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It could be you....
Every month Maggi Stamp, a qualified and experienced relationship
counsellor for Relate and in private practice, writes about some of the emotional
challenges we meet in later life.
For reasons of confidentiality Maggi never writes about a particular
person's problems unless you have sent one in to be answered, but all her examples are
based on problems raised by clients, family and friends over the years.
We hope you find the column useful and interesting and will want to
comment or even share some your own experiences in the laterlife
cafe. Why not post your thoughts there, or you can write to Maggi at maggi@laterlife.com for her to respond in the
column.
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| Retirement a hidden sting? It could be you....
Maggi Stamp, laterlife’s counsellor on human
relationships, describes how one couple struggle to make things work after retirement, and
suggests ways to help
We all assume
retirement is a time to do things we didn`t have time or energy for before, but a
while ago a client set me thinking about the broader implications.
His parents, both of retirement age, were concerning him. Jill, who worked at home
most of their married life, and Barry (not their real names), who retired two years ago,
had become tense and snappy with one another instead of enjoying their long anticipated
retirement.
Jill thought it would be good having Barry home
rather than rushing off each morning, returning increasingly exhausted as the years
passed. She was looking forward to fewer work moans and more company, occasional trips
out, walks, meals prepared and eaten together, sharing the gardening, more help around the
house.
Although she
worried that Barry would prefer his hobby to being with her, she found that she did
get all she was hoping for. He was eager to help and be involved, and initially this was a
relief and a delight. But oh dear, the help
wasn`t always very helpful. Jill had her own way of
doing things. Barry’s suggestions sounded to her like criticism, and she saw his
attempts to be useful as incompetent. A quiet wish for a bit of solitude crept in, along
with resentment.
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 What about Barry, our
retiree? He had finished the constant slog of getting to work and getting home,
keeping abreast of all the changes in the workplace, relieved to be shot of it. Life went
on at work without him but he found it hard to carve a niche for himself at home. It was
hard trying to be helpful, but either his contribution was not right or was something Jill
wanted to do herself.
Barry ended up feeling that he
didn`t belong anywhere. ‘At least at
work I knew what my job was’, he grumbled to his son. The change that had occurred in
his life and relationship and the prospect of the situation continuing was depressing.
How can they ease the tension?
All life’s milestones - careers, marriages,
losing parents, raising
families, mark a journey of joys and hardships, pain and pleasure, survived with the help
of routines or structures that smooth daily life. Retirement changes these routines.
Adjusting isn`t simple.
Although looked forward to with pleasure, adjusting to change involves losses. So
when negative feelings and thoughts creep in it is very hard to speak out for fear of
making things worse. It is especially hard when couples have developed a way of getting on
which doesn`t involve much talk about their feelings. Waiting for things to blow over
sometimes works, but when it doesn’t it is
definitely time to talk.
 Change is a great opportunity to get to know each other again. I knew
one newly retired couple who did just this. They began ‘dating’, arranging to
meet at a cafe, cinema, park or restaurant and spend the time chatting each other
up, flirting and generally acting as though they knew little of each other. What they
found was that, actually, they didn’t! They had a lot of fun catching up and a much
more lively relationship as a result.
So what can help if
retirement is worrying you?
Say so, talk about it.
Allow time for adjustment.
Accept there will be some feelings of
loss, even if only of routine.
Listen to your partner, give them your
attention for a little while, you will be rewarded!
Share your wishes hopes and plans,
allow for differences as well as common ones.
Get to know each other again. Your
needs and wishes within the relationship will have changed over the years.
And if your are enjoying retirement as a couple?
Pass on your secret in the laterlife.com Cafe - and CELEBRATE!
If you would
like to contact Maggi at her Consultancy you can phone her on 0207 7337890.
Please don't send any confidential information to laterlife.com
To view previous articles - see the laterlife-interest index page
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| laterlife interest
The above article is part of the features section of laterlife.com called laterlife interest. laterlife interest contains a variety of articles of
interest for visitors to laterlife.com written by a number of experienced and new
journalists.
It includes both one off
articles and also regular columns of a more specialist nature such as healthwise, reports from the REACH files,
and a beauty section called looking good in later life.
Also don't forget to
take a look at our regular IT question and answer section called YoucandoIT by IT trainer and author Jackie
Sherman.
To view the latest articles and
indexes to previous articles click on laterlife
interest here or above. To search for articles about a certain topic, use the
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