A Couple's Guide to Happy Retirement And Aging: 15 Keys to Long-Lasting Vitality and Connection

By Sara Yogev

“Wise, practical, wryly good-humored, and immensely helpful, this book is a must-read for the millions of boomers entering retirement age.” —Jane Mansbridge, PhD, Adams Professor, Kennedy School, Harvard University

A Couple’s Guide to Happy Retirement is the most comprehensive book devoted entirely to relationship issues in retirement. Not a treatise on money management, this is a much-needed guide to the psychological aspects of retirement and how to make your retirement relationship happy, fruitful, loving, and successful. Written by a psychologist specializing in work and family issues, and drawing from actual accounts from retired couples, this book helps you prepare emotionally for the dramatic life changes during retirement, coaches you to find new purposes to your life beyond work, nurtures the relationship with your companion to strengthen your friendship and love, explores sexuality after retirement and how you can enjoy each other as much as you did as a younger couple, and recommends strategies to successfully deal with differences around money, time together versus apart, housework, and family relationships. It is crucial that couples prepare themselves and their marriages psychologically for what could very well comprise a quarter of their lives. A Couple’s Guide to Retirement shows you how to do that—so that you’ll have the time of your lives.

“An extremely helpful perspective in meeting the challenge of aging and retirement, young or older.” —James I. Ausman, MD, PhD, and Carolyn R. Ausman, BSS, executive producers and creators of The Leading Gen®

“A wise, optimistic, straightforward, and practical guidebook . . . I highly recommend it.” —William Pinsof, PhD, founder and past president of Family Therapy Institute, Northwestern University

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641700238

Book preview

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Praise for A Couple’s Guide to Happy Retirement and Aging

I have recommended earlier editions of this book to numerous friends and given it to many other as well—all of them loved it. The new edition is the best yet, addressing the larger experience of an engaged life as we age. Written by a psychologist with vast experience in marital counseling and work-family balance, it combines the latest research findings on aging and retirement with warm and sympathetic real cases to help us all plan for the psychological issues that arise at this life stage. In planning retirement, people often mistakenly focus only on its financial aspects. Dr. Yogev describes both the individual dynamics people face and the changes couples experience in their relationships as they enter retirement age. She offers practical suggestions ranging from how to handle time together and apart, to finding purpose in one’s life, and how to manage relationships with money, housework, alcohol, friends, family, and the seeming impenetrability of the new but necessary technologies. Wise, practical, wryly good-humored, and immensely helpful, this book is a must-read for the millions of boomers entering retirement age.

—JANE MANSBRIDGE, PhD, Adams Professor, Kennedy School, Harvard University

In the third edition of her very valuable book, A Couple’s Guide to Happy Retirement and Aging, Dr. Yogev discusses the psychology of this life phase with case examples from her practice and questions that help the readers apply the material to their own situation. This topic is becoming increasingly important as the seventy-seven million baby boomers enter retirement age. Dr. Yogev addresses the changes in maturing adults living in a society with age bias. Aging, rather than being viewed as a new phase of life, is viewed with negative bias by younger people as they compete for the resources and jobs the older still command. Society even dictates that sixty-five or seventy is the Chronological Age of Retirement, regardless of one’s ability to continue and contribute to the general public. We believe that a new perspective on aging as generations of people with experience, wisdom, and judgment, who are chronologically older but still can contribute to the growth of society, will become more accepted as the numbers of people over sixty-five increases. (According to the 2010 USA Census, people older than sixty-five years represent 16 percent of the population, a number that continues to grow and will reach 20 percent by 2030.) It is not only in the USA, but also in other civilizations across the world. Few countries have addressed this problem affecting millions of their citizens.

The dynamics between couples going through the processes of retirement and aging are not well known. The psychological experiences each person feels individually as they mature, as well as the altered ways in which they relate to each other, are surprising, unrecognized, and can be devastating, as the author points out. Dr. Yogev guides individuals and couples in the transition to the positive value that each maturing individual has to oneself, to each other, and to all of society. She provides a worthy psychological insight into the changes both the male and female are experiencing in this evolution, with a better understanding of their own feelings and relationships with each other and with the community. There are very few publications that address this challenge facing maturing adults who are adapting to these new careers and progressions in their lives. We highly recommend this terrific book to all those who are entering this phase of life, providing them an extremely helpful perspective in meeting the challenge of aging and retirement, young or older.

—James I. Ausman, MD, PhD, and Carolyn R Ausman, BSS, executive producers and creators of The Leading Gen®: What Will You Do with the Rest of Your Life?, a public television series

A wise, optimistic, straightforward, and practical guidebook . . . I highly recommend it.

—William Pinsof, PhD, founder and past president of Family Therapy Institute, Northwestern University

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Copyright © 2018 by Sara Yogev, PhD

All rights reserved.

Published by Familius LLC, www.familius.com

Familius books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases, whether for sales promotions or for family or corporate use. For more information, contact Familius Sales at 559-876-2170 or email [e-mail].

Reproduction of this book in any manner, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher is prohibited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2017958504

Print ISBN 9781945547713

Ebook ISBN 9781641700238

Printed in the United States of America

Edited by Laurie Duersch

Cover design by David Miles

Book design by Brooke Jorden

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Third Edition

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A good [retirement] is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.

—Carl Rogers

Contents

Introduction to the Third Edition

Making Yourself and Your Marriage Ready for Retirement

A Troubling Trend

Retirement as a Psychological Process

A Major Life Transition

Why Individuals Have Difficulty with This Major Life Transition

Why Couples Are Having Problems in Retirement

Learning to Let Go of Work and Making the Psychological Shift to Retirement

The Four Elemental Meanings

Retirement Satisfaction vs. Adjustment to Retirement

Exercises:

Finding Your Purpose in Retirement

The Honeymoon Stage

Physical, Intellectual, and Creative Stimulation

A Life of Leisure: Making the Most of It

Volunteering: Helping Yourself by Helping Others

Finding the Right Activity

Bridge Employment

Exercises:

Readjusting the Togetherness-Separation Balance

The Paradox of Togetherness vs. Separation

Sexual Intimacy

Psychological Factors Linked with Sex-Life Decline and Aging

Stages in the Intimacy Pattern

Resolving Differentiation Issues in Retirement

Exercises:

The Transition— Making It Easier for Yourself and Your Marriage

Dealing with Depression

Entering Retirement with the Right Attitude

The Reasons for Smooth vs. Rough Transitions

Characteristics of Those Who Have Smooth Transitions

Involuntary Retirement

Who Should Not Retire

Exercises:

Gendered Retirement— The Different Responses of Men and Women

Gender Gaps: Three Key Differences

Why Women Have Trouble with the Transition

Social Activities: Recognizing an Unequal Need to Get Out of the House

Homemakers vs. Employed Women

Retirement Timing: Who Should Retire First

Joint Retirement

Exercises:

The Psychological Meaning of Money

How Retirement Increases Money’s Psychological Impact

Upsetting the Money Balance

Values about Money

Gender, Money, and Marital Satisfaction

Earning and Handling Money

Money Styles

Exercises:

The Household Arena

Marital Dynamics and Housework

Research, Retirement, and Housework

Potential Scenarios

How and When: Setting the Terms for Household Chores

Exercises:

Friendship

A Voluntary Relationship

Gender Differences and Friendship

Friendship Styles

Friendship Tensions within a Marriage

Why Friendship Takes On Increased Importance after Retirement

Friendship and Marriage after Retirement

Obstacles to Keeping the Friends You Had Before Retirement

Exercises:

Family Matters

Grandchildren

When Grandparenting Styles and Expectations Clash

Adult Children

Parents

Other Family Members

Inheritance

Exercises:

Relocation

Reasons for Relocation

Characteristics of Those Who Relocate

Obstacles to Satisfaction in Retirement after Relocation

Gradual Relocation

Pressure on the Couple after Relocation

Moving to New Housing in the Same Community or Retiring-in-Place

Relocation Resources

Exercises:

Alcohol Consumption in Retirement Years

Alcohol Guidelines and the Physiology of Aging

Important Terms Related to Problematic Alcohol Consumption

Reasons Retirees Give for Their Alcohol Consumption

Relationship between Retirement and Alcohol Consumption

Impact of Marriage on Alcohol Drinking

The Story of Two Sisters

Exercises:

New Unions— Cohabitation and Living Apart Together (LAT) in the Later Stage of Life

Characteristics of Retirement-Age Adults’ Cohabitation

Reasons of Cohabitation vs. Marriage

Living Apart Together (LAT): Partners in Different Households

Viable Alternatives

Exercises:

The Impact of Technology on Marriages and Retirement-Age Adults

Impact of Technology on Relationships and Family Life of All Ages

Impact of Technology on Older Adults

Exercises:

The Best Retirement

Ten Steps to Take in Order to Have the Best Retirement Together

Retirement Past, Present, and Future

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgments

About the Author

About Familius

Introduction to the Third Edition

The traditional view of retirement as a one-time, one-way, irreversible exit from full-time employment in the labor force into full-time leisure is obsolete. The definition of retirement as workers’ final exit from the labor force is increasingly outdated as people move in and out of the labor force, making the boundary separating employment and retirement blurred and less clear cut. For most retirement-age people today, retirement is a process occurring over time with different stages rather than a one-time event.

More and more today, retirement-age adults show the emergence of another strategy: retiring from one career but seeking other forms of employment. Here are a few examples: gradual transition to retirement by reducing hours or responsibilities over time, launching a new career, starting self-employment in an entirely new domain (often happens with individuals who have felt that their passion lay elsewhere during their working years), bridge employment in the same industry or a different one (transition employment between full-time work and complete retirement), or pursuing civic engagement by volunteering.

Retirement-age individuals develop new ways of being productively occupied and establish late-career development with potential for growth and renewal. Some researchers call this the third age, during which older adults have new opportunities for self-realization and fulfillment. By continuing some form of employment, current retirement-age individuals are increasing financial security, continuing to feel relevant, making contributions to society, and finding a purpose to life that makes them matter in ways that can enhance psychological security, well-being, and even physical health. Thus, retirement is being redefined according to individual differences and preferences.

I believe that it’s best to conceptualize retirement as a dynamic adjustment process in which many issues need to be addressed because of direct implications that ensue from the decision to retire from one’s primary full-time employment: the timing of the decision, the preparation for it, the amount of activity change provided by the decision, and the impact of one’s relationships with their partners.

However, this new reality leaves seniors in a quandary, as they need to figure out important questions like, Who am I? How and where do I want to live? What will I do? How do I want the rest of my life to be? How do I want to be remembered? In addition to these individual questions, there are also questions on the couple level: Who do I want to be with for the next twenty or thirty years? How are we doing together? And what do we want for ourselves as a couple? These questions are important for older adults more than ever as longevity increases and insecurity and anxiety for individuals arise; they can also exert great strain on couples.

The different options available today to retirement-age adults regarding employment make the adjustment process to retirement longer and more difficult. Instead of going just once through the different stages of retirement (listed in Chapter One: Making Yourself and Your Marriage Ready for Retirement), seniors go in and out of the different stages, experiencing the difficult disenchantment stage more than once. This can take a huge toll emotionally and psychologically on their well-being and mental health. It is probably no coincidence that as I was preparing this new third edition, I found many more publications about the alarming increase in alcohol consumption among seniors. These results were not available when the second edition appeared a few years ago. It is very likely that individuals who have psychological problems with their retirement transition resort to alcohol abuse. You can find information about this topic, added specifically to this edition, in Chapter Twelve: Alcohol Consumption in Retirement Years.

Retirement has often been referred to as the golden years, a wonderful relaxing time when individuals can shed the responsibilities and burdens of previous years and focus on rediscovering themselves and their spouses. Implicit within the concept of the golden years is the notion that it is a time of life characterized by uniformly positive changes within the individual and family relationships, particularly within the marriage. Past research suggested that the transition enhanced marital satisfaction as a result of reduced workload; however, more recent research has found that retirement often produces a temporary decline in marital satisfaction for both husbands and wives. Individual experiences of the transition to retirement are varied with many retirees feeling personal and marital distress. Newly retired individuals report the lowest marital satisfaction and highest marital conflict compared with those who are retired for a long time or are not yet retired and still employed.

Personal observations, as well as research findings, underscore heterogeneity of the effects of retirement on people’s personal well-being and marriages. This heterogeneity is likely to increase in the future as more baby boomer cohorts enter retirement age, in addition to changes in the retirement process itself.

When it comes to retirement, one must consider how individuals and his/her partner’s cumulative life experiences (like pre-retirement marital quality) and personal characteristics (like health, socioeconomic status, job characteristics, self-esteem, etc.) will impact life satisfaction at this late-life stage. The transition itself often causes a decline, hopefully temporary, in the psychological well-being in life and marital satisfaction. After around two years in retirement, once couples are settled into this new life stage, marital satisfaction is reported as higher. One of the goals of this book is to help individuals and couples prepare for this transition so that the decline can be minimal, short lived, or even completely absent. This goal also means for couples to avoid divorce during retirement age, a trend that has risen surprisingly in the recent years.

The Gray Divorce Phenomenon (divorce among those fifty years old and older) provides a cautionary lesson for every couple entering retirement age. While overall national divorce rates have declined since spiking in the 1980s, gray divorce has risen to its highest level on record. In 1990, only one in ten people who got divorced was fifty years old or older; by 2009, the number was roughly one in four. More than 600,000 people ages fifty and older got divorced in 2009. Today the fifty years old and above age group accounts for approximately 25 percent of all divorces in the United States. In 2015, for every 1,000 married persons ages fifty and older, ten were divorced—a number that doubled since 1990 (National Center for Health Statistics and US Census Bureau). A 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal estimated that based on current trends, the gray divorce number is predicted to top 800,000 by 2030. There are similar numbers also among Americans older than sixty-five, where according to US Census figures, the divorce rate grew from 6.7 percent in March 2000 to 9.7 percent in 2009, and has roughly tripled since 1990, reaching six people per 1,000 married persons in 2015.

With Americans staying healthier and living longer, the retirement years are stretched out, giving couples more time together. Among many couples, retirement often creates friction and weakens even the strongest ties. The increased togetherness exacerbates existing problems, bringing tension to the surface. Without child-raising duties and demanding job responsibilities to provide distraction, structure, and escape, people are more vulnerable to conflict. There is no longer a way to ignore or avoid addressing long-term unresolved issues, as well as newly created issues. Many retirement-age adults refuse to settle for retirement years filled with marital discord.

According to Deirdre Bair, author of Calling It Quits: Late-Life Divorce and Starting Over, a chronicle of nearly 400 interviews with people getting divorced in midlife, boomers in unhappy marriages often look at each other and think, I may have another 25 to 35 years to live. Do I want to spend it with this person? They have an urgent feeling to get divorced now or they’ll never have the chance again. Sixty-five-year-olds can easily envision at least twenty more active years—and they don’t want them to be loveless or full of frustration or disappointment.

This marital problem seems to be international, as we hear about Retired Husband Syndrome in Japan (Japanese women experiencing depression as their husbands retire), as well as in Spain, where newspapers reported the difficulties wives face as their retired husbands infringe on their turf and autonomy.

In complete contradiction to the phenomena of gray divorce is all the data we have about the importance of relationships in late adulthood. In midlife and late adulthood, men and women attribute great importance to their spousal role, considering it to be the most important in these life stages after the role of parent. Moreover, satisfaction with the spousal role in late adulthood is related to a sense of well-being and having meaning in life among both men and women. Since marriage and similar intimate relationships are central in the lives of most adults, it is no surprise that the number of older adults in such relationships continues to grow. Simply being a partner in these relationships confers protection from health problems and emotional difficulties associated with aging. The quality of such relationships matters; conflict, strain, and marital discords have an impact on general health and age-related diseases, such as coronary heart diseases. Marital dissension increases the risk of depression and loneliness, and is also a strong predictor of low life satisfaction. Thus, consistent associations of marital satisfaction with health, emotional adjustment, and well-being increases the importance of helping older adults to minimize marital discord and increase marital satisfaction.

The focus of marital discord among older couples shifts. Middle-aged couples disagree more about money, religion, intimacy, and children; for older individuals, intergenerational relations, household duties, and leisure activities are the sources of disagreements. Also, gender role changes resulting from retirement are often associated with decreased marital quality.

It is more than likely that the new information we have (about new alternatives to traditional marriages, like living apart together and cohabitation) are manifestations of that trend. These unions allow retirement-age seniors to enjoy the benefits of intimate relationships. Please see Chapter Thirteen: New Unions—Cohabitation and Living Apart Together (LAT) in the Later Stage of Life, another addition to this third edition, for more information about these new trends.

Most retirement planning programs and publications are geared exclusively or predominantly to financial matters. While having enough money in retirement is important, adjusting to this new stage of life requires a more holistic approach. Erik Erikson, the great psychologist on adulthood, said that the hallmark of well-being in older people could be encapsulated in the phrase, I am what survives of me. It is important and ever more challenging to find a way to balance the checkbooks while remaining true to one’s generativity, the psychological task of the advanced age in which there is a commitment to help and contribute to the well-being of the community and others, instead of narrow self-interest (see more on that in Chapter One:

Making Yourself and Your Marriage Ready for Retirement).

Given the changing definition of retirement, particularly during an economic upturn and a booming economy, financial concerns are not the singular or dominant concerns that guide people’s behaviors. Other needs like growth, identity, relatedness, and generativity have as much influence. Indeed, Marc Freedman, author of the book Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life, wrote before the last economic crisis, The reality is that the end of middle age is no longer, for most people, attached to the beginning of either retirement or old age. We need a call to action for creating an ‘encore’ stage of life characterized by purpose, contribution, and commitment, particularly to the well-being of future generations.

However, it is worth noting that the altruistic and idealistic redefinitions of retirement proposed above need to be reassessed in times of economic downturn. The predictions that baby boomers would revolutionize retirement and devote their golden years to social activism and life-long learning will not happen when there is economic pressure. Articles and advice-giving mediums, particularly those written before the last economic crisis, focused on leisure advice, and it’s entirely possible that this isn’t what you or your spouse wants if you are concerned about not having enough money for your old age without additional income from employment.

In close to twenty years since this book was first published, a lot has changed. The last economic crisis impacted retirement in many ways. Many retirement plans have dwindled, and not because individuals have spent indiscriminately. Whether invested in mutual funds, blue-chip stocks, certificates of deposit, or dividend-paying stocks, almost everyone has found their assets diminished. Many people in retirement age worry that they will outlive their savings and won’t have enough money for a comfortable retirement. McKinsey & Company, a large consulting firm, predicts that the typical American family faced a 37 percent shortfall in their income for retirement. Other retirement-age individuals feel pressured to work beyond traditional retirement age because they believe they cannot rely on Social Security. Thus, the phenomenon of older men and women choosing to remain in the workforce or returning to work is on the rise. It’s not surprising to find a gray-haired man or woman serving you lattes at Starbucks or working the register at Whole Foods. In some places (like Fort Lauderdale, Florida), people in their sixties and seventies compete against their grandchildren for entry-level jobs like supermarket cashiers or receptionists in medical offices.

The New York Times in May of 2012 reported that according to Labor Department figures, the percentage of workers over the traditional retirement age of sixty-five is at a record high. More than one-third of men ages sixty-five to sixty-nine are working, as are more than one-fourth of women. Furthermore, one in nine American men over the age of seventy-five and one in twenty women over that age were working in 2012. This could mean that the complete leisure dream in retirement is further away for a lot of baby boomers as they can’t afford to retire. At the same time, these numbers can also mean that many retirement-age adults choose to continue some form of employment not out of financial necessity, but for the non-financial benefits work provides.

Thus, the challenge for many retirement-age seniors involves both money and fulfillment. What all this means is that people need to spend more energy on psychological planning for retirement. We plan our career, but don’t plan our retirement, which can last twenty to thirty years. We need to see retirement as a passage to new opportunity that requires thought and discussion about everything from purpose to pleasure, from contributing to society to contributing to family—not just a financial plan. Reflecting upon and talking about the impact of these issues on your identity and relationships is crucial. Retirement is not just walking away from work; it is also walking toward something new.

Professor Lorraine Dorfman reported that planning for retirement was the second most important factor (after health) for people who expressed satisfaction with retirement. American Psychologist (April 2011 special section on retirement) stresses the need for more careful attention to this life stage, which involves a sequence of decisions over several years. This confirms my experience that clients who have created psychologically astute plans for their retirement years tend to adjust better, both as individuals and as couples. Specifically, a good retirement plan should encompass constructive use of time, purposefulness, and interpersonal issues, all of which can increase satisfaction and relationship building.

Therefore, I emphasize in this third edition the importance of balance for individuals and couples in retirement. My goal is to help seniors find a way to live together happily ever after, recognizing that how people interpret that phrase may have changed. Most people are searching for the right mix of money with meaning, of profits with purpose, of using their many experiences in ways that aren’t just contained in photo albums, but are significant and memorable. In other words, they seek an intersection of continued income with purpose and impact, and something they will be remembered for.

The following pages will guide you through a variety of issues, from maintaining the together-separate balance to negotiating around gender-based roadblocks to diffusing conflicts that revolve around family. You’ll find information to help you enjoy an easy and satisfying transition to retirement as an individual and as a couple.

What you won’t find is information about the following two subjects: financial planning and dealing with declining health. The absence of financial planning information is due to the surplus of books, articles, and the like on this subject. The health aspects often are largely out of people’s control, and so as a psychologist, there isn’t much advice I can offer on this front. Obviously, health can have a major impact on relationships in retirement, but my focus is on areas where we have more personal control and ability to prevent or solve problems.

As you’ll learn, I’m most concerned with those to whom gerontologists refer as the young-old, or healthy, vigorous people who chose to retire and are able to afford it. They are generally active and well integrated in the lives of their families and communities. They may be older in years, but they retain the desire to live a happy, fulfilling life. I assume that you’re one of these young-old individuals, and that if your relationship is suffering in retirement, you recognize that things can get better.

My hope is that this book will assist you in creating a good plan and help you in your pursuit of whatever you deem important in your life. Personal well-being and life satisfaction, combined with marital bliss in the retirement age, is the ultimate goal of this book, and to achieve it, you and your partner need to look at all your options and discuss them rather than focus on the traditional measures of retirement finance.

When I work with my clients on retirement planning, I stress that retirement affects both spouses, not just the retired one. As you read, I hope you’ll also keep in mind that I’m writing not just to help you better manage your own personal retirement, but also to help you develop an awareness and sensitivity to whatever turmoil your spouse is facing. This book will emphasize how crucial it is to think about the transition to retirement from a couple’s perspective. The fact that you have an easy adjustment does not mean that you’ll be able to enjoy your retirement if your partner is blocked and unable to find joy in this new life stage. The stuck partner can’t be ignored. Even when only one spouse has difficulties adjusting to retirement, the quality of life for both partners, as well as the marriage, will be negatively impacted.

I also emphasize that retirement is experienced differently by each person. We’ve learned a lot in recent years about the links between retirement, marital satisfaction, and gender. Knowing the gestalt of the entire relationship—not just what’s happening with only one individual in the relationship—improves our understanding of changes in marital satisfaction around the retirement transition. Therefore, good communication and conflict resolution skills are essential.

Throughout the book you’ll find suggestions that will help you develop a better ability to move through this transition as an individual and as part of a couple. For example, many people are so wrapped up in their own anxiety about retirement that they are oblivious to their partner’s process and do not allow their spouse the time and space they need for a successful transition. Too often, they’re unaware of the gap between their retirement needs and their spouse’s expectations; therefore, they’re knocked for a loop by the way the partner is responding to retirement and sometimes have difficulty recovering. Ideally, couples will prevent this from happening by addressing issues proactively before they retire. Realistically, many people will wait until after retirement and come to this book eager to rescue the relationship.

While reading, instead of assuming that my suggestions are one size fits all, please consider that different individuals and couples will receive varying benefits from this book. What is extremely helpful and meaningful for one might not be so important to another. Trust your own experiences and what feels right to you. Most importantly, read this book not only from your head, but also from your heart.

The purpose of this book is to help older couples have conversations about different aspects of their lives, reach mutual satisfying agreements so that both emotional and social loneliness will be alleviated, and to avoid becoming part of the gray divorce statistics. Instead, couples will experience all the benefits good relationships in the later stage of life can provide.

Over the years, I’ve developed a set of techniques and tools that I share with readers. The coverage of topics in each chapter is based on my clinical experience and knowledge of the research relevant to retirement transitions and related marital dynamics. At the end of most chapters, you’ll find exercises and questions that will help you apply the material to your own situation and can be the basis of productive discussions with your spouse. The questions are intended to help couples engage in constructive discussions of common conflict-producing issues.

This book is based on my accumulated psychological knowledge that came from two different sources. It contains the collected wisdom of countless dedicated researchers in the areas of work, family, retirement, aging, and marital dynamics, whose works have influenced my thinking (some of it is cited and summarized in this book). It also reflects my personal experiences with many individuals and couples. In interviews for my research or in my clinical and coaching practice, people have shared with me their joys and pains and, by allowing me to be their guide, touched, enriched, and contributed to my growth as well. Each chapter includes related, real-life examples. The case histories you’ll read about are drawn from my professional experiences, as well as accounts from colleagues and friends. I, of course, disguise the identities of the people whose stories I cite and use composites in some instances. At times, I simplify complex therapeutic situations in order to make examples clear and accessible. While the identities of the people were altered, the basic psychological dynamics have been preserved. Any similarity to actual people is completely coincidental. May their stories, struggles, and victories be an inspiration to others, and especially to you as you read this book.

Some of the terms used throughout this book need clarification. In this edition, I use the term retirement-age adults or seniors instead of retirees—the term that was more frequently used in the earlier editions. As mentioned earlier, many people go in and out of the labor force and are not fully retired at one time. Thus, having sixty-five years and older participating in a study does not necessarily mean that they are all retired. The information in this book is geared toward anyone who is entering this later life stage, whether employed or retired. This is also the reason why the word aging was added to the title of the book, making the new title, A Couple’s Guide to Happy Retirement and Aging.

The terms work and employment are used as synonyms, and when not working is mentioned it means not employed. In no way is it meant to discount homemakers’ contributions or the value of any other non-paid work.

The terms wife, husband, spouse, partner, relationship, and marriage are used interchangeably with the intention of including all couples, married or not. In no instance are the terms meant to exclude anyone. My professional experience has been primarily with male/female couples, and most of the examples in the book are based on such interactions. Yet, I hope that this book will prove helpful to any individual who is engaged in ongoing love relationships of any type and who is preparing for or going through the aging process and changes from employment to retirement.

This book focuses on how to shorten and reduce the difficult retirement transition so that the negative individual and marital impact will be minimal. In this updated edition, I have added new information to existing chapters that addresses new trends that have arisen in recent years, like bridge employment and the importance of physical activity (Chapter Three: Finding Your Purpose in Retirement), sexuality among older couples (Chapter Four: Readjusting the Togetherness-Separation Balance), changes in housework division (Chapter Eight: The Household Arena) and forced/involuntary retirement (Chapter Five: The Transition—Making It Easier for Yourself and Your Marriage). I also added three new chapters that cover important issues relevant to retirement-age adults that emerged recently about alcohol consumption (Chapter Twelve), cohabitation (Chapter Thirteen), and the impact of technology on retirement-age couples (Chapter Fourteen). You will also find the most recent and relevant research findings in many of the other chapters.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the underlying message of this book is optimistic. The retired couples with whom I’ve worked respond well to counseling or coaching, which is frequently short-term, and are often able to resolve the problems caused by retirement. If people have enjoyed a strong, solid marriage for many years, there’s no reason they can’t enjoy a wonderful retirement together.

The key is to bring the deeper sources of relationship problems out into the open and negotiate an equitable solution. Couples who regularly experienced miscommunication during the work years or who are bedeviled by unresolved issues that retirement exposed sometimes need more time to work through and around the obstacles. Even these couples frequently reach new levels of closeness and marital satisfaction as the unresolved issues are finally put to rest in a satisfying manner.

Preparation is the byword. Retirement-preparation programs generally help couples enjoy happier relationships, and I hope this book has the same effect. By preparing for life after work, you’ll be able to constructively plan and enjoy this third age—after childhood/adolescence and work/child-raising. Your participation in psychologically valid preparation activities, such as reading this book, reflects the desire to achieve emotional integrity and self-fulfillment in retirement.

Many readers have written or told me about how helpful the prior editions of this book