My husband officially retiring in May Oh No

Marie5656

Marie5656

SF VIP
Location
Batavia, NY
My husband turns 66 in May. His supervisor had suggested that if he wanted, he could stay on part time for the extra income. We discussed it, and we were both OK with it. Well, my husband just called and said that the offer of part time has been taken back, as management decided they wanted a full time person in his position. I can kind of understand, as the work he does, some weeks it is all he can do to get it all done in 40 hours. It is not hard work, an office job managing the parts/service department of a big machine rental place. They rent things like generators, high lifts and stuff to construction businesses. He manages repair orders, keeps inventory of the parts room and orders parts as needed.

Oh well. So now I really have to move on getting done what I need to do facilitate getting my own health care, getting him set up for Medicaid Part B and all that.

Plus, on a more personal note, getting him emotionally ready to suddenly be not working for the first time since he was in his 20s. He does not "relax" well. He is on board with me planning things to do and places to go.

I wish he was more internet and computer savy, or had a interest in coming to sites like this one. But he is not too interested.
 
Congrats also Marie. For awhile my hubby did delivery and pick ups for a dental lab. Worked out well. I found the adjustment having him home was worse for me than him. Cleaning day is a nightmare. It never fails that he walks all over my wet kitchen floor right after I mop it and the toilet bowl cleaner never lasts more than 5 minutes in the bowl before it gets flushed. To clean our little TV room I need the jaws of life to get him out of the recliner. Sorry for the rant and it is nice to just pick up and go when we want but can't he please stay off my wet floor?
 
Congrats to the hubby, Marie. And... congrats (??) to you? :D I can relate; my hub retired last year at 60 and has been underfoot since. He's not interested in online stuff, either, but thankfully he stays busy. It has been an adjustment for both of us but so far we are both still alive!! Good luck and best wishes to both of you on this new adventure.
 
Ruth n Jersey said:
Congrats also Marie. For awhile my hubby did delivery and pick ups for a dental lab. Worked out well. I found the adjustment having him home was worse for me than him. Cleaning day is a nightmare. It never fails that he walks all over my wet kitchen floor right after I mop it and the toilet bowl cleaner never lasts more than 5 minutes in the bowl before it gets flushed. To clean our little TV room I need the jaws of life to get him out of the recliner. Sorry for the rant and it is nice to just pick up and go when we want but can't he please stay off my wet floor?
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I hear ya. I was one of those husbands that was always "underfoot" when my wife was trying to spruce up the house, etc., when I first retired. I quickly caught up on projects I was saving up for when I retired, and after that, there was little to do to occupy the day. Then, we moved to the country, where I always have something to do, and now, when the wife indicates it house cleaning time, I disappear outdoors to my workshop or the forest for hours, and stay out of her way....makes for a lot more "compatibility".
 
Retired and immediately started working part time. Haven't worked though in the past year and really have no desire to anymore. I think I needed the part time work to help transition into the "no work" phase.
 
Better than working part time is to work seasonally. I did that and worked 6 months full time and then it was time to go play for 6 months.
Our kids had moved to the Pacific Northwest, so we hitched up a small trailer that we bought and went to visit them. There were many national parks and other sights to see along the way. We enjoyed it so much that we did it again the next year, going a different route.
 
RadishRose said:
Why can't retired husbands also clean the house? They live there, after all!
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Ever since we married, I clean the house. My OCD drove her nuts so we decided that it would be better for a long happy marriage if I took that on. I also cook....esp bbq season!!
 
...I also had to "learn" a couple of things when I retired. For example the lounger that I claimed as "mine" after work was not mine in the morning. As well our basement gym was also off limits in the morning as was the morning newspaper.

Who knew!!
 
Congratulations to your hubby Marie! We both retired at the same time and it's been just fine. Always something to do for either of us, or do nothing if we choose, watch a TV program or other things of interest. My husband is a better cook than I am, and he really started doing a lot of the cooking when his parents moved in with us in their later years. Now he still likes to make certain dishes for us, and like James and Gary, he specializes in BBQ steaks and ribs, etc.

Yesterday he made up a big batch of red sauce, using boneless beef short ribs, tomato sauce, diced onions and celery and shredded carrots. It slow cooked in the oven all night and came out excellent, we had some today over whole wheat spaghetti. There's a bunch of meal sized containers downstairs in the freezer, for easy future meals.

Neither of us have had any desire to go back to work, even part time. We're just enjoying our non-working years as planned.
 
jujube said:
Retirement: half the income, twice the husband.....

One of my sisters' husband just retired. She went out and got the first job she's had in at least 15 years. It was to save her sanity.
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A friend of mine did exactly the same thing. She actually went and got a part time job at McDonalds to save her sanity and/or prevent a homicide. What sent her over the edge was when he rearranged her spice cabinet by size of jars.
 
James said:
Retired and immediately started working part time. Haven't worked though in the past year and really have no desire to anymore. I think I needed the part time work to help transition into the "no work" phase.
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I did that too, James. Went from full-time to part-time; I think it helped me get ready for full retirement. I still do some work at home, editing things like technical manuals, turning engineerese into something comprehensible to normal people.
 
RadishRose said:
Why can't retired husbands also clean the house? They live there, after all!
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I'm retired, my wife is still working but plans to retire this year (2018). For the record, I help with laundry, dishes, and, though a little less successfully, with dusting and vacuuming. I'm contemplating learning how to cook, though I must admit that prospect isn't all that appealing to me. Anyway, just wanted to let you know there are retired husbands that agree with you, we share the house and it's only right (and fair) to share the chores. Don.
 
Macfan said:
I'm retired, my wife is still working but plans to retire this year (2018). For the record, I help with laundry, dishes, and, though a little less successfully, with dusting and vacuuming. I'm contemplating learning how to cook, though I must admit that prospect isn't all that appealing to me. Anyway, just wanted to let you know there are retired husbands that agree with you, we share the house and it's only right (and fair) to share the chores. Don.
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Don, you are fair and caring person, your wife must be very proud of you! Even though we are Boomers and are supposed to have risen above all that m/f stereotyping, there are still many males who try to get away with putting it all on their wives. Now, I am only speaking IN GENERAL, not about extraordinary circumstances, like bad wives, illness, etc.

Hey, if cooking isn't for you, that's fine. You do other things.
 
A friend went back to work when her husband retired for some of the reasons already mentioned in this thread. He has no problem with cooking and he has always done all of the cleaning because she can't do it well enough to suit him. He's also great at maintenance but he's a driven man and he lives by the clock. (If you ask him if he's hungry, he looks at his watch before he answers.)

I kept telling him he had to have a plan for what he was going to do when he retired or he might not survive, but I don't think he understood what I meant. They moved to Florida but I hear volcanic rumbling back here.
 
Butterfly said:
A friend of mine did exactly the same thing. She actually went and got a part time job at McDonalds to save her sanity and/or prevent a homicide. What sent her over the edge was when he rearranged her spice cabinet by size of jars.
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My grandmother begged my grandfather not to retire; she knew what was coming for her. Since he no longer had anyone to supervise at work, he decided to supervise her. She wasn't vacuuming the carpet correctly, she wasn't stacking the dishes correctly, she wasn't doing the wash correctly. HE would have done it so much better. Not that he did anything around the house, mind you, but IF he DID, he would have done it "correctly". That fact that she had been doing the work just fine for many many years didn't count.

He died about a year later, peacefully in his sleep. I'm firmly convinced that she snuck down in the middle of the night and smothered him with his pillow. Her lawyer could have packed the jury with women with retired husbands and they would have never found her guilty; they would have probably held a ticker-tape parade for her.
 
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Butterfly said:
A friend of mine did exactly the same thing. She actually went and got a part time job at McDonalds to save her sanity and/or prevent a homicide. What sent her over the edge was when he rearranged her spice cabinet by size of jars.
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This is cute and very funny!
 
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