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When The Golden Years Need Some Polish

Peggy Roth, MS Ed, LMFT and Sue Milbourne, MS, LMFT
October 4, 2004

Part II: This is the second piece of a two-part article on retirement and relationships. If you haven't read the first piece, please click here to read Part I.

During the retirement years, couples experience a reversal in the structure of their time together. In earlier stages of their life together, they spent substantial blocks of time apart. 

After retirement, not only are they spending much more time together, they are also not the same people they were when they married. On the positive side, each has, hopefully, grown in wisdom and experience. On the 'needs improvement' side each may have acquired bits and pieces that are not so pleasing. Both sides may have gone unheeded when time together was short, but in the increased contact of retirement both the positive and the negative may cause difficulty. Increased strength and assertiveness in the more laid back partner may butt up against the partner that was more assertive from the beginning. What we would wish is for couples to be able to appreciate each other's strengths without feeling threatened by it.

At this point in our lives, a good bit of our story has already happened. Our families have been formed, our professional lives have been successful or not. From this vantage point we may wonder if what we have focused on has mattered. If we have fallen short in any way can we forgive ourselves and can we forgive our partners? Can we come to an understanding that the choices that were made for good or ill were made with good intent?

If we do what we need to do at this stage we can accept the ways in which we have become different people over the years. We can accept ourselves and our partners as flawed and valued and able to change.

COMMUNICATION is always important but especially so now that we are on the diminishing end of things and time is very valuable. We are taking a few of Michael D'Antonio's Tips for Couple Communication.

As we highlight a few of them keep in mind that it is more helpful to stay focused on oneself than on one's partner:

• DON'T offer unsolicited advice or solutions. 
• DON'T assume negative intentions (see below). 
• DON'T use absolutes: never, always, etc. 
• DON'T catalog past hurts, problems, and complaints. 
• DO stay curious, open to understanding. Give your partner the benefit of the doubt. 
• Do assume positive intentions. (See how important that one is?) 
• DO be as generous and compassionate with your partner as possible. 
• DO take responsibility for yourself. 
• DO turn complaints and criticism into requests. 
• DO say "yes" when you mean "yes" and "no" when you mean "no." 
• DO explore yourself when you feel defensive. 

FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION AND EMBRACING THE UNFAMILIAR

This is a good time to look at our unfinished business and take the opportunity to grow in ways that will be helpful to ourselves and to each other. Become aware of the wisdom figures in your life. What qualities do they embody that you can emulate? 

Allow time for each partner to mourn their unfulfilled dreams. Reconciliation may require embracing the unfamiliar until it is familiar and not so threatening just because it is new. Is this a good time to commit to something you both value? Is this a good time to think about courting each other again?

We would like to close with a poem by Rainer Marie Rilke: 

ON INTIMACY
"Once the realization is accepted that,
even between the closest human beings,
infinite distances continue to exist,
a wonderful living side by side can grow up
if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see the other, whole and against a wide sky."

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Peggy Roth, MSEd, LMFT and Sue Milbourne, MS, LMFT are Staff Therapists at Council for Relationships' University City and Paoli offices and can be reached at 610-889-0419 x5.

For more relationship advice, check out our Archive of Relationship Tips.