This article is designed not to give you answers but to raise the questions that you and your spouse need to wrestle with as you begin this new phase of your lives together in retirement.
Retirement– You are teetering on the brink (or have recently stepped off into retirement)
You have been planning for it for decades.
Your financial advisor has been harping on it for decades.
Medicare has been reaching out to you to sign up.
Retirement has been defined by money in many conversations. Have you saved enough? Will your Social Security and pension provide you with enough income? Is your house paid for? Do you have too much debt? Will Medicare and your supplement cover you?
There is more to retirement than money!
Is it possible that your “retirement plan” and your retirement planner have somehow neglected to touch on some of those other issues?
Think about it for a minute- What might change when you retire?
You and your spouse may spend hours together again after decades of being apart five days per week;
Your friend circle may change when work friends are too busy to spend time with you.
Your schedule will change.
You may feel aimless, without a purpose.
How you identify yourself may change.
Where you get your affirmation will change.
You may get under one another’s feet.
You may become depressed.
You may take it out on one another.
You can’t watch Fox News all day, every day. You can’t play golf or fish, or garden every day. You can’t sleep in every day. You can’t travel every day. Retirement may last for decades! What will you do with yourself? How will you find happiness doing something other than working?
Congratulations! You made it this far. Now it is time to face what can be the most difficult time in many couples’ lives, though. Old age isn’t for sissies, and retirement isn’t for those who enter into it blindly.
PS: Gray divorce is real. Divorce is down in all age groups, except in those aged 55 and up. Why? Several reasons:
Divorce is less of a stigma than it used to be.
Retirement creates new challenges that people are unprepared to deal with.
Hormone therapy and drugs like Viagra have created a situation where seniors seek companions who are more compatible with their needs than in previous generations.
People are less likely to accept the status quo as all there is to life than in previous generations.
People are living longer.
Will dealing with the challenges of retirement help people deal with relational challenges?