I found a few similar threads, but most were either about dating post-FIRE or couples FIRE-ing in a similar timeframe in spite of age differences.
What I'm interested to hear about are people that have FIRE'd while their younger spouse continued with their career. I'm 52, FIRE'd in May and my better-half is nearly 9 years younger than me. She's amazing. She dropped her career to follow me out to Colorado almost 20 years ago so I could pursue my own career, and while I did that, she built a life for us, built our house, and wove us a beautiful community of friends in our small mountain town. She also picked up snowboarding and mountain biking, and I encouraged her to tip that work/life balance heavily towards the side of leisure during those years. During that extended sabbatical, she found a passion for education, completed a teacher certification program and started working as a teacher's aid before finally working her way up to becoming a classroom teacher after several years.
Now that I'm finally FIRE'd, she is thrilled. My full-time was a toxic dumpster fire and my business was essentially a second F/T gig. She's so much happier now that I'm less busy on the weekends and less stressed overall. She wants me to have that same leisurely life she had a decade ago, but she has no intention of leaving her career at this point. She has roughly 8 more years until she's pension eligible, and so I'm curious to hear from people that have spent 5-10 years FIRE'd when their spouse is not.
Thanks for any experiences you'd care to share, good or bad.
What I'm interested to hear about are people that have FIRE'd while their younger spouse continued with their career. I'm 52, FIRE'd in May and my better-half is nearly 9 years younger than me. She's amazing. She dropped her career to follow me out to Colorado almost 20 years ago so I could pursue my own career, and while I did that, she built a life for us, built our house, and wove us a beautiful community of friends in our small mountain town. She also picked up snowboarding and mountain biking, and I encouraged her to tip that work/life balance heavily towards the side of leisure during those years. During that extended sabbatical, she found a passion for education, completed a teacher certification program and started working as a teacher's aid before finally working her way up to becoming a classroom teacher after several years.
Now that I'm finally FIRE'd, she is thrilled. My full-time was a toxic dumpster fire and my business was essentially a second F/T gig. She's so much happier now that I'm less busy on the weekends and less stressed overall. She wants me to have that same leisurely life she had a decade ago, but she has no intention of leaving her career at this point. She has roughly 8 more years until she's pension eligible, and so I'm curious to hear from people that have spent 5-10 years FIRE'd when their spouse is not.
Thanks for any experiences you'd care to share, good or bad.