Mr B and I (him retired, me FIREd) divide duties. He hates laundry, the bulk of which is mine anyway. So I do the laundry. If I let him empty the dishwasher, I may never find things again, at least not where I am looking for them. That would drive an ultra organized person like me nutz.
I hate taxes and insurance paperw*rk, so he does all that resarch and evaluation and paperwo*rk. I despise grocery shopping, he enjoys checking the sales flyers and finding the bargains. We both enjoy planning meals and cooking together.

My point is 2 people living in the same household can discuss and agree upon who will assume 1 particular duty completely or agree that both can share a duty. It's called compromise.

[Silver]

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Originally Posted by Katsmeow For DH and I it is good that we both play since it gives us a common interest and we enjoy talking about it and we can help each other at times. On the other hand it is bad as our play styles are so different. I'm the end game raider. DH is the altoholic who loves to level up. I have plenty of alts too but when I level an alt up I then start gearing them up to at least starting raid level. DH is sort of done with them for all intents and purposes when they get to 85. He gets annoyed with me for telling him everything he is doing wrong and I get annoyed at him for not taking my good advice (a little bit of an exaggeration but not much). For a few months last year we were living in separate houses 10 minutes apart (we had our house on the market and he stayed in our other house with our pets while we were trying to focus on selling the house). During that time we both had headsets with microphones and we would talk on Skype while each of us was playing. I would be doing heroics (I obviously couldn't talk to him while in raids) or something and he would be questing and we would have a grand time just chatting. When we both got back into the same house sharing an office we talked less because we each had our headphones on so we couldn't hear anymore what each other was saying...we actually talked less than when we were in different houses.

Nice to find a fellow WOW'er here. FTW! My main is a holy priest and DH is pally tank so we raid together a lot. Lots of alt's here as well. It's kind of like a little known sub-culture with millions of people quietly playing.

For the Alliance!

[Sarah in SC]

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Originally Posted by brewer12345 Funny. I cannot help but think that a thread by a man complaining about his lazy housewife spouse would get a slightly less warm reception than this one.

True. But such are our complex gender roles.

One of my DHs fave stories is when I quit a job the month before Christmas years ago. I took a month to find what I wanted, so I spent lots of hours lounging on the porch, reading books and smoking cigarettes while he went off to work. At about 4:30, I'd struggle to my feet, spray some pine cleaner in the house, and start something for dinner.

It totally fooled him that I'd been housecleaning all day and it wasn't until years later when I confessed my pine cleaner trick, that he learned the truth. But now he loves telling the story to highlight my laziness in the housecleaning dept.

And Nords, we've had those gross out competitions. I "win" every time he has to clean the bathrooms.

[Nords]

The best advice I have for this thread is that in ER (and any other significant life change, like empty nester) everything should be up for re-negotiation. People change, and they should have a chance to change the deal.

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Originally Posted by Sarah in SC And Nords, we've had those gross out competitions. I "win" every time he has to clean the bathrooms.

Early in our marriage, when I was young & stupid much more idealistic than I am today, I made an offhand comment about optimal dishwasher packing.

30 years later I'm still in charge of dishwasher loading. But it's optimal...