" Helping you is what we do."
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THE INSIDE SCOOP ON RETIREMENT
BEING RETIRED TOGETHER IS GOING TO BE A WONDERFUL THING, RIGHT? Rick 'Scoop' Hoogendoorn
interviews retirees about Okay, maybe you’ve been married, or living together, for several decades and you think you know the formula for ‘peaceful co-existence’. But that was when one or both of you were working! JIM: "The first day at home I slept in, and my wife caught me two days later wandering around in the back yard, and she says, "Jim, you're going over to the golf course and you're getting a membership!" RICK: “Now that you're retired, has anything changed as far as your relationship is concerned? Anything surprising or challenging about that?” LORRAINE: "You mean my better half being home more than normal? Yes, that takes some getting used to. My better half works at night, works in the daytime too…So now, suddenly, I have to cook this meal every day, we have to structure eating meals every day. That did not go well. The first month it was very difficult. And that is a surprise. Not that I hadn't thought about it before, but its something you're not gonna know until that time comes." RICK: "What was surprising about it?" LORRAINE: "It's unnerving having somebody around all the time like that. You had the house to yourself all the time and now you don't. Oh ya! And you had your little routine; at 10 o'clock you're gonna do this; at 12 o'clock okay I'm gonna watch news; at 5 o'clock I'm gonna watch a certain TV program, not necessarily the news, and here's your spouse and he has to watch the news. You have to eat when he's hungry and make meals and I hate cooking, so now I've gotta cook. Don't like that! RICK: "How did you manage that?" LORRAINE: "For me it was just a matter of saying to myself, 'okay, you have a choice here. You can allow this to really make you miserable, and beef and complain and become a bitch, if you wanna call it that. Or just adjust to it because that's not gonna change. He's gonna be here.' He's gonna retire from his full-time job, then look at it like this is probably just a short little…” RICK: "Preview of coming attractions?" LORRAINE: "Preview of coming attractions! Yes. And that's a really good thing because now I really know what I have to cope with when that time comes. And we will adjust, I'm sure. But it is hard. And we have adjusted a lot. There's just sometimes I think "God, I wish he'd go to work." (laughs) RICK: "Has your relationship changed at all since you retired?" PAT: "Ya, I'm seeing him now. It's much better. When I was at work I didn't see him from Thursday night when I went to bed until Monday night when he got home from work because with him being a night worker. So ya, I see him every morning. We have our three days together. You know, we do stuff. It's great." RICK: "So it's vastly improved?" PAT: "I think so. I don't know if he agrees. No, it's great. Much better." RICK: “Do you anticipate any problems when he retires too?" PAT: "I don't think so because we're definitely going to go off some days on our own if there's something we want to do. Like if he wants to go fishing and he's got somebody to go with, that's fine. If I want to go shopping, or go out with one of the girls that's fine, no problem. As long as we can find something to do in the winter months we'll be fine because he will get bored. You don't want to keep working doing the house rebuilding and renovating." JOAN: "Well, I wish I would have known what I was going to do with him all day if he wasn't playing golf. Fortunately he plays golf so I don't see him quite as much as I, you know, could if he were home all the time." RICK: "So it's a challenge when your husband retires?” JOAN: "It's a little more ... togetherness, which is wonderful, except that sometimes you like a little time to yourself." RICK: "So that's something that needs to be managed?" JOAN: "Yes. I believe it's not uncommon at all for a lot of wives to run into that problem, particularly if their husbands don't have a hobby and all of a sudden there are things around the house they're agreeing to help you redo." RICK: "If they don’t get a hobby." JOAN: "If they don’t get a hobby, right." KEN: "Well, I don't know how you plan for that. Most spouses take the view that they don't want their husbands under foot all the time. I know that. I don't think that was ever really a problem with us." MAUREEN: "It's fine as long as he's got something to do, because I couldn't stand for the two of us to be together all day. I couldn't stand being together with anybody at anytime all the time. I need my own space. Like I have my outside interests, and he has his, and we have our together interests, and that's what I think you have to have." PAT: "We did have a little joke when I retired, that we would have macaroni and cheese every day. I said, 'Who says you're gonna get cheese?!’" RH: “Have you been getting cheese, Joe?” JOE: "Occasionally. When I'm a good boy." PAT: "I'll tell you one thing, he's been getting thoroughly spoiled since I quit work." JOE: "I deserve it." RICK: "Have you noticed any changes in things since Pat retired?" JOE: "Ya. I get a cup of tea in bed every morning. My lunch is ready for me when I want it. I get a better lunch. Everything improved actually. I thought it might be difficult with her being around all the time but I guess with me going to work 3 or 4 days a week it's different. You know, when I quit that might be a problem. I honestly don't know." LORRAINE: "I hit a period of being quite miserable there. So you sit down and say, 'Okay, I have a problem here and how can we get around this?' Especially in my case because my spouse doesn’t go fishing. He doesn't go golfing, where he's out of the house and away. We garden together. So now we're gardening together all the time! Which used to be a really nice experience. Suddenly it's not so nice, because we're there together all the time! So he gardens in the back and I garden in the front. That was one way of getting around that problem." |
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Cheri Crause, Rick Hoogendoorn, Richard and
Brenda Jacques
copyright
2008 Cheri Crause
& Associates Inc.
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