Is your marriage ready for retirement?

Several sources indicate that retirement can put a serious strain on marriages. All that togetherness! People are living longer which means retirement might be many more years for you than it was for your grandparents.

In a ‘traditional’ marriage where the wife has worked inside the home while the husband has worked outside of the home, retirement doesn’t mean that the household chores end therefore while one partner’s daily duties come to and end, the other partner’s daily duties continue. The meals still need to be cooked, the laundry still has to be done and the cleaning won’t clean itself. Husbands who have never tended to these chores in any regular way seldom see retirement as an opportunity to share these jobs with their wives who have always done them so well. It doesn’t take long for wives to resent cleaning around the lump on the couch or worse, that the retired husband merrily goes off golfing every day while she still works to keep body and soul together.

Preparing your marriage for retirement is an important series of discussions and might include:

• What common interests can we devote time to as a couple
• What separate interests do we have that we can pursue individually
• Are our friends all other couples or are some single by choice or through being widowed and how do we see ourselves interacting with them
• How will household chores be divided
• How much time does each person need to themselves and how will that be organized
• Are there places in the house that are ‘his,’ hers’ and ‘ours’ and will retirement change how these spaces are used or viewed
• Income typically reorganizes at retirement so how will the financial change impact the power balance in the marriage
• What skills does each partner have that might be transferrable
• Are there organizations with goals and a culture that align with your thinking that could use each person’s skill sets on a voluntary basis
• Are there skills or hobbies that you’ve always wanted to learn – separately or together – but never had time for
• Does your spiritual thinking give you support in times of transition
• What services does your community offer that could assist with retirement preparation or transition
• How do each of us intend to wake up each day with purpose
• How much time do we currently devote to sedentary activities like watching TV or reading and how much do we intentionally want to devote to these same activities after retirement
• Are there walking groups or golfing/curling/swimming/skiing groups that we could join to be active and social
• Are there groups that meet to play cards or darts that would provide a less active social experience
• Do we have grandchildren nearby and will our children expect us to provide daycare now that we have free time and, if so, how much time are we prepared to donate to this

The topics are endless, but you get the idea. Sometimes our lives are one thing after another that has to be done for someone or to support a job or to keep our family happy and healthy. When retirement hits, it’s often just the two of you and, in some cases, just one of you but without outside forces dictating the day’s plans. To make your marriage and each of you individually physically healthy, emotionally stable and mentally strong it’s useful to have a view of the world that is broader than the four walls you will stare at if you do nothing.

With intention design your life.

With purpose decide how you want to live.

With joy use your time to explore the world no matter how large or small yours is.

With gratitude contribute what you can to make your community a better place.