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For some people it isn't just having 'friends' at work - it having the automatic contact with people every day that occurs just by working and by showing up at work for many people. It's automatic human contact provided, without trying.
Some are afraid when this automatic contact with other human beings at work disappears, one might feel isolated, since in retirement one has to seek contact with other humans - it isn't automatically provided by showing up at the workplace daily.
Good insight.
I would only add "automatic contact with other people like him" in his highly-specialized field.
I've been self-employed -- out of the traditional work world -- since 2001 so I get it. It's difficult to connect with other competent people who do the kind of work I do from home, and impossible to do it on a daily basis. OTOH, there are plenty of incompetent people who don't understand the industry and would never keep their jobs if they were on salary. Rather than trying to learn, they blame their lack of understanding -- and subsequent failure to make money -- on external forces. There's nothing to be gained by engaging with them, they are ineducable.
My spouse prefers the company of other people like him but for nearly two decades I have not had that luxury.
He listened to me, really listened. I am encouraged. He knows I could just stay down here indefinitely if I chose to. We talked about some of the things we saw ourselves doing in the future. I told him it was completely his choice as to when to retire but my preference would be sooner rather than later. It seems his manager is wanting to move him to a less-challenging role. He's finally done the math for himself and realized that our income actually increases after retirement. I think anxiety is part of the reason he's hung in there so long.
We also discussed the advisability of marriage counseling post-retirement to facilitate communication. We need a neutral party to keep us on course, until we get better at it.
Thanks for all the comments.
A few things, fluffy.
I have " automatic friends at work. Just started a new job, so no have to learn a whole new group of people.
Im more of a loner and third shift suits me just fine.
I DONT degine myself by work friends. They cannot be counted on. I DO have regular friends i CAN count on. They are totally unrelated to work. I think its best that way, but what do i know.
Marriage counseling...well we tried that 3 years ago,no4. It dod not have the desired results. My OH got more scared at the prospect of being "proven wrong " by a 3rd party, than just me sayibg "youre wrong". So beware....it may back fire on you as my OH stopped going, in fact last session got up and walked out saying "I'm DONE".
tread carefully if you want desired results. We gat alone better now, though, but at the time it didnt seem to work out. ( my OH WAS wrong...it had to do with my OH cheating on me, and wanting to set own rules for our marriage, so I WAS on the side of right).
So this morning I asked my spouse, "Why did we buy a retirement house, when you clearly have no plans to retire? Do you really want to be carried out of the office feet-first?"
He gave me another of a long series of vague remarks that he would probably retire, maybe, someday: "Well, they have this annual survey at the office and one of the questions is, `Do you see yourself working here for more than a year?' I answered No."
I told him that wasn't good enough. I want a retirement date. I want to be in the beautiful and thriving place we (I thought) selected with so many new-to-us and fascinating things to explore. I want to be living in the fabulous home that I picked out and furnished for us. I'm sick to death of the Bay Area. I want out. He knows this.
"But if I retire, what will I do?"
The guy is a network engineer, pilot and an amateur radio enthusiast. Codes for the fun of it. Owns his own airplane. But he can't think of anything to do in retirement. Wants ME to tell him what to do once retired.
I'm speechless.
I get that it's a big transition. This is a guy who thinks his co-workers are his friends, who gets upset whenever any of them leave the company. He is by far the oldest employee.
I understand I'm asking him to give up his "friends" at work and his non-work actual friends. And he's scared.
But I'm scared, too. Worried that I may not be able to walk without assistance much longer, which will make me permanently housebound in a place I hate. Terrified that one day I'll wake up as an 80 year old, still managing another property from afar without ever having lived there. And that I have wasted what's left of my life waiting for him to decide.
I am seriously considering putting the other house back on the market. We'll lose money but I can't keep living like this.
What would you do?
I haven't read this whole multiple pages thread. So....I would just move. Get settled in at your new place while you still can. Hopefully he'll follow.
I have " automatic friends at work. Just started a new job, so no have to learn a whole new group of people.
Im more of a loner and third shift suits me just fine.
I DONT degine myself by work friends. They cannot be counted on. I DO have regular friends i CAN count on. They are totally unrelated to work. I think its best that way, but what do i know.
It would never have occurred to me while I was working in tech to define myself by the people I work with. I'm just not wired that way. Once it became obvious that the kind of work I did and enjoyed was going to be obsoleted across the entire industry, it freed me up to pursue a dream. I did not and do not miss my former co-workers.
Quote:
Marriage counseling...well we tried that 3 years ago,no4. It dod not have the desired results. My OH got more scared at the prospect of being "proven wrong " by a 3rd party, than just me sayibg "youre wrong". So beware....it may back fire on you as my OH stopped going, in fact last session got up and walked out saying "I'm DONE".
We did, too, in mid-2017. It was horrifying.
I always thought the purpose of marriage counseling was to facilitate communication between partners. I don't know if we just got the World's Worst Therapist or what, but it started off bad and went downhill from there.
Over the course of years I learned that my beloved spouse cries in order to get his way. He can turn the tears on and off in an instant. Or he'll sob for a few minutes, and then I look closely and realize he's completely dry-eyed. He should have been an actor.
So we've just sat down in the first session with this counselor. He addresses DH: "Why are you here?" Who instantly starts sobbing. I look away and roll my eyes at this obvious manipulation. And the counselor pounces on the eyeroll and begins interrogating me. Just like that he has concocted a scenario: "Highly sensitive and deeply caring man grieving over the incipient loss of his marriage to the undeserving, evil and uncaring wife who's used him up and is now discarding him." None of which was true.
The counselor was openly hostile to me throughout that session and the following seven sessions. DH just sat there and watched him work at trying to tear me down, saying nothing. In the eighth session the counselor was going off on me, mocking my definition of the word `friend' ("A friend is someone you care about and who cares about you" -- it's completely correct, BTW, look it up.) I stood up and said, "I'm done with this crap. I'll find my own way home." DH had insisted on driving us to each appointment. Always had to be in control.
I left him sitting there, mouth agape. I went down to street level, installed the Uber app on my phone and called an Uber. Went home and started packing.
--
With that still fresh in my mind, what I had hoped for this go-round was a counselor whose role could be limited strictly to facilitating communication instead of making snap judgments.
It would never have occurred to me while I was working in tech to define myself by the people I work with. I'm just not wired that way. Once it became obvious that the kind of work I did and enjoyed was going to be obsoleted across the entire industry, it freed me up to pursue a dream. I did not and do not miss my former co-workers.
If you're on a team bringing products to market or creating intellectual property, I can see where there would be an attachment to the colleagues that are bringing these things to life with you.
Most IT jobs aren't like that. You're doing business things and keeping the lights on.
It would never have occurred to me while I was working in tech to define myself by the people I work with. I'm just not wired that way. Once it became obvious that the kind of work I did and enjoyed was going to be obsoleted across the entire industry, it freed me up to pursue a dream. I did not and do not miss my former co-workers.
Same here. My work changed so much over the years due to technology and I had to find jobs with new companies so often, I really never bonded with co-workers all that much. I also had very little in common with most them.
I think people should work on building a life outside of the job for when they retire just as they work on their financial planning. Being prepared as much as possible works in every aspect of life. For those who wish to retire, their retirement should be an extension of interests and people they had outside of work besides taking up new ones.
So this morning I asked my spouse, "Why did we buy a retirement house, when you clearly have no plans to retire? Do you really want to be carried out of the office feet-first?"
He gave me another of a long series of vague remarks that he would probably retire, maybe, someday: "Well, they have this annual survey at the office and one of the questions is, `Do you see yourself working here for more than a year?' I answered No."
I told him that wasn't good enough. I want a retirement date. I want to be in the beautiful and thriving place we (I thought) selected with so many new-to-us and fascinating things to explore. I want to be living in the fabulous home that I picked out and furnished for us. I'm sick to death of the Bay Area. I want out. He knows this.
"But if I retire, what will I do?"
The guy is a network engineer, pilot and an amateur radio enthusiast. Codes for the fun of it. Owns his own airplane. But he can't think of anything to do in retirement. Wants ME to tell him what to do once retired.
I'm speechless.
I get that it's a big transition. This is a guy who thinks his co-workers are his friends, who gets upset whenever any of them leave the company. He is by far the oldest employee.
I understand I'm asking him to give up his "friends" at work and his non-work actual friends. And he's scared.
But I'm scared, too. Worried that I may not be able to walk without assistance much longer, which will make me permanently housebound in a place I hate. Terrified that one day I'll wake up as an 80 year old, still managing another property from afar without ever having lived there. And that I have wasted what's left of my life waiting for him to decide.
I am seriously considering putting the other house back on the market. We'll lose money but I can't keep living like this.
Fluffy, I have seen in your posts that you frequently say it's something "you" want.
When you two first discussed moving to AZ, was he enthusiastic or did he just agree to keep the peace?
I'm not hearing (reading) anything that indicates (at least to me) that he really acted like he wants to go. I myself have agreed to things that I really didn't want to do only because the other person was really excited about it and I didn't want to disappoint them.
Any chance that any of that is true? Has he even seen the house in AZ?
When I was married, he was very anxious to move to a house we had built on a more rural road. I wasn't really sure what I was getting into, had a year old daughter and pregnant with son, working full time. I was too busy to think it through. Well, he and the next-door neighbor carried on an affair and I wasn't aware till I overheard her husband threaten my ex that he would "kill" him if he ever did "it" again. This is not a comparison to your situation, just a story about what I went through. He's still there with 3rd (maybe 4th??) wife, still carrying on with neighbor (he told me a couple years ago). Her husband moved on, too.
So this morning I asked my spouse, "Why did we buy a retirement house, when you clearly have no plans to retire? Do you really want to be carried out of the office feet-first?"
He gave me another of a long series of vague remarks that he would probably retire, maybe, someday: "Well, they have this annual survey at the office and one of the questions is, `Do you see yourself working here for more than a year?' I answered No."
I told him that wasn't good enough. I want a retirement date. I want to be in the beautiful and thriving place we (I thought) selected with so many new-to-us and fascinating things to explore. I want to be living in the fabulous home that I picked out and furnished for us. I'm sick to death of the Bay Area. I want out. He knows this.
"But if I retire, what will I do?"
The guy is a network engineer, pilot and an amateur radio enthusiast. Codes for the fun of it. Owns his own airplane. But he can't think of anything to do in retirement. Wants ME to tell him what to do once retired.
I'm speechless.
I get that it's a big transition. This is a guy who thinks his co-workers are his friends, who gets upset whenever any of them leave the company. He is by far the oldest employee.
I understand I'm asking him to give up his "friends" at work and his non-work actual friends. And he's scared.
But I'm scared, too. Worried that I may not be able to walk without assistance much longer, which will make me permanently housebound in a place I hate. Terrified that one day I'll wake up as an 80 year old, still managing another property from afar without ever having lived there. And that I have wasted what's left of my life waiting for him to decide.
I am seriously considering putting the other house back on the market. We'll lose money but I can't keep living like this.
What would you do?
Well he will have lots to do. Hopefully that retirement community is near a small airport (better yet a fly in community) where he can get a hangar. Open up that hangar all day and just fiddle with his plane and he will soon have so many friends he won't know what worried him about retiring. He will soon be flying more than he ever did. How about he see if he can "retire" for a year and since you already have two houses keep the California home for that year. If he finds he hates it then you all can change plans. My guess is he will wonder why he waited so long.
Another thing private pilots do is transport dogs who have been adopted from out of state. There is an organization for this... can't remember what it is called.
Pilots n Paws, Angel Wings are two, probably there are others.
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