Couple's Retirement

Cam Marston has been digging into what makes retirement happy — and it turns out, part of the answer is that spouses need a break from each other. Here's Cam...

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My work continues to lead me deeper into retirement studies. My small team and I are creating a non-financial retirement assessment that anyone can take and get a gauge on how well positioned you are to retire. The key here is this is non-financial information. It is not retirement readiness based on what’s on the spreadsheet or what’s in the bank account, it’s retirement readiness based on how well prepared you are between the ears. From what I’ve learned in this study, about thirty-five to forty percent of retirees are unhappy in their retirement. The expression I’ve heard so many time is this: retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Turns out there is data on what makes for a happy retirement. This data is collected in studies by some government agencies and big-name universities and if you know how to find it, the data will tell people what makes retirement happy. What’s caught my attention lately is the information on couples and retirement.

I remember when my father-in-law retired. The story is he came into the kitchen at lunchtime and said to his wife, “Momma, what’s for lunch?” She shot back something along the lines of “we will not be living this way. The refrigerator is there with food in it, the bread is over there, figure it. Make a sandwich.” She was very clear that she was not going to serve him every day and, after that, it was never a problem again.

Turns out, retirement has a lot to do with boundaries and here are two that have caught my attention. One is that each person needs to have a place in their home that is uniquely theirs. Maybe it’s a desk, a closet, a workshop space, a gardening shed. That space is not to be intruded upon by the other. There can’t touch anything in there. They can’t offer to help clean it or organize it. They enter that space or touch its contents only with permission and then, only carefully. Each person needs their protected and sacred territory.

The other is that each person becomes more interesting to their spouse if they have a completely separate social life. He needs his friends that don’t much overlap with her world and she needs her friends that don’t much overlap with his world. Each of them needs regular connection with those friends because, as it turns out, when they reconnect with their spouse after, say, a night out with these friends, they have content to share with the other. And that content makes each other interesting. That content gives the couple things to talk about and share. If they only ever do things together, whether it’s only just the two of them or only going out with friends as a couple, they run the risk of becoming boring to each other. I found that fascinating. Having a healthy social life outside my wife promotes a happier retirement with the two of us. One may think the opposite is true but it’s very clearly not.

So, if you’re looking at retirement, take my advice on this. Or try asking your spouse to make you a sandwich that first day, and see how it goes.

I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.