Couple in meadow The conventional picture of the happy couple, newly-retired and riding off into the sunset couldn't be further from the truth. Let's face it, if one or both of you has worked the chances are that you've only spent a few hours each evening, weekends (if you're lucky) and two or three weeks holiday per year in each other's company. And remember how those two-week holidays could raise a few 'disagreements'?
And what if one of you has stayed at home while the other worked? As Samantha Jeffries, a recent retiree told me: "I'd had the house to myself for 40 years and my timetables were turned over just by having someone else around." Samantha's view is that you have to accept that your relationship will go through a period of adjustment when you first retire and that this is completely normal. Everyone I spoke to talked about the 'spats' they had in the early days of their retirement.
Diane Dennis, a retiree of 20 years standing, found that preserving her own space and independence was important: "Friends said to me: 'Keep doing what you've always done, don't let your husband being at home change that.'" Diane deliberately planned that she and her husband would pursue different pastimes and join different groups in retirement.
But not all relationships survive. William Kennett realised that his marriage wouldn't survive retirement: "Our relationship had changed over the years and I knew that what I could put up with while I was working I couldn't cope with all day, seven days a week." William and his wife divorced and he remarried and has lived happily with Helen for the past 17 years. As William says: "Retirement can last for three of four decades and that's a long time to be unhappy."
Recognising that retirement is a difficult time and that you have to work at your relationship helped Joan Jarvis: "I remember thinking 'It'll take two years' and you've got to be absolutely patient for those two years." And it is worth working at that relationship. As Joan adds: "A lot of what you do is better with two."
Lin Ashurst is the author of 'Talking about Retirement', published by Kogan Page (www.koganpage.com).