Retirement can shift a relationship’s dynamics in ways you may not anticipate. Here’s how experts suggest overcoming these hurdles.
After a lifetime of work and responsibility, retirement promises a luxury many people haven’t had in years: time. Time to travel. Time to slow down. Time to finally enjoy life — and the chance to do so with the person you’ve built it with.
At least, that’s what Denise Taylor expected.
The 68-year-old from Gloucestershire, England, spent decades running a fast-moving career as a business psychologist, career coach and consultant. Along the way, she built a marriage that was, above all, fun. The couple traveled whenever they could, spent weekends swing dancing and rarely missed a music festival.
When she and her husband finally retired, she imagined simply doing more of what they already loved doing together. “It never occurred to me that retirement was going to be any different,” Taylor said. “I honestly thought we would go forward. Wouldn’t it be jolly, because we could have more holidays without having to worry about whether he could get the time off work? Then we could go to music festivals, and we could have weekends away and it was all the pleasant stuff.”
Instead, the newfound freedom revealed that they seemed to lack a shared vision for the future. “We were just drifting apart,” Taylor said, and in 2018, they ended their 21-year marriage.
Read in the Washington Post.
