'We had the worst fight': I want my husband to retire at 65, but I don't want to lose his $280,000 salary. Is that unreasonable?

By Quentin Fottrell

'We have $2.6 million, most of it in his 401(k) and IRAs, plus $450,000 in a brokerage account'

"I grew up in a house where my mother kept the grocery money in an envelope in the freezer, and I swore my kids would never feel that." (Photo subject is a model.)

Dear Quentin,

My husband is a senior vice president at a logistics company. He works 60 hours a week and, like most people these days, he takes calls evenings and on Saturday mornings. Last March, he missed our granddaughter's school play, and I sat next to the empty seat holding his program.

At Thanksgiving, he dozed off at the table, and the kids pretended not to notice. He's short with people now. He grumbles about his team all through dinner, and I can't remember the last time I heard him laugh at something that wasn't on TV.

I've been telling him to slow down for 10 years, so I was thrilled when he said he wanted to retire at the end of December. Then he said he meant stopping completely, and my stomach dropped. I'm 63 and my husband is 66. We've been married 35 years.

'We pay about $1,100 a month in dues at the club.'

We have three grown kids, and four grandchildren. We have $2.6 million, most of it in his 401(k) and IRAs, plus $450,000 in a brokerage account, and I have my own IRA. The house is almost paid off and worth $1.1 million. We have very little credit-card debt that we pay off monthly.

We had the worst fight we've ever had. He makes about $280,000 with his bonus. I earn $65,000 a year, working three days a week as an office manager at a dental practice. He wants us to live on the portfolio, his Social Security (about $3,900 a month), and mine once I claim it.

Our financial adviser ran the numbers. If we keep spending exactly as we do now, we'd be withdrawing close to 5% a year at the start. If we trim things, it's closer to 3.5%. He called that "tight but workable," and I've thought about those words every night since.

I'm not crazy about his feedback. We take two or three trips a year, and this year it was a week in Maine in July and 10 days in Portugal in May. We pay about $1,100 a month in dues at the club, plus whatever assessment they throw at us.

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Generous lifestyle

Every summer we rent a big house at the Outer Banks for the whole family, which runs about $11,000. We give our kids $5,000 each a year, and we chip in for the grandchildren's swim team, braces and a 529 plan.

I grew up in a house where my mother kept the grocery money in an envelope in the freezer, and I swore my kids would never feel that. I think that's a lot of why I can't picture telling them the gifts are ending.

He has 40 years of experience and a Rolodex people would kill for, and I'm sure he could bring in $100,000 or $120,000 working from the home office and choosing his clients. I suggested he consider some consulting. He could turn down work whenever we wanted to travel.

'I suggested he consider some consulting.'

He said, "That's not retirement. That's a job with worse benefits." He said he's worked 40 years and doesn't want to spend five more answering emails and chasing invoices. He texted that I want him around on my terms. I cried in the car in the driveway before I could go inside.

It isn't fair, though. I spent 35 years running the house around his schedule. I went to the recitals, the pediatrician appointments and the parent-teacher nights by myself, and I made sure the kids didn't feel how much he was gone.

If we stopped the $15,000 a year for the kids, cut back on travel and let the club go, we'd be fine. He says the money is supposed to give us freedom, not pay for every habit we picked up while he was earning a fortune. He says our kids are in their 30s with good jobs.

I also keep wondering whether he'll actually be happy. He has never sat still. His friend died at 64 of a heart attack, eight months after he retired, and my husband hasn't been the same since. He says he'll fish and finally finish the boat he's been restoring in the garage since 2011.

How do we find a compromise?

A 63-Year-Old Wife

You can email The Moneyist with any financial and ethical questions at qfottrell@marketwatch.com. The Moneyist regrets he cannot reply to questions individually.

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He may resent working so hard to sustain a pretty extravagant and, yes, generous lifestyle. You may resent the low- and unpaid work that has been the backbone of your family.

Dear Wife,

Your costs are low, your lifestyle is high.

When you give up something in life, you usually have to make a compromise. It's not helpful to frame a compromise as a choice between your husband taking on consulting work in retirement and spending his late 60s and 70s, and beyond, playing golf and doing things he loves.

The compromise is actually your lifestyle, and that's something you can both agree upon together. I agree with your husband that taking on consulting work as a condition of his retirement is a lot of work, chasing prospective clients and answering to them.

But he also gets a new boss if he agrees to such a condition, and that new boss is you. You have done enough, raising your three children, and working in a dental practice for $65,000 a year. He has done enough working 60 hours a week in a stressful job.

I don't blame him for wanting to draw a line in the sand.

He has seen what neglecting your health or allowing the stress of a high-paying corporate career can do, through his friend who died suddenly from a heart attack. He doesn't want that to happen to him.

Your argument is based on long-standing resentments that you want made right by his act of retirement. He may resent working so hard to sustain a pretty extravagant and, yes, generous lifestyle. You may resent your low- and unpaid work that has been the backbone of your family.

The irony, it seems, is that I don't know whether you are sympathetic about him missing your granddaughter's recital and dozing off at the dinner table, or whether you are annoyed with him for not always showing up or being fully engaged. Or, in fact, both.

Underneath this argument are unprocessed feelings, and that's not necessarily a bad thing if you both own those feelings and commit to airing them - ideally with a marriage counsellor who can find out why his retirement, which you can afford, has triggered you.

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Affording retirement

The reason I say your dispute is more emotional than financial is because you are both in a very good position. You are still working, and he is set to collect Social Security benefits at his full retirement age at 67, or wait until 70 for roughly 8% a year more.

If you took a 5% annual withdrawal from your $3.05 million portfolio, you would have $152,500 a year, or a monthly income of $12,700 before taxes and investment fees. That's before either of you even touch your Social Security, which could bring your monthly income to $20,000.

Even a 3.5% withdrawal would give you an annual income of $106,750, or $8,900 a month. That's more than a lot of people earn during their working years. That money is not guaranteed because the stock market goes up and down, but it's a pretty good starting point.

Making adjustments in retirement is not a defeat.

Once you've sat down with a marriage counsellor, a financial adviser can outline how much you can afford to spend every year, including a travel budget. You can, after all, take phenomenal vacations without staying in five-star hotels.

Making adjustments in retirement is not a defeat, it's an opportunity to design a new life that could bring new adventures. You could join a homes-wapping website, or take longer trips in an Airbnb that costs less than a two-week vacation in a resort.

I don't think your children should or would expect you to continue dishing out $15,000 a year in cash gifts when your husband has retired. The point of retirement is to make it work and be happy, not to cling to every perk you had during your working years.

You're 63. You have honored the promise to that younger version of yourself that you didn't need an envelope for grocery money, and you have shown your family that hard work and living life to the fullest pays off. Now you must be true to your 60-something selves.

There is nothing more to prove.

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Check out The Moneyist's private Facebook group, where members help answer life's thorniest money issues. Post your questions, weigh in on the latest Moneyist columns or email The Moneyist at qfottrell@marketwatch.com.

More columns from Quentin Fottrell:

'It feels like he's quietly building a separate life': My husband inherited $500,000, but he refuses to spend it on our home

Two months after my father's funeral, my stepmother asked me to repay his $40,000 wedding gift. Should I do what she says?

'It seems bizarre': We're in our 80s with $950,000 in traditional IRAs. Why is our adviser pushing Roth conversions?

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-Quentin Fottrell

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11-09-26 0915ET