Creating Relationships That Work In Retirement

I have heard it said that there is good news and bad news about retirement. The good news is that you get to spend more time with your spouse. The bad news is that you get to spend more time with your spouse!

When couples retire, even if they live in the garden spot of the world, it isn’t unusual for them to experience strain in their relationship. Each person’s role may have changed. The income and status from previous jobs are gone, and children are usually no longer living at home. The daily golf games you were looking forward to aren’t as satisfying as expected, and finding interesting things to talk about at dinner each evening can be a struggle.

To make matters worse, most couples have never spent so much time together, and in such immediate proximity. It is easy for couples to become angry, frustrated, and irritable as they find themselves together twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, without having ever considered how their relationship and their lives should look in this new situation.

If you and your partner are looking toward retirement, or even if you have already retired, you may have some decisions to make. You can either choose to sit down and discuss your dreams for retirement with each other, or, if you make no preparations, you risk maintaining old patterns of interacting that aren’t working for you any longer, and experiencing the disappointment and lack of fulfillment that comes from living out your retirement in what I call “quiet desperation.” Retirement is a time that you can choose to recommit to a new life and to your partner, with each of you sharing the responsibility for maximizing happiness, and making retirement the fun, exciting, joyous segment of your life that you have always dreamed it would be.

When my husband and I retired, we had an unusual amount of challenges due to his serious health problems. He was faced with finding a way to be happy despite his illness, and I was coming to grips with being thrust into the role of full-time caregiver. Below are some of the strategies that we found especially helpful in our relationship as we dealt with retirement and the particular set of problems we faced. You don’t have to wait until retirement to start using these skills. They are helpful in any committed relationship at any time of life.

1. Build and maintain intimacy. This is the golden rule that is at the heart of everything else in your relationship. You build intimacy by being truly honest with each other - - talking about your hopes, your fears, your dreams, and feeling safe doing it. Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, teaches that we have an emotional bank account with every person we communicate with. Just like with a regular bank account, you make deposits and you make withdrawals. Positive interactions are deposits. Negative interactions are withdrawals. It is essential for a warm relationship that the positive interactions (deposits) outnumber the negative interactions (withdrawals). Here is a formula that you may want to remember: You need 5 positive interactions to balance every negative interaction.

2. Prioritize time for communication. When you sit down to talk, make sure you have no distractions ─ no TV ─ no newspaper. Give your full attention to your conversation.

3. Make communication safe. In addition to expressing the appreciation you feel for one another, establish ground rules for communication, so that each person can be assured of not being criticized or demeaned. The rules can be as simple as:
- Treat each other with respect.
- No hurtful criticisms.
- No passive-aggressive behavior.
- Listen deeply and without judgment to what the other is saying.
- Think before you speak.

3. Establish one or more shared goals such as rebuilding a healthy, mutually enjoyable relationship, and creating a happy, fulfilling retirement life for both individuals.

4. Establish that each partner is interested in the well-being of both ─
You might say things like, “Here are some things that are important to me in retirement” and “Tell me about the things that would make our retirement years most enjoyable for you.” Then you look for ways to blend your wants and needs.

5. Begin with the end in mind. When interacting, keep the focus on what you are trying to accomplish (a healthy, mutually enjoyable relationship and a fulfilling retirement.) Choose words carefully rather than reacting with anger and sharp, critical words.

6. Discuss issues that are important to the relationship such as:
- How is our marriage doing?
- How is our retirement doing?
- How much time do we want to spend together and separately? It is important that each person maintain his and her sense of individuality. You need a combination of time spent together, and time doing things with others
- Who is responsible for what? Who does the grocery shopping? Who does the cleaning? Who plans the social calendar?
- What are the financial issues that need to be discussed?

In short, in my experience, what will bring greatest happiness and the most harmony to any relationship is 1) the attention by both people to the desire for a healthy, mutually enjoyable relationship, and 2) the communicating in a manner that is focused on a mutual goal, feels safe to both people, conveys appreciation of one another, and is respectful of all points of view.

With greatest love and respect for you,Donna Daisy