The Gray Divorce Podcast: Episode 54 The Danger of Free Time - Retirement and Gray Divorce with Marianne Oehser
Today's podcast explores the relationship between retirement and marital relations. In many cases, retirement may trigger mid to late-life divorce.
Our guest today, Marianne Oehser, is a Certified Retirement and Relationship Coach. She helps us understand the paradox of retirement and offers some tips on what couples can do to best navigate the changes in their relationship that may be brought about by one or both parties leaving the workforce.
Many of us work in jobs or professions that demand a lot of our time and energy. As a result, many of us look forward to the day that we can retire.
Retirement may mean waking up in the morning and not having any tasks or phone calls or meetings to attend. It may mean the freedom to do whatever we want: play tennis, ride a bike, golf. Or maybe we just want to play with the grandkids or go to a movie.
The idea of having this free time is pretty appealing.
Marianne tells us that there's a danger with all this free time.
The absence of the structure that guided our working life can lead to feelings of aimlessness and dissatisfaction. And it can cause problems in our relationships, and lead to mid-late life divorce.
The Paradox of Retirement
To really benefit from the freedom retirement can give us, we need to give up some of that freedom and create routines. We need to understand that with freedom comes responsibility and that when we have a routine, we can be more productive human beings. We need to view routine not as a restraint but as part of a system to organize our time productively.
Tips for Couples
Marianne recommends that couples have a weekly meeting to talk about their plans. Otherwise, you can fall into the trap of filling your days with random things and not feel productive.
Once high-value activities are identified, a routine can be designed. The plan should include “me time” and “we time” activities: things couples can do separately and things they can do together.