‘I feel I’m being blackmailed into going back to a life we simply can’t afford’

Downsizing after adult kids have left home is a natural progression in a relationship but some find it easier than others. Photo / 123rf

Advice columnist Rachel Johnson advises a reader who is struggling with the trials and tribulations downsizing puts on a relationship.

Q. I thought we’d agreed to move and downsize, but now my husband is so unhappy about it that I worry we’ll end up divorcing. We brought up our lovely daughters in a beautiful big house in the country. My husband worked locally in a low-paid job and did most of the childcare, whilst I commuted two hours each way to a job I disliked in the city.

When the girls left home, I swapped my highly-paid job for a lower-paid one closer to home and for a while we were very happy. However, the cost of living crisis eventually caught up with us and I suggested that we downsize and move to a cheaper area. I got a well-paid job and went first and my husband followed — grudgingly — six months later. We’re now two years down the line and all we do is argue.

The old house is on the verge of being sold (the buyers have made an offer and the legal stuff is being sorted) and my husband just uses every excuse to be back there — doing what I consider to be unnecessary repairs, sitting in his garage smoking, and just generally dragging his heels and being unpleasant.

I feel I’ve very much done my bit. I, too, would have liked to have spent more time with our daughters when they were growing up, but someone had to pay the bills. I feel I’m being blackmailed into going back to a life we simply can’t afford and which requires at least one of us (and it will be me) to work away. Am I being so unreasonable in wanting to ease up as I approach my 60s? And how can I persuade my husband that this is not the end of the world?

- Downsizer

A. Downsizer and down in the dumps, how relatable. To me, anyway. As we approach Six-Oh, it’s common to rethink the domestic and professional geography. Do we really need the overstuffed family house, with its kiddy bedrooms full of sports kit, framed team photographs, and A-Level art folders that the children don’t want in their bougie flats in London, but expect you to treasure until you go into a care home? Do we need to downsize so we can help the nippers into their own nests?

These are all predictable issues in most average ageing two-parent households whether on dual incomes or in your case, one. Yours. Reading between the lines, I sense some resentment that you have been the breadwinner and he has been the lead-swinger in your household, as you put it, “sitting in the garage, smoking.”

His attachment to the house where he lived, and looked after and raised your daughters while you commuted to the city is understandable. So is your wish for me time and a break. It strikes me that you are both seeing this later-life juncture and rupture from the past from your own point of view.

He wants to stick with the cosy quotidian comforts he’s always enjoyed while you did the heavy lifting as the salaryman of the relationship. He wants you to carry on being the laying hen you’ve always been. You say you wish you could have stayed home with the girls while they were growing up, “but someone had to pay the bills”.

Downsizing is often triggered by a combination of financial pressures and lifestyle changes. Photo / 123RF

If you reverse the genders, however, you sound very ungrateful and judgemental of your husband and his choices. As you ask Aibu (Mumsnet users will know this means Am I Being Unreasonable) I’d say yes. A little. You’ve been charged with playing the traditional male role of the 50s father and you clearly resent it. I can imagine men reading this and thinking, welcome to our world, Madam. Even in 2024, men are expected to put the sourdough on the table rather than bake it.

Many “career” women would have been thrilled to have had a contented house-husband holding the fort, but not you. And many men would be delighted not to be trapped in the traditional gender role where the male is the drone, the worker bee, while the female is queen of the home hive.

You have reversed the old-fashioned gender roles and now you want to switch back again, take your foot off the throttle, and ease back a little. I showed your letter to Sally O’Sullivan, who was sympathetic. “No, you are not unreasonable in wanting to slow down in your 60s but your palpable resentment could be calcifying your assessment of the situation,” says O’Sullivan. “It is tough to be the female and the main breadwinner. But if the genders were reversed and you were a man, your wife would probably follow without complaint.

“Although, while still a difficult time, a woman in your husband’s position would have a lot more relational infrastructure to get her through the empty nest and lack of meaningful career. Empty nest is not just a female condition. It seems like you can move on and find some meaning in your work and future whereas your husband longs to return to the past. You mention you feel like you are being blackmailed into going back into a life you can’t afford — but are you?” O’Sullivan says you see the situation in purely financial terms, which is a narrow prism to think about your life together through.

She agrees it’s hard to combine roles as breadwinner and earth mother but you two need an “open conversation”. As for me, I might suggest the following. Open the lines of communication, yes. Then I would sit down with him, look at your incomings and outgoings, and work out how much you need a month to live on without drawing into savings. Divide it up between you. Tell him you don’t mind what he does to earn his share — he could be a cabbie, he could work at Costa, or become a carer, it’s up to him — but he needs to contribute X to the family finances, and you undertake to contribute Y. Believe it or not, this system is the real reason why I am writing this today.

When I had two tiny children and was pregnant with my third, I handed in my notice at the BBC, where I had a staff job. This left my husband, a journalist, as sole breadwinner. He rose nobly to the occasion but it still wasn’t enough to cover the mortgage and all the costs of children, au pair, food, clothes, bills and so on. He told me I still had to bring in a big chunk of cash every month to keep us afloat — or go back to work full-time. I began the side hustle as a freelancer even though at the time all I wanted was to stop work, have five children, and make handmade Christmas decorations. We couldn’t afford that and here we are — and with hindsight I’m glad I didn’t chuck in the grift and the graft to be a trad wife. If you don’t like my solution to your problem, blame my husband. All I can say is it worked for us back 30 years ago and it’s still working — well, I am — today.

Rachel Johnson, journalist, author of eight books, broadcaster, host of the Difficult Women podcast – and now the Telegraph’s sex and relationships agony aunt