[FULL] Retiring at 40, Only to Discover Hubby’s Secret Life Plot

Was retiring early and was looking forward to spending more time with my husband. Little did I know, he actually had other plans. And these excluded me. Well, he got the wrong person. And now I'm dead set on making sure that none of his plans work out. I'm retiring in about three months and my husband and I disagree on how the division of labor should be once that happens. Since meeting my now husband, I've been very vocal about my plans to retire when I turn 40. I've planned my life around this goal. I've lived below my means ever since college and gave up things to meet this goal. We got married in our early 30s. So it's only been seven years since then. He also saves for retirement and I finally got him to increase his savings to 20%. But he won't be able to retire until at least 62. He's instead chosen to spend his money on things that make him happy. And I fully support and encourage him in that. Everyone has different goals in life. We are both child free by choice. So that isn't a factor here. I've said in the past that I'm not going to be doing all of the cooking, cleaning and finances once I retire because I don't want to replace one job with another. I currently do all the cooking, most of the finances and probably 25% of the cleaning. I think that it's fair as my husband usually works more hours than I do. And I'm a picky eater. So this arrangement works for the best. He recently made a casual comment about how he's going to start working more overtime once I retire because he'll have less household stuff to do. I asked him what he meant by that since my retirement doesn't really change anything for him and that I preferred he didn't work more overtime so that we could spend time together. He said that most husbands with stay at home wives don't clean the house. I didn't know what to say because I thought we had already discussed this. So I tried my best to change the subject. We had an argument about it yesterday at dinner and he's now giving me the silent treatment. I slept in the guest room last night as he locked our bedroom door and wouldn't let me in. I just don't know how to get through to him. Even though I'm no longer working, I won't be a stay at home wife. To me, a stay at home partner is the manager of the home and doesn't bring in much, if any, income. Their job is to take care of the home. I'm not trading one job for another. I'm only retiring. I'm still bringing in an income. I plan my life so well that I no longer have to work 9 to 5. I have multiple hobbies that I have been super excited about devoting more time to. I love rockhounding, crocheting, and hiking. I'm an unpublished writer and have always dreamed of becoming published. I have a lifestyle blog and a pretty active Pinterest following. I'm not super consistent and they're not big enough to monetize, so I count them as hobbies, not side jobs. I also have a very long travel bucket list. I've already started looking into non-profits in my area that I could volunteer for. I know I still have limited hours in a day, but even if I only volunteer one day a week, I still feel like I could be helping our local community. I know we've had conversations about this and he's always been supportive. Even when I leave for a few weeks every so often to solo travel, he's always been excited for me. I'm totally confused about this change and I'm freaking out. I thought I communicated my expectations, but he's saying that he doesn't even remember talking about it and that he's not okay with me retiring if I'm just going to be lazy. I don't see it that way. We split expenses proportionally based on income. I pay 70% of expenses and that will continue once I retire. Am I in the wrong? So he came home very late that night after ignoring his phone. We didn't end up talking about it and I slept in the guest room again. He works from home on Tuesday and Thursday, so the next day he was home when I got off work. I spent the day gathering my thoughts and preparing to have a calm discussion. I tried to remain calm, but he was so defensive and accusatory that I was getting very frustrated. We weren't very productive and we ended our talk with him denying that I pay 70% of the expenses, even though we planned this out and budgeted together based on this. I told him I would go through our expenses to prove it and being the person that I am, I did so the next day. This is where the problem starts. When I was going through our expenses, I found a charge on my husband's credit card from two weeks ago that I did not recognize. It was not an insignificant amount, so I originally looked into it just to see if it was a household or personal expense. It turned out to be a bill paid to a law office. For very obvious reasons, I wanted to get more information on why he was being billed by a law office. I looked up the office and it was a divorce attorney specializing in property division. I logged into his email and found his conversations with said lawyer. He was trying to find a way to overturn our prenup so he could get half instead of what is agreed upon in our prenup and wanted to try and get alimony as well. I had no idea he wasn't happy until we started arguing on Saturday. That morning, he woke me up with breakfast in bed, a total surprise since it wasn't a special day and he almost never cooks. Two weeks ago, we had a Star Wars movie marathon and ran around the house in lightsaber battle. Last month, he communicated that he felt like we weren't spending as much time together as we normally do, so I planned more date nights. He's gotten me flowers at least once a week for months now. I just didn't understand why he wanted to divorce without even trying to express what he was feeling to me first. When I went all the way back to the very first emails, which were in late July, a woman we'll call Ashley was brought up. I tried to think of a way to confirm my suspicions without him suspecting that I knew what he'd been up to. On Saturdays, we sometimes get takeout, so I purposefully left my phone upstairs and asked him if I could use his to order the food. I was taking too long to figure out what I wanted, so he went downstairs to finish what he was doing, which gave me more time. It was hard to wait that long without letting on what I knew, but from Thursday to Saturday, I began to get a plan in place. I spoke with a divorce attorney, scheduled my consultation, and made sure I had any legal and financial documents I might need. On Saturday, when I went through his phone, I found Instagram messages between him and Ashley. By going through the messages and looking at her account, I figured out a lot about her. Ashley seems to be a nice girl he met on Tinder back in May. She is 27 and married to her high school sweetheart who can't bring in enough income for her to be a stay-at-home wife. Considering my husband works in tech, he's obviously the better option. Little did she know that he lied about how much he was making. He lied to her about wanting to have kids and has told her that it's the reason he's unhappy in our marriage. I don't know what he's thinking she's going to do when she finds out he had a vasectomy. Ashley is apparently willing to be a proper woman and do wifely duties, as per her words. Upon cross-checking dates, when he's supposed to be hanging out with friends or at work, he's actually with her. She has a weird work schedule, so she sometimes comes over to our house on the days he works from home and I'm in the office. She is convinced that after they both go through their respective divorces, they'll live in the house together, get married, and have kids. He has just gone along with everything she says. He's told her that I'm lazy and hardly make any money and that I wanted to quit my job and not do any work, which is why he's finally gotten the courage to leave me. He said that he's taking extra care in the divorce because he doesn't want to leave me with nothing. He also told her I changed my mind about having kids and that I'm denying him his masculine desire to continue his lineage. I just got back from my new attorney's office with a lot of forms to fill out. I'm so overwhelmed and I still feel so confused. For some reason, this must just be a really bad dream. I reached out to Ashley's husband, so they're probably heading towards divorce as well. He seems like a nice enough guy and he's also totally blindsided by the affair. I told my husband I was divorcing him last night and told him he could either sleep in one of the guest rooms or get a hotel room. He chose the latter. Our prenup has a 99% chance of holding up in court, but we also have an infidelity clause that I'm hoping to prove so I can keep 100% of the house. I was willing to put my dream house under the infidelity clause because I knew I would never cheat. He was fine with it at the time as well, but is now blowing up my phone about it. If I can't prove his affair, which is unlikely considering the evidence I have, I would have to pay him about 25% of our equity in the house, which is enough for a down payment on another house. He desperately wants me to not bring his affair into our divorce, which is weird to me since he had no qualms about bringing the affair into our marriage. It turns out Ashley is staying at the same hotel as my husband, so go figure. I'm officially divorced. I'm doing well, focusing on myself a lot. I plan to start dating, eventually, but I don't feel quite ready yet. Hopefully, everything stays fine and dandy and this is the last time you'll have to hear from me. I blocked my husband, Derek, and communicated through my lawyer. In October, Derek had a meeting with his lawyer. We're guessing his lawyer had some bad news for him or maybe finally told him that he was screwed, whatever it was. It caused him to have a mental breakdown where he basically confessed to everything to Ashley and told her that he was going to lose everything. It took her another day to show up at Jake's, her husband's house, apologizing and wanting to make things work. He didn't take her up on that and at this point, they were also divorced. She claimed that Derek manipulated her, but they're now back together, so I guess she hasn't had enough yet. I don't know if she knows about the vasectomy as I haven't had any contact with her. That's her problem now. Derek cried in court multiple times and screamed at his lawyer once. He genuinely didn't look okay. Our prenup held up. I came out with my house, my car, and all of my separate property. I had to pay him a small lump sum lemony payment. I had a divorce slash retirement party at my house after everything was finalized. All our mutual friends stopped being friends with him after I told them what happened. He still has other friends and they don't seem to care about the situation, so who knows what he told them. His mom and I are still friends. She also came to the party. I'm relieved that the divorce process has come to an end and now I can look forward to a fresh start.