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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and for the last 15 minutes of the show today, we turn to retirement and how it has impacted your marriage. 212-433-WNYC, who has a story? Some of the usual milestones like marriage itself and having kids are met with a little trepidation sometimes, along with the hope and the joy, major life changing milestones. Retirement though is supposed to be a reward after all those years of working hard and raising your kids like a vacation or something. Yet The Times recently reported that, "Although it's still rare for married couples over 60 to break up, the divorce rate is rising faster in that age group than in any other as baby boomers accustomed to self-actualization reach retirement age and evaluate their lives anew," from that New York Times article.
We're going to invite you to put some stories, some meat on those bones. Weigh in, how has retirement changed your marriage? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I know you're not going to want to call in with the worst of the worst stories. Some of you might, and some of you may have gotten divorced after retirement and want to say that. But at very least, it takes adjustments, I imagine, and the reporting seems to indicate that. Do you know the saying, "I married you for better or worse, not for lunch," right?
I don't know who made that up, but that's usually applied to that moment after the one who's been working outside the home more than the other, or maybe they both were, and they retire at the same time. They're suddenly in each other's company at home all day, not just during the evening after work. They realized, "Oh, I kind liked having a lot of the day to myself as well as later in the day with my spouse."
If I married you for better or worse, not for lunch, rings a bell to you if you're retired, give us a call and tell us how it has played out. What this can do to help people and not just be dishing on your loved one is say how you adjusted. For people who have recently retired, for people who have plans to retire soon and are in a marriage or any kind of committed living together relationship, what worked for you to adjust to retirement and being around each other so much of the time? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.
Maybe there were issues you were avoiding as a couple that you then had to address. Maybe you realized that you and your partner didn't have as much in common as you might have hoped, and that became more relevant now that you were both retired or both at home. Maybe you and your partner have an age gap that threw a wrench in those retirement plans. Or maybe one of you has already retired and that's now different for one or both of you with one of you still in the workforce and one of you retired.
Tell your stories. Help others who are facing this as not just a joy retirement, but also a challenge. Again, I'll read that one little line from the New York Times article on this that inspired the call-in, "Although it's still rare for married couples over 60 to break up, the divorce rate is rising faster in that age group than in any other as baby boomers accustomed to self-actualization, reach retirement age and evaluate their lives anew." Does that sound like you? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. We'll take your calls right after this.
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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to 10 minutes of your call is on marriage after retirement. Michelle in South Salem, New York. You're on WNYC. Hi Michelle.
Michelle: Hi. It's great to reach you. I am a long-time listener. Love your show. Love you. You've kept me afloat in many a hard time. I will just say to that end that one of the first things I do in the morning is turn on your show. My husband doesn't mind it, of course, he loves NPR, loves you, but my husband just retired after 33 years of teaching high school English. He's brilliant at it. He's a wonderful man, but it has definitely thrown our household upside down in ways that we could not predict. Even though we tried to predict--
Brian Lehrer: Can you describe one? Name one?
Michelle: Different things like I've been running the household. We have three beautiful children who are grown and our youngest is graduating in college in a couple of weeks. That we've managed but there are different ways that I think I'm a stay-at-home mom and a photographer, so I get to work from home. I'm really used to the space, the noise, the chores, the things that I'm used to doing. We've really had to renegotiate through things that make us comfortable.
Even simple things like I never drink coffee or stuff like that. My husband will be down there and he's an early riser, doing his coffee, doing his thing, and then I come down, we share a space. I'm looking around. You need your space a little bit for working, for living. One day you have your space, the next day you don't.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Michelle. I think you nailed it for a lot of people. Thank you. Rosemary in Bernardsville, you're on WNYC. Hi Rosemary.
Rosemary: Hey there, Brian. I was telling the screener that my husband who retired last week, we've been watching the Trump trial and whatnot. I just said to him late in the day on Tuesday, "Do you want to go down to the court on Thursday?" We got up at 3:30 this morning, and discovered that the Holland Tunnel doesn't open until 5:30 that we got rerouted to the Lincoln. Anyway, waited on line from 5:30 and we're told at 10 past 9:00 that we couldn't get in. On the positive side, my Trump puppet made its debut and was getting a lot of love from the press, but anyway, yes, when you referenced that article--
Brian Lehrer: Your husband just retired last weekend, what do you do in your first week of retirement? You go try to be a spectator at the Trump trial.
Rosemary: There you go. Witness the history.
Brian Lehrer: Rosemary, thank you very much. Carolyn in Bethlehem, Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hi Carolyn.
Carolyn: Hi there, Brian. I talked to you once during the pandemic about life out in farm country compared to being a native New Yorker. I'm very happy that I get to tell you about this other experience. I had been an artist until my husband and I met in my late '20s. I realized the responsible thing to do was to take a more serious job at an art gallery so I could be with him more. Then many, many, many decades later, after he has worked unbelievably hard and been on airplanes and trains and in cars and slept in hotels, we've raised a beautiful daughter together. I was the one who was primarily taking care of her and volunteering in lots of different capacities that overlapped with her life.
Thanks to therapy, I figured out recently that I'm actually supposed to go back while I'm breathing down the neck of 60 to becoming an artist. I rented this tiny little studio in Bethlehem. Now my thoroughly liberated husband is constantly suggesting these exciting trips. Unfortunately, my current response is crying, but I know that will be productive. At some point--
Brian Lehrer: In other words, he's retired, so he wants to travel, but you've just found this thing to do and you want to work?
Carolyn: Yes, I don't have to work thinking about others after decades. I can actually do something that is purely gratifying and nurturing to me. As I say, it was a really break big breakthrough with my therapist. We're going to have to figure out like how to do that balance because I know how much he loves not having to travel for work, but I also really need to sit down and just be quiet.
Brian Lehrer: I hear you. Yes. More choice sometimes can lead to more conflict. What you said at the end there, Caroline, I'm going to move on and get a couple other people in, that's coming up in call after call, text after text, not used to having somebody around who I have to talk to so much. I'm used to having my quiet time. That's one of the specific things that keeps coming up is what has to be negotiated. Renee and Dix Hills, you're on WNYC. Hi Renee.
Renee: Hi Brian. This is the first time I'm speaking to you, but it's a pleasure. I love your show.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you.
Renee: I just retired in June after-- I'm a retired- -teacher. The irony is that as I'm speaking to you, I'm actually driving into my former school district, to proctor AP exams, but I retired after --
Brian Lehrer: Nice. Somebody's got to do it. Go ahead.
Renee: Someone got to do it. I retired after 33 years, but before I did that, I realized that retirement is a destination. It's not a decision that you just instantly make and settle on. You've got to prepare for that emotionally and mentally. First, I did that with my husband and a really good therapist, and understood what the emotional process was going to be. I had to find ways to mitigate that grief.
I realized I could teach college, which I do now. I volunteer. I still help out in my former school district. I have time with my friends. I learned to reinvent myself. I don't rely on my husband, which I'm sure he's happy because it takes a lot of pressure off of him. He hasn't retired yet, but I found that it makes me a better spouse because the stress is gone. I'm able to focus on his needs when I'm there with him, and I appreciate him much more than I did when I was working and a full-time mother.
Brian Lehrer: It sounds like he might appreciate you much more because it sounds like you're doing more for him.
Renee: Yes, right. He's actually forced me to join a gym to start thinking about myself and my health differently. We are doing things that we didn't--
Brian Lehrer: Not just doing for yourself.
Renee: Yes. He says, "Look, I need you to be healthy and strong and you need to do things that you didn't take care of before."
Brian Lehrer: For yourself as well as for him. Great story, Renee. That's all the time we're going to have for callers on this. We got a handful of them in there. Hopefully, some of those will help those of you who haven't figured out your new relationship in retirement yet or will soon face that. We will finish with a text message. A listener wrote, "When I retired, my wife did feel like her daily freedom was taken away. Then we moved to Brooklyn to provide childcare for our granddaughter and send another on the way. We love it, I think." Thank you for your calls and texts.
That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Plus, Briana Brady today. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our national politics podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. We had Shaina Sengstock and Milton Ruiz today at the audio controls. Stay tuned for All Of It.
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