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EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was originally published in the September 2007 issue of Kiplinger's Retirement Report. To subscribe, click here.
Many of us think of retirement as the last hurrah, the chance to pursue that long-neglected dream. But what if your spouse doesn't share your dream? Perhaps a wife is pining to study in Spain for several years, while the husband wants to turn his gardening hobby into a business. Or she likes the beach, but he prefers the city.
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Retirement is as big a transition as getting married and having a child, and this kind of spousal divide can make it more difficult. For most of married life, husbands and wives are accustomed to being apart during the day, pursuing separate interests and hanging out with their own circle of friends and colleagues. Suddenly, they're thrust together full-time, forced to renegotiate everything.
Where once the two of you fretted over where to send the kids to camp, now you're agonizing over where to live and what to do for the rest of your lives. "The issues around retirement are different from other decisions that couples make because they have an equal impact on both parties, and they mean a huge life change," says Ronald Manheimer, director of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement in Asheville, N.C.
One way to synchronize your expectations and goals is to talk about retirement many years before it happens. But a study by Fidelity Investments found that the non–financial side of retirement planning is obviously not a regular kitchen-table topic.
In a survey earlier this year, Fidelity asked 500 preretiree couples about their goals for retirement. For more than 30% of the couples, wives and husbands gave very different answers when asked about their lifestyle expectations, the age at which each expected the other to retire and whether at least one spouse would continue working in retirement.
Even when couples talk, their ideas may diverge. Consider Nick and Susan Mimken, both 63. When Nick was in college, he worked summers in Nantucket, Mass. It was always his fantasy to return, he says, so he and Susan bought land there in 1991 and later built a house.
They made a deal. Nick would close his life-insurance practice in Cleveland. Susan, who earned a degree in interior design in her early fifties, would build a business. After moving to Nantucket eight years ago, Nick became a "beach bum," sailed, took pottery classes and worked odd jobs. "I was loving it," he says. But after a couple of years, Susan wanted to move. The cost of living on the posh island was high, and there were no opportunities for her to pursue a growing interest in fiber crafts. "I was the pusher to think about leaving," she says.
It was a tough sell, although Nick knew that they could not afford to live there indefinitely. "I didn't want to give up my dream," he says. "I felt I had to be an idiot to leave Nantucket because I had wanted it for so long. It was like admitting failure."
To resolve their differences and to figure out their next step, they attended seminars at the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement (www.unca.edu/ncccr), which is part of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. They realized they agreed more than they differed—they both wanted to live near educational institutions and in a diverse community. They moved to Asheville, where Susan does her crafts and Nick hikes and takes classes at the university.
Yours, Mine and Ours
Like the Mimkens, most couples can both reach agreement and fulfill their individual needs in retirement, according to experts. The key is to start talking, perhaps years before the time approaches. The major issues you should discuss are when you want to retire, where you want to live and what you want to do. "If there is enough flexibility, there is a way for each one to get what each wants," says Sara Yogev, a psychologist in Skokie, Ill., and author of For Better or for Worse . . . But Not for Lunch: Making Marriage Work in Retirement (McGraw-Hill).
Many experts suggest that a way to start is for each spouse to separately draw up a dream list. Do you want to travel six months a year, become a photographer, learn to skydive or mentor disadvantaged kids? "You need to list the things that you dream about and then assign a value to each," says Alan Bernstein, co-author with John Trauth of Your Retirement, Your Way: Why It Takes More Than Money to Live Your Dream (McGraw-Hill, $17). "If living near a grandchild is important, assign that a value of one to ten." The book includes exercises for figuring out your retirement interests and goals.
