[USER]

My husband is 58 and I’m 51. He was laid off last year and hasn’t found another position. Previously he made close to 250K. I make the same.

We have a young teen. I foresee needing to work until 63.5. We have 3.6 million in retirement and a paid for house.

We also have a college fund of 125K with 4 more years until college. Should I just allow him to be ‘retired’ and me continue working?

His health is pretty bad and maybe he can now focus on taking care of himself. I am just struggling with being the sole provider for our household.

I am also struggling with the fact that his income is no longer being used to grow our nest egg.

he hasn’t said he wants to retire (although I am sure he would gladly retire).

He has been looking for positions unsuccessfully and I just thought maybe I should just tell him to go ahead and retire since we don’t really ‘need’ his income.

[Josh]

Health over money. What’s life without your health? Nothing else matters.

[Rob]

How much monthly will you need to retire? You guys are in great shape. Don’t get down on your situation.

You two have done extremely well.

[Junior]

I worked making $150-220k a year supporting my disabled husband for 17 of our 30 years together. He passed away 8 years ago.

I am now 55 with a paid off house. A couple rental homes and $2.4 million invested. No debt.

Own a couple cool cars I bought used. I decided to FIRE at 52! Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed! Health or life.

I budget for 100,000 a year (property taxes, food, gas, auto insurance and a couple bargain shopper vacays a year.)

This is not living spending willy nilly like I did when working, but I choose my time over money and I can always pick up a job I enjoy.

Perhaps your husband can do that. Or even you! It’s an adjustment, but totally doable! Your Investments will also throw off income.

[Denesha]

I don’t know about full retirement but a year or 2 off to focus on health and to get a feel of how things would flow wouldn’t be a bad idea.

[Sebastian]

Is he your husband or your pocketbook? You’re in a way better position than 99% of the population.

Both of you should retire and enjoy life.

[Penh]

If his health is suffering why wouldn’t you want him to retire early? You can retire too if you wanted.

Just readjust your expectations.

[Tuliano]

Imagine pushing your spouse to an early grave because you don’t want your kid to take out college loans or *gasp* plan on spending less than $17k a month in retirement?!

[Tuliano]

When you’re a 58 year old man that loses a 250k job, that’s going to be pretty difficult to replace. I’d go as far as to say the odds of finding a similar position are low. He’s older. Age discrimination is real.

Companies are viewing him as an expensive employee, that doesn’t have much time left, and is going to have expensive health insurance.

The most likely outcome is his hot shot career is over. Especially in this economy.

Fortunately, you have 3.5 million and enough to pay in-state tuition now.

You need to adjust your expectations and possibly lifestyle to cope with this. I’m a 25 year CPA.

I’ve seen this all the time even back in Y2K. If he’s 58, it’s over.

But if you’ve got that kind of savings you’ll be ok.

[Tuliano]

I will share my story. When I was 53 and my hubs was 59, we had some hard conversations about him retiring. He had a stressful job working 12-hour shifts, going from days to nights.

His body never knew when to sleep so his immune system was shot and he caught every bug, virus, you name it.

His health continued to deteriorate, so we decided that he would retire and I would continue working. I enjoyed my job so I really wanted to keep working.

Plus, our son was entering college. Six months later, my hubs found himself on the operating table undergoing heart surgery.

He made a full recovery, but I feel like the stress from his job played into his cardiac issues.

And I shudder to think what might have happened if he had kept on working. Seven years later, he is happy, healthy, and I am planning my exit from the workforce.

All the budgeting and financial planning would have been useless to me without him to share in our retirement.

[Trish]

What did I just read. Yes, let him retire. He’s contributed to that 3.6 million. Child is a teen.

That’s plenty for college, if not, child need to go to military or a community college for a trade.

At 58/51, yall need to focus on yourselves. Yall have set aside plenty for teenage child.

[Chet]

Seems like he can retire and enjoy what’s left of life. Recommend you do the same. Your son will figure it out.

And what’s left after you guys will go to him anyway.

[Stan]

I took “early retirement” last year at 54. Since then my entire group was involuntarily laid off, so I no longer feel guilty about my decision.

Let him focus 100% on his health for 6 months.

If he still feels the ned or desire to work, let him dip his toes in to finding a role he wants.

That’s my plan anyways…BTW, I completely understand the psychological aspect of it all.

[LeAnne]

I heard a great quote the other day: “Am I trading time that I don’t have for money that I don’t need”

Apologies for not remembering who I heard it from and/or originator, but it sure stopped me in my tracks and made me think hard about prolonging working years just to save more…

On a personal note, I have a friend who just received a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. She’s not expected to live beyond two more years, at the absolute most.

She and her husband had planned on retiring in two years, at age 60 for her and 61 for him.

I’m so sad that they don’t have time to experience the joys of retirement together.

Hindsight is 20/20, but this kind of thing, unfortunately, occurs so often that it’s good to pay attention.

[Christina]

How do you go from $4k/mth to $17k/mth even if you have to pay for healthcare.

I’d cut expenses and retire now with your $3.6M and cash out on house and downsize.

[Paul]

You sound abit annoyed with him to be honest, and you earn 250k each, so one income is more than enough, you cant be struggling.

Your tone sounds off, like there is a lack of empathy for his health, if the guy is in bad health then you should consider that as the primary factor for making a decision.

How unhappy will you be if he has 10 years left to live and he spends 5 of them working to save up money hes not going to use.ط

You earn enough, and you have enough, so show some empathy and ask him what he wants

[Tracy]

Not unless he’s already working on his health I’d have him work a less stressful job for less money bc health often declines after retirement if not staying active.

Plus, will his retirement years be that great with you working?

[Rob]

Is the struggle financial or you just don’t like that he is not working contributing financially?

Something to consider, having your hubby around healthy is better than the alternative.

[Paul]

You guys are gigantic earners in the top 1%. Some people retire at 58 but it’s something you guys have to come to terms with.

Did he carry a lot of the financial weight earlier on?

Is he focusing on his health? Or just laying around? Is he depressed?

[Alvina]

Let me first say congratulations on doing so well and planing for the future.

My only big concern here is you said your spouse “health is pretty bad”

If it was me I would definitely take that heavily into account. I would want my partner to live as long as possible with me to enjoy our hard work.

To live off 17K when your hard expenses is under 10k is pretty comfortable.

I’m a person with anxiety and stress about the unknown as well.

But I think you’ve both done so well that I would definitely “allow” my partner to take a few extra years to get his health together so we can live a long healthy life together. Great job again!

[Jessica]

Should you allow him? It’s not his choice? 5 mil in the bank won’t mean anything if he’s in the ground. Prioritize health always.

He can always come out of “retirement”.

[Bub]

What does he want to do. That’s the simplest answer. You have enough in savings (esp with house paid for) (a bare minimum 4% on 3.6 mill is 12k a month).

Also forget about your husband – why are you working so hard when you’re already at a fat FIRE level.

Of course you’ve done the math and feel 63.5 is how long you need to work till. But for me with that amount, I’d be working out of choice.

[Ning]

Deep inside you want your husband continue to work until he dies thats what makes you happy huh. Reverse the situation your husband would not think twice to just let you take care of youself.

ALLOWED? seriously whotf you think you are.

what a selfish prick

[Author]

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