Thoughts from a Retirement Coach
By Mariella Vigneux, MBA, ACC
Certified Professional Coach
A young friend of mine was asking me the other day about what keeps couples together over the long haul. What makes for a good relationship, one that lasts many years? This young friend is in her mid-twenties, as are my daughter and son. They are in that life phase of choosing a long-term partner. I expect they’ve been thinking about the question of what makes (or breaks) a long-term love relationship. It occurred to me that many couples entering retirement are revisiting that same question.
When we retire from our busy work lives, suddenly we are thrown together from morning to night and from night to morning, day after day. Absolute bliss – for some – for a while. It would certainly be absolute bliss for a hormone-driven couple of teenagers, drunk on love, hopped up on lust, and absolutely new to the experience of a relationship. In retirement, however, we’re both used to and unused to this state of being together as much as we want to be.
If we’ve come to rely on the constant interactions we have with people at work all day, what do we do when we’re sharing the day with only one other person? Will we show them our favourite talking dog video clip, tell anecdotes, read aloud snippets from a book, tell them our thoughts, and probe for reactions? Will we quietly delve into a project we’ve been longing to move on, work on solving a problem that we never had time to concentrate on before, or settle into a long, satisfying read?
What happens when one day, unexpectedly, one of us is feeling unseen and uncared for, and the other is feeling irritated by interruptions and guilty about asking to be left alone. What happened to the lovely balance and harmony that existed before, when we were both working?
What to look for in a partner – my list
Back to my young friend and her question about what keeps couples together over the long haul. I told her that I’m no expert on relationships, having had only one serious love – albeit for over four decades – but, in spite of my lack of partners, I had made note of what worked over the years, in my relationship and in the long-term relationships around me. I told her that I used to spiel off this list of What to Look for in a Partner to my kids every now and again in the hope that they were listening. Here’s my list:
- Values – Pick a partner who has similar values to you, so that your views are aligned on the bigger issues – how to discipline children, what kind of society you want to live in, what money represents for you, what kind of lifestyle you need, how to treat those who differ from you, etc.
- Humour – Find someone who makes you laugh, someone who tickles your funny bone. And one who laughs with you, with gusto!
- Belief in you – Choose someone who believes in you and your potential, someone who will encourage and support you. We’re very good at putting ourselves down, so it is important that the person we live with sees our best, even when we don’t.
- Family relationships – It helps a lot if the partner you pick has seen good relationships modelled by parents or close family members. Have they learned to love well and to receive love well?
- Family genes – I was once told that you should check out the genes of your prospective partner’s family, to see what kind of illnesses run in the family. I consider this optional, at best!
- Wallpapering skills – Of course, before settling on a partner, first try wallpapering a room in an old house together.
Additions to the list
I was talking some friends recently and they added a few gems to the list. Here’s what they said is important in a relationship:
• Not trying to change the other
• Interest in the others’ interests
• Good sex and the memory of good sex
• Money (to relieve the stress some situations produce)
• Having a lively life (even if it’s just lively conversation while watching TV together)
• Having independent friendships and interests (like a passion for preserving local buildings)
• Kindness
I find it affirming to discover that many of the attributes on my list (and my friends’ list) appear on the list put together by Karl Pillemer, a gerontologist at Cornell University. In his book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, he outlines the life lessons learned by more than 1000 adults, 65 years of age or older. These life lessons relate to love, marriage, work and parenting. For more, listen to CBC Radio’s Tapestry, March 6, 2015 show.
What can you add to the list? (Please use the comment section below.)
Retirement can be a game changer
Retirement changes the circumstances of a relationship. The 40- to 60-hour work week is now gone and it takes some time for partners to adjust to that. Which person likes to be more active? Who wants to be more social – to see friends, go to concerts, host parties, and talk to strangers when travelling? And how will the household chores be redistributed? It’s like being newlyweds again. Everything needs to be reconsidered, renegotiated.
And let’s not forget that relationships are not static, whether they’re a mere 4 days old or if they’ve lasted 44 years. We continually learn things about ourselves and our partner, we develop new interests and ways of doing things, and, just like everything in nature, we change – gradually, inexorably. It took me 40 years to understand that my partner Mark is extremely literal. It took me almost that long to realize the extent to which my learning style is visual, how little auditory information sticks. His hearing has changed; he no longer hears the high notes, certain bird calls. My skin has become sensitive to certain types of clothing. These are all little things, but it’s the little things that matter. I find that if I adopt the notion that my relationship is constantly changing, it prompts me to check in with my partner more often, to see how he is doing, to see how we are doing.
The Four-Hour Rule, and more
1. Now, some people fear that retirement will mean sitting on the couch together all day, looking out the window, waiting for someone to call, all conversation dried up. In one of my retirement workshops, a participant gave us “The Four-Hour Rule.” She said that couples should spend at least four hours apart each day, so that when the two of them come together again they can have a rich, animated conversation.
2. What do you do if your partner is driving you crazy? I think it helps to look for the things you love about them. Focus on those. What would you miss if your partner were gone? Imagine how completely endearing they were as a young child and how that is still very much a part of them (on some days more than others!) This approach doesn’t mean being blind to the things that drive you crazy, but remind yourself of the “Don’t Try to Change Them” rule.
3. If you don’t have a partner, and don’t want one, how would you like to stay connected when work is no more? If you’re looking for a partner, or evaluating whether to stay in your current relationship, it won’t hurt to review the lists above, and check out Pillemer’s book.
Wrapped in duvets and birdsong
I can’t think of anything better than spending my days with Mark, whether retired or not. Spontaneously dashing off to see a movie, and sneaking a stash of chocolate into the theatre like bad children. Or sitting outside in the cool spring air, wrapped in duvets, pointing out the different bird calls to each other. Or propped up in bed at night, reading Pride and Prejudice aloud. Or taking an early morning drive along roads we’ve never travelled, in search of morning-mist photos and a greasy spoon breakfast spot. I shudder to think that illness or death could steal that from us. But I have no control over that. So, meanwhile, we’re hanging on tightly, making “sport for our neighbours”, and enjoying each other – wrinkles, warts, foibles and all.