First Thoughts After Retirement
Hallelujah! The kiddies are off to college and it is you and your sweetheart, all alone – together – in that monstrous house that seemed so small when the children filled it. The celebration quickly fades as you face that age-old question, what do we talk about now?
Jimmy and Jenny will not be coming home with homework, social problems, requests for help at the school or the endless rounds of school activities. It will be the two of you coming home to silence.
At first, you may breathe a sigh of relief. No squabbles over the television. No staying up waiting for him or her to get home. Of course, these last couple of years you conspired to stay in your bedroom instead of being so obvious sitting in the living room.
Running Headlong into Reality
Over the years, you proudly explained to friends and relatives how involved you are in your kids’ lives. You bragged about how easily they talk to you about just everything! Now, it is your first evening alone, feeling awkward like your first date and swallowing way too often. Somewhere along the way, while tending the lives of your children, you forgot to tend to yourselves. Is it too late?
The First Step to Knowing Each Other Again
How about going out on a date night? Perhaps have a nice meal and if you cannot find any other place, how about making certain the outdoor lights are out and have a make-out session in your car!
Okay, that will not carry you every night, but it is a start. Try finding something you both might want to learn. One of you might pull the other into something new.
Share Interests
My husband worked in a high security area and was forbidden to talk about his job. He decided to become a real estate agent as his parents, upon their looming retirements, were entering that field. The first vacation to glorious California, with the other three adults talking real estate made me swear to never be caught talkless again! Upon our return home, real estate classes loomed in my future. Turned out to be the right move, as the company for which I worked, relocated to Colorado, a considerable commute for an office manager.
Bru and I became a team, he working with more experienced buyers while I took on the newbies. Together we had an extremely successful ten months before I landed square between the back wheels of an eighteen-wheeler, thus ending a budding career. However, from that time, we could always fall back on real estate as good conversation. Our lessons did not end there, nor did they include only work.
I demonstrated the joy of river fishing. He taught me pinochle. (His grandmother taught me how to cheat at pinochle, but that is another story for another time.) We kept up the practice of learning what we could about the other’s lives until his stroke and never did we lack for conversation.
Do Not Smother Each Other
What we did not do was smother each other. Every couple, no matter whether beginning a relationship or in the later years, needs to separate for a breather. Writing ideas pounded in my skull waiting to get out and at those times, I became a bear if interrupted. Bru loved water and every sport ever developed on, in or under it. I loved fishing, but preferred it from a nice comfortable riverbank. For his special time, he counted on his best buddy to supply the boat while Bru supplied the drinks, eats and bait.
Whether just beginning your empty nest years or whether you have been struggling for some time to reconnect, try walking a mile in his or her shoes and getting to know your partner all over again.