DH coercing me to retire in 50s

What do you do? - leave this man?

I think you’d both be happier apart. Your career is your top priority and you’re feeling resentful of anything that detracts from it.
His top priority seems to be himself and his comfort and he’s feeling resentful of anything that detracts from it.

Your teenage daughter is caught in the middle of two resentful people which can’t be good for her.

I think you all need a neutral family mediator who can help you discuss a way forward that make you all happier whether that’s compromise within the marriage or a way of ending it amicably.

You seem to thrive on the stress your job involves and though you don't exactly enjoy it it is where you want to be at the moment.

I take it that your husband is not offering to prioritise your family. Don't let him bully you.

You must be bringing in quite a lot of money even if you are not fully paid for the time you put in and I agree that it would be a shame to waste everything you have worked towards over the years.

Only you can decide when you want to retire. You need to have it out with DH who seems to be resentful that you are finally standing up for yourself against his unpleasant behaviour.

Incidentally is DH retired?

Work and home life seem far too stressful! Does your husband work? He sounds like a nightmare. You need to STOP and take a breather.

What do you want to do? Go part-time and divorce ( if that’s financially viable) seems like a good solution.

Your OH sounds awful, forget your worries about returning early, which you don’t seem too keen on anyway, and instead address the elephant in the room, your OH.
I suggest you have a robust conversation about his attitude - he will try to turn this back on you but hey ho - with mention of a separation if he can’t or won’t change
A marriage counsellor might help.
But don’t agonise about your job if you actually do love it and have really worked hard to be where you are. Congrats on achieving this.
All the best xx

Correction retiring early

You should not be accepting your husband’s coercive and controlling behaviour. It sounds like you’ve recently found the courage to stand up to him and he’s shocked.

It would be a shame to give up on your career you’ve worked so hard to achieve. If you give it up you’ll still be living with a nasty bully and that’s not going to change unless you deal with it.

I hope your husband is doing his share of the homemaking ie 50% of it. If you do decide to quit your job it has to be your decision and not because your bullying husband forced you to comply with his demands.

Your dream job isn’t what you expected. It involves much longer hours than you expected, and a great deal of stress. I get that, been there. You’ve accomplished what you wanted, so that’s a great achievement which nobody can take away from you. However, the job is doing you no good apart from your pay cheque and it’s not doing your daughter any good either. You’ve already shown her what a strong work ethic is, and that with hard work success is possible even if you also have a home and family to look after, including an unsupportive husband - no mean feat. So my advice is to find something else which satisfies you but doesn’t make such demands on your time and headspace. Not for your husband but for yourself and your daughter. Make it clear to him that you have made the decision yourself, not in response to his bullying.

Thanks for so many prompt replies!

I work part time in a very senior role in healthcare.

My career isn’t my top priority, my family is, but equally it’s a big step to give up my career after decades of training and I feel a huge indebtedness to all my family and friends who bent over backwards for years when DD was little to help me achieve my dream job today. I feel I would be letting them all down if I just walk away after doing the job for one year, as well as being a poor role model for DD and all her school friends, several of whom have said they want to follow my career path.

I don’t thrive on stress, I loathe it, but it’s inevitable with a role at this level.

Unfortunately due to the nature of my job I can’t take a break and then reapply in the future. In fact, this would probably be very difficult for most jobs for women in their 50s, as they’d always be competing against a “bright young thing” who would have lower salary expectations and be less likely to answer back/tell managers how they should be doing their jobs/have menopausal hot flushes and brain fog/take sick leave for the inevitable illnesses and operations that start to crop up later in life!

DH is currently “between jobs” and actively looking for his next job. This is extremely stressful for all of us, as his salary is usually several multiples of mine and without his income we’re largely living off our savings.

I’ve thought about divorce in the past, but if there’s one thing worse than being married to an irrational self-centred bully it’s being divorced from one, especially when there is a child involved who would have to spend at least a day of unchaperoned time each week listening to tirades of bitterness about me having the audacity to walk away from my public commitment to be a wife and mother “until death do us part”.

Some very good advice here from all of you. Great to have your support!

I returned to work in the Health service at 50 !
I found it the best bit of my career, I wasn’t in a senior position , so not as stressful as the OP ,
My children survived , all did well , some very odd meals were cobbled together when I missed the bus home , or had to be on call at weekends , but it meant everyone learnt some cooking
Maybe if OHfinds a new job he will subside
Surely if he isn’t working he could. make it easier for you on the home front ?

I suspect your husband’s lack of employment is a big factor in his attitude to your work. Put bluntly, he’s jealous and if he too is in his 50s he’s facing the possibility of never getting the same type of work again. There’s nothing you can do about that but obviously this wouldn’t be the greatest time for you to take a lower paid job - surely you can get him to recognise that. However I don’t think you need feel guilty about letting anyone down if you decide to pack your current job in - you did what they supported you to do and have given it a fair crack of the whip, but you would be letting people down if you allowed this job to make you ill.

Having read in your second post that your husband is between jobs I’d like to amend my comment saying he should be doing 50% of the “home making “. He should be doing most if not all of it including having a home cooked meal ready for you when you arrive home after a tough day at work.

I wonder if he’s feeling inadequate to find himself out of work while you have a successful career. It’s still no excuse for his obnoxious behaviour.

If he's not in work at the moment, why isn't he doing all the housework, home-making etc?

I'm sure when he finds another job you could share the duties. Unless, of course, he claims that he is far too busy to do such menial tasks as well as his very important job.

You are still young, far too young to 'retire'. Don't even think about it.

The other priority is your daughter, poor girl, caught between two warring parents. You've let this bully get away with far too much for too long and, if you do want to stay, you're going to sit him down, tell him to zip it while he listens to what you have to say. He has to change his attitude.

Good luck.

I wonder if he’s feeling inadequate to find himself out of work while you have a successful career.
Spot on, Grannynannywanny

I may be misunderstanding and I’m aware that I’m relating it to my own experience.

There’s enormous satisfaction and a real boost to self worth n reaching the top of your profession and feeling that you’re really good at something and that others recognise it. So I totally understand wanting to continue with that plus the acknowledgment that others have helped you to achieve that and you want to continue for them as well as yourself.

I think that you are being undermined rather than supported by your husband and that that is what makes the stress of the job hard whereas with support it would be manageable.

I didn’t mean to imply anything derogatory by saying your job was your top priority, rather that it was a whole family responsibility to give you support to enable you to manage both work and family life.

Actually I’m not sure I’m really offering you anything except some sympathy in having to be the person that “makes it work” without any reciprocal “give” from others. It doesn’t sound as if your husband is open to any kind of change or negotiations.

Your husband is clearly feeling threatened by not being top dog at the moment.. I would tell him how much you appreciate his support for both yourself and your daughter.. and don't respond angrily to his comments..just encourage him in his employment endeavours..

Meanwhile enjoy your job and stop worrying about being a bad mother which you clearly aren't as you're being a really wonderful role model..

most importantly don't let anyone guilt trip you.. you've worked hard for this...

Did you give age of your daughter?

DD is 13, so another 5 years at school, including the stress of GCSEs and A levels.

Your second post says all that I need to know, your OH feels upset about not being the major breadwinner and jealous that you are so successful whilst he is in a slump. He also seems to have outdated attitudes towards who should be doing all the housework and cooking. My view is whoever is at home does this. Also if finances are tight and you still have a child at home is a stressful time all round.
My suggestion of a robust conversation stands, however, and the option of counselling. Don’t just put up with it. He surely wouldn’t.

I think what the two of you need is couple counselling. You need to be able to sit down with a mediator and talk this problem through openly and honestly. I do not think the pair of you would be capable of doing this without mediation.

Barleyfields

Your dream job isn’t what you expected. It involves much longer hours than you expected, and a great deal of stress. I get that, been there. You’ve accomplished what you wanted, so that’s a great achievement which nobody can take away from you. However, the job is doing you no good apart from your pay cheque and it’s not doing your daughter any good either. You’ve already shown her what a strong work ethic is, and that with hard work success is possible even if you also have a home and family to look after, including an unsupportive husband - no mean feat. So my advice is to find something else which satisfies you but doesn’t make such demands on your time and headspace. Not for your husband but for yourself and your daughter. Make it clear to him that you have made the decision yourself, not in response to his bullying.

Great advice here!

You can see how the two situations of the pressure of your job and his separate lack of a job make what is already quite a fraught situation into a tinderbox. A lot of men who have worked and been the main money earner, can feel stressed when their wives move from running a home and childcare to taking on the sort of work that they have been capable of for ages but they have put family needs first. They get used to it and if new patterns of sharing jobs in the house and times available to do things together. But whilst your husband is obviously finding his own situation difficult , he is now finding it very stressful as you have your own job and cash and he no longer can control the family cash or anything else. So I go back to my old thing that I often suggest to people in varying problematical situations.

So I suggest that you get two pieces of paper for each situation, The pro s and the con s . So you could do one version for staying in the job you have now, and a totally different set for working in a less stressful job and possibly even a third for if you stayed at home. So whichever set you are looking at you write anything positive on the sheet of paper and fold it over like the game of consequence,and the same with the cons etc. Keep doing this until the papers are full, or for a set time limit. Then put the papers away for a couple of weeks. Wait for a day when you are neither in a bad mood or very high, where you can look at the papers in private. Then you open the pro and con paper and look at the things you have written. You are not trying to make a list of best or worst, but more looking to see how 2 or 3 sentences are about the same thing and if you do that with all the papers you can then see what things are more important or less important to you. Then you can apply these ideas to the situation and you should then get a better idea of your own wishes and feelings about the jobs etc. I am assuming that the effect each situation will have on your daughter will be part of this. Once you can see a clear idea of what you want to happen you can then look at any situation and have a basic sense of what will be best for you. We do usually know a lot about what we like and what we dont, but in a stressful condition sometimes forget what counts. You can also have a little surprise when you look over your lists as sometimes something you have not been so aware of appears. Whilst of course at the moment your daughter is of prime importance, later on it will be more of your own choice as to how you carry on with your life. You will make your own plans but for myself the thought of living for years with someone who thinks he has the right to tell me what to do, would not be my choice and I would rather have a peaceful and quiet home on my own , where I did not have to explain myself all the time. Far more important than any physical comfort.
Whatever you choose to do, if you do something like this, you will know in the future that you made a choice, whatever it is , rather than you were cajoled or bullied into living in a way that is nothing like what you want. Good Luck and I am sure that seeing you firmly deciding how your life will go, rather than following whatever your husband says will also be a good example to your daughter . Just to see that we are all entitled to , within reason, choose our own way in life.

Ask yourself ' what do I really want?' if the answer is to keep your job then do that. If you feel you need a less stressful job then try for that - but only because it is your decision - not your DHs .
You think your DH is a bully - then you know what to do . Your DD has a good Mum, whatever you decide she will be ok !

M0nica

I think what the two of you need is couple counselling. You need to be able to sit down with a mediator and talk this problem through openly and honestly. I do not think the pair of you would be capable of doing this without mediation.

That's probably right. Very good advice.