Family Feuds·
HILL TO DIE ON
A long-suffering breadwinner recalibrates his life after decades of overtime, challenging his wife as her generosity toward grown children threatens to dissolve their carefully built plan.
Should grown kids get help, or stand on their own?
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A husband who spent 20 years grinding out 12-hour shifts says he is done footing the bill for grown children, and when his wife kept handing her spending money to the kids, he told her to get a job.
The poster says the arrangement had been built over decades. Since he was 35, he worked out of town on a punishing schedule so his wife could stay home and run the house and raise the children. "I worked six weeks on of twelve hours days," he wrote. "That works out to 56 hours a week if you average it out." The money, he says, went exactly where it needed to go: mortgage, cars bought outright, college funds, retirement savings, an emergency fund, and vacation money. After taxes, the household budget came first; anything left over was split down the middle for personal spending.
Now he is 55, and he says he has reached the end of that road.
The children are both through university, have degrees, and jobs of their own. The mortgage is gone. The family has newer vehicles, money in the bank, and no tuition bills left to carry. So the poster changed jobs, moving from the brutal out-of-town grind to a 9-to-5 city office position with better hourly pay but far less total income because the overtime disappeared. He says he made the switch because he is tired and wants to slow down.
He also says he has not abandoned the family. By his account, he still provides the essentials: "I still provide housing and food for all of them." He and his wife each still have $1,000 a month for personal spending, and he says he is saving his share for a new garage or workshop.
That is where the conflict started.
According to the poster, his wife began giving her monthly money to the children and then hinting that he should do the same. Instead, he told her to get a job if she wanted to subsidize them. "I told her to get a job," he wrote. "She is only forty six." He said the children are adults now, and he has already done his part. "I think I have contributed enough," he said. "This is my hill to die on."
The wife and the kids did not take it well. They called him cruel, and one of the children accused him of being lazy for cutting back so much. But the poster says he has already spent years carrying the load. "I did my part," he wrote. "I want to enjoy my life."