One other thing, and pardon me if I missed it somewhere in this long thread, but it seems like your main motivation for FI is that you hate your job and it's dawned on you that maybe you don't have to do it. I haven't gotten the sense that your motivations might be something like: having a child has made you realize you want to re-prioritize; you're realizing you live a materialistic life that not fundamentally satisfying; the go-go-go workaholism is driving a wedge between you and the person you cherish most in your life. I don't know if any of these things are true, you haven't so much as hinted at them. Your motivation for FI seems to be about you, rather than your family, and I have to wonder if this is something your wife is reacting to.
I have to assume FI was not a priority for you when you were considering such things as living in NYC, working in a high-paying, high pressure industry, and having a family. That's fine, things change, but you should be clear about your motivations. If you had a job you loved, would you still want to stay at home? What's the vision for your family that FI provides?
Right now it seems like you have a pretty defeatist attitude about getting to FI because it would take a long time and would be hard. Well, duh, as are most things in life that are worth doing are hard. You have to ask yourself if the hard work is worth it to you. You have to be very clear about your goals, and why they benefit not just you but your whole family.
You seem focused on the short term, and your wife seem focused on maintaining. Neither attitude is conducive to building wealth.
Even though I find it a little obnoxious to read, the book "The Millionaire Next Door" discusses the attitudes and habits of people who build wealth (check it out from the library, definitely not worthy buying). Maintaining a high income is a stressful way to be "wealthy." Building wealth and investing is, in the long run, much more secure.
Good questions. From my perspective, getting to FI would actually be easy...but gettting my wife on board with the changes required to do that is the hard part. I've gotten some good suggestions on ways to proceed here.
As for motivations, yes to everything you listed. But you're right that I probably focused too much on the "hate my job" aspect in that conversation. But I very much do enjoy spending time with my son at home.
As far as working hard toward a different job of career id be perfectly willing to do that if I could find something that made sense. But for the above reasons (spending time with family and reducing stress) id want it to be part time or at most 40 hours a week. In my industry, those types of jobs are pretty much non existent given the intensity and timelines.
I could try and do contract work but that's going to take a big leap of faith from my wife that I could secure those gigs on a regular basis. Or if we treat them like "gravy" that requires living a lifestyle that fits within what can be achieved through passive income. So from her perspective, it's pretty much the same thing as me "quitting my job".
I suppose I could take some sort of entry level retail job but that would provide little income, satisfaction or security while still having many downsides and costs associated with holding down a job. Not to mention the lifestyle abd/or location adjustments that would be required to make it work.
As for focusing only on the short term, I'm not sure I agree. I've worked in my current industry for 16 years and through saving, real estate and investing have amassed 1.6 million of our total net worth. Could it have been even higher? Sure- but it's still pretty good.
Regarding the thought experiment on "if I had a job I enjoyed" would I still want to retire early? That's very hard to answer. But if this dream job required lots of long hours, then no, at this point I'd want to scale back. Of course, I'd much rather be doing this "dream job" and working long hours than my current job but that's kind of obvious.
Living the "high life" in NYC and having a high stress job weren't things I sought out in particular. But I grew up in this area, friends and family are still here, majored in computer science (I was interested in it) and found my first job in this industry. It was fun in the early years - but many of the trends you read about have slowly eaten away the satisfaction. Now it's all about faster and cheaper. True, my wife met me when I still liked or didn't mind my job - but that has changed. She actually came across as less materialistic than other people I dated and I liked that about her. I don't think I realized how attached she was to NYC and the lifestyle associated with it.
Not trying to sound defeatist here, just trying to come up wjth a path that makes sense. When you're feeling tired, burned out and anxious it's not easy to think outside the box - which is what's needed here. I can continue to "buckle down" and "work hard" cause that's what I've always done - but there's little purpose on that. Comtinuing down the same road will increase my NW but without the prospect of ER what's the point. That's why I'm looking all over for different perspectives and suggestions (including here).
Right now, the most helpful advice tends to be about career/job suggestions and relationship communication. I already know that "I'm doing it wrong"
