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Interest challenge! I went through this experience with my Father. He retired due to a heart attack, then spent days around the house. Drove my Mother crazy because he had no jobs of his own to do, and began doing what she was doing. The result was everything was getting washed, ironed, and vaccumed. My Father had no hobbies, and had not developed a network of buddies, nor had my Mother.
It took about a year for things to change. Both people had to learn how to live with each other again on a daily basis. Each had to give a little.
In retrospect, it would have been better if they had received some counseling and had developed a share set of goals for retirement. I think time is the best healer. Look upon this set of circumstances as a gift, and be grateful. To be able to retire at 50 is a blessing. Many people would welcome this event into their lives.
If you accept it as a gift, then sit down together and determine how you both can benefit from the gift. You have the time to plan, so use it. Look at what and where you want to be in five and ten years. Do you have a travel plan? Are there places you would like to visit? Are there programs that you can take advantage of to enrich your life? Most of all, how can you as a couple use the time to be of service to others. Maybe you have gifts/talents that you can share with others? Just by writing your question, I know that you and your husband could help others living in senior care facilities. You could go and visit, and perhaps write letters or do emails for seniors who are more challenged. Regular activites, such as this, get you out of yourself and change your focus. Moreover, you are helping others.
"Life is not about finding yourself", I once read, "It is about creating yourself". Stop thinking about how to fit your husband's retirement into your life. Think about how you can use his retirement to further create yourself and develop some joint expectations.
Retirement is a gift. Use it to develop joy. Re-discover what it is like to spend time together again, and to re-construct a new vision of the future for you and your husband.
Have things gotten any better for you and your husband? This is one of my fears when my husband retires in two years - what will he do all day? Hope things have gotten better for you. Has he found any new hobbies or interests? I'll keep my fingers crossed. I imagine it's hard on a wife when her husband is suddenly there all day!
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Originally Posted by rxgrrl
This is going to sound terrible but my husband turned 50 in August and the company he worked for let their employees retired with full pension if they've worked there for 30 years (If they want to). So he decides to retire because he had his 30 years in and wasn't happy working there anymore. I was NOT agreeable to this. Now he is driving me crazy! He has no hobbies, we live in a boring small town, he refuses to get even a part time job (which he promised me he would), does nothing around the house...I could go on and on. So now I am so unhappy and depressed I am not enjoying my life.
Anybody have any advice of what I should do? We've been married 26 years and I really don't want to get a divorce.
The only advise I can really give is to support his decision and encourage him to find new interests. If the company was offering early retirement, it sounds like maybe the company was having financial issues and it was better to retire people who've been with them for so many years than to lay them off with nothing. He is probably lost right now and it is a huge adjustment for both of you. Maybe ask him to do some things around the house and see what happens. He may have difficulty looking for part time work since so many people have lost their jobs and the pickings are slim. Is he handy around the house? maybe he can work on some projects he didn't have time for? if he's getting a pension, he is at least still making some wages.
It sounds like you need to come to terms as well. With you all of a sudden becoming the only one working, you aren't used to having to foot the brunt of responsibility...this is just an assumption? It takes both of you compromising and adjusting. get counseling before you think something as dramatic as a divorce. If you've been together for 26 years, I'm sure you've been through tougher times than this. just relax, breathe and think things through. go out to dinner and talk about your feelings and concerns. If he's been working for many years, he is finding his new found freedom. He'll get bored quicker than he thinks and if he is already bored, he'll find something to do.
rxgrrl ... I know what you are going through ... hubby took early retirement too ... I mean to the point of coming home and advising me ... I am retiring ... WHOA ... we discussed this and planned to walk out together into our 'golden years!'
It was a total shock to me ... it just so happened when he did this our son was home from school (his higher education break doing nothing.) The first day I came home from work ... got home after 5pm ... hubby was asleep in his recliner ... son was asleep on the couch ... dog was asleep in the floor ... TV was going full blast ... kitchen sink and counter was full of dirty dishes ... I walked into the kitchen ... it was a disaster ... so I opened the trash can threw every bowl, glass, spoon, fork and knife into the trash can. I had always left for work after hubby and kitchen was clean and I would come home to a clean kitchen. I asked the question ... what did you do today ... response was 'nothing!' Son was in the trash retrieving everything I threw away.
It was a very very difficult adjustment and I had visions of 30 some odd years of marrage going straight into the toliet! I finally had a heart to heart talk with him and told him how I was resenting the hell out of me working and him doing absolutely nothing ... he too had promised a part-time job or to at least help around the house and neither was happening. He likes to fish but he didn't want to take the boat out without me along and I don't fish I take a book along and read. We ride motorcycles but there again he didn't want to ride without me. Well duhhhh I am at work Monday thru Friday and couldn't retire yet. It was truly hell in our house, not fussing or anything I was just carrying around this chip of our 'best laid plans of mice and men oft' go astray' which was what I considered happened to our retirement plan.
I do give him credit for paying off our mortgage and every bill we had, so we were debt free. Eventually he got the message or got bored and started cleaning the house ... vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms and doing the washing ... he even took on the grocery shopping and amazed me with learning to look for specials. Then he started painting the house inside ... this took forever as he slept late and then had his naptime in the afternoon.
We finally settled into 'his retirement' and me working ... I bought him a computer (he was and is still computer illterate) when he was working he would receive memos from the head office to please read or delete his email as his mail box was full but computers never interested him.
It will take time and things will work out ... it did for us and I am glad he took the early retirement now and guess what ... you have another treat or adjustment in store for you when you retire ... things will go to hell in a handbasket again with you home all the time and your husband already set in his 'retirement mode' ... but we got through that one too. Just give it time and things will eventually fall in place.
Last edited by CarolinaWoman; 02-27-2009 at 01:54 PM..
Get counseling. Sounds trite, but he really needs it. Quitting a job and retiring is a major life event. You need to readjust as a couple to this new life. He apparently doesn't have a clue what he's supposed to do now and needs some direction. The library or community college might have courses or seminars in coping with retirement.
Does he have any friends who also took early retirement? He may get support there. Or maybe the wives can band together.
I agree on the counseling. Maybe he needs a push from a third party.
My pops retired at 62 and he got bored pretty early on. He started doing volunteer work at a hospital and that led to a couple of other things where he could help out, driving people and even teaching adults who couldn't read. He became quite busy and one day we were talking and he told me he never felt so fulfilled in all his life. He can take off with mom whenever he wants but he has a "place to be" which I think we all need. When we retire, that's the first thing missing.
This life change can reveal the cracks. If the guy is lazy or depressed and won't do anything, it isn't fair. Whether you are retired or working, the house doesn't clean itself. My neighbor retired and his wife still works. Their house looks great. Without being asked, he cleans it and has dinner ready for his wife. On the other hand, when my uncle retired, his mostly stay at home wife went nuts as he started telling her how to do housework and cook when he was incompetent at both and she very good at it. Different personalities react differently with a change.
UPDATE: Not good news. He really isn't doing anything yet.Gaining alot of weight, hanging out all day at coffee shops, bowling alley, and the only retired friend he has house when I'm home. Sits and watches TV all day if I'm not home. Still refuses to look for a steady part time job. Everytime I mention stuff to him, he ignores me. He DOES do laundry and dishes and I am grateful he is helping out my elderly parents. We live in a cold climate so right now we can't do anything outside. On the upside: when the weather gets nice he has some outdoor jobs to do for other people and will get paid for that. And I am working more because one of my co-workers has to have surgery so I'm not home that much.
The area we live in has been hit hard by the recession, there really are no jobs to be had around here. So I am just taking it day by day and just not stressing about it as much as I was.
I still think it was a big mistake for him to voluntarily retire at 50. The company he worked at is doing OK, he would not have been laid off or forced to retire if he had stayed. Thanks to everyone for your advice.
These stories always amaze me. I'm 43, and if I were blessed enough to be able to retire tomorrow and remain healthy and active for another 40 years I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have time to accomplish everything I want to do.
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