This week on ‘So You Think You’re an Adult’, one woman asked how to tell her recently retired husband to get up off the sofa and help take care of their home.
“My husband worked for 40 years, when he got to 65, he had to retire,” she told Moncrieff.
“You could tell he would be missed as he poured himself into the job.
“Before he had retired, we had talked about enjoying retirement together and doing a lot of travel.
“I gave up work when we had our three children, so for the last 25 years I’ve been busy at home.
“Now that he’s retired, I thought the time would come for us to enjoy this next stage of life - the problem is my husband does nothing.
“Since retiring, I’m still doing all the cooking and looking after the home. He said he would spend more time in the garden, but that never happened, we haven’t booked a holiday because it would be up to me to organise it.
“I can tell he’s so unhappy and lacking a purpose.
“To be honest, our marriage is the worst it’s ever been because we’ve generally not spent much time together since before we got married.
“What can I do?”
Couple arguing. Image: Prostock-studio / Alamy. 23 February 2022Broadcaster Barbara Scully said this woman needs to sit her husband down and explain she is not “some unpaid slave”.
“Division of labour should be equal and you need to talk to him about doing that – he also needs to learn how to cook,” she said.
“I think a lot of men of this age don’t know how to cook because they never had to learn how to, and it’s in his interest that he should learn.
“Even though women live longer, he may end up on his sweetie.”
Book the holiday
However, when it comes to the holiday, Barbara said this woman should book it herself, as she’ll probably enjoy it more than if her husband did it for her.
“Make him do the housework but you go ahead and book the holiday and go away and have a good time,” she said.
“When you’re away from life and the house and the housework and the fact that he’s been lazy you might remember why it is that you married him, and it might be just the thing that you need.”
Depressed senior man sitting on sofa at home suffering from loneliness or bad headache. Image: Roman Lacheev / Alamy. 10 September 2020Tv personality Declan Buckley agreed that a conversation about household management was needed but pointed out that this man is likely struggling to find a new purpose in life.
“The transition from having his identity so enmeshed into his job to now having no identity because he no longer has a job, that’s a really serious life change,” he said.
“It’s massive - it’s like the hollow has been pulled out from inside him.
“The reality of it is, it is a big change for him and that’s what he’s going through."
Declan said that while this woman's points are valid, she should have sympathy for the fact that her husband's life has changed drastically while hers has remained fairly similar.
Listen back here:
Main image: Husband watching tv with remote control while his wife is standing behind in the kitchen. Image: Andrey Kekyalyaynen / Alamy. 6 November 2016
