Retirement is a great time to reap what you have been sowing so far. While most of us would instantly think of our finances, this time we wanted to focus on another essential aspect of our lives. Probably even more important than finances is our family life.
Many individuals approaching retirement are trying to hide the fact that they’re deeply concerned about how much time and energy they spent on building their careers and how little they focused on their families.
When you suddenly wake up with all this time on your hands, it might dawn on you that you’ve been sucked into a whirlwind for all those years, overlooking what really matters in life. Family. Love. Now, all these questions resurface, and rightfully so. In this article, we’re going to tackle some of the most concerning questions, hoping they might shed some light on your thoughts.
Are you wondering how healthy your family is?
If you’ve been married for a long time, do you have a good relationship with your significant other? If you have children, are you close to them? What about their spouses and partners? Do you manage to find time in your day-to-day schedule to spend time with your grandchildren?
What about brothers, sisters, and cousins? The more you manage to assess in this department, the more you will realize that you managed to keep in touch with some members of your family and lose contact with others (whether willingly or not). If there’s something in these dynamics that doesn’t sit well with you, don’t worry.
It’s really never too late to pick up the threads of those relationships and improve them. After all, you’ve got all this time on your hands now!
How to improve your family function
First, you need to start with your children. Make room in your life to spend quality time together, because here’s the thing: generations nowadays are attuned enough to know that money and other material goods can’t make up for a lack of connection.
The truth is, we live in a world where absentee parenting is simply not an answer anymore. But being with a parent who fails to properly nurture his or her relationship with his or her children will have a similar payback in life.
They will completely fail to nurture you when you need it. The easiest way to reverse this is to spend quality time with your children. If you could adjust your schedule or work hours and have dinner with your entire family, your relationship with your children would rapidly flourish.
Developing stronger family units
Smaller families need to cast a wider net. For instance, some of you might have an aunt or uncle who lives very far away. They might not have children of their own, so they deeply value the time you spend together.
If you plan to move away after retiring, you might want to consider whether or not it will be far away from your established family units. After all, it goes without saying that stronger family units fully develop when the members are involved. If you move away, you might lose contact with them.
Also, don’t give up on the black sheep of the family. A family member will oftentimes distance himself or herself simply because they have a hard time being immersed in the family dynamic. But this doesn’t mean they don’t miss feeling involved. You could reach out every now and then, and who knows? You might even build a relationship with them, separate from the family dynamic.
Maximizing moments with your spouse
There are multiple studies that show how having a good marriage at 50 automatically leads to a great one at 80. After all, the relationship you have with your spouse is the most intimate and important one.
It’s also the easiest one to take for granted, mainly due to work pressures, different needs, and maybe even trouble in your own family life. However, despite everything, you should strive to keep that romantic fire burning, and there are many ways to do so.
Don’t forget to be each other’s friends! Share your values, interests, friends, and a good laugh with your significant other, and try to do so every day, or at least as much as possible.
The retirement race
There’s another area in your life that could use some planning. Before, when the husband decided to retire, so did his spouse. That’s how things worked back then. Now, the norm has changed. Increasingly, more women in their fifties realize that now is the time to make a difference and feel 100% fulfilled.
They aren’t interested in retiring just because their husbands did so. While it’s extremely encouraging for many women out there, it also comes with a series of psychological issues. Both partners are forced to adjust to the ever-changing lifestyles that retirement brings, especially in their relationship. If you manage to discuss all these details, you might be able to skip this uncomfortable stage of life.
Space requirements
During your work years, you might have dealt with little to no space in your home, and this goes even more if you also have a minimum of two children. A portion of the closet was allocated for your clothing; you had one drawer for your socks underwear, and so on.
Everything was shared with the rest of your family, and while it was definitely heartwarming to have all your family members living with you, retirement represents a brand new chapter in your life. That’s right: you have more space to yourself, and this isn’t a bad thing.
On the contrary, Now, you get to discuss with your spouse how to share all that space in a way that benefits both of you. One might want to pick up a new hobby, and you might have to repurpose one of the kids’s rooms! Change isn’t always bad; sometimes it’s actually very exciting!
What about friendship?
Any social relationship is generally based on proximity and convenience. They mainly arise out of your day-to-day activities, whether it’s school, church, or even work. I mean, just take a look at your own social circle: those who see you as a friend have changed over the years.
You grew closer. Some of these connections might even last a lifetime. The problem with friendships based on common places or activities is that once you no longer share the same space, you lose touch. And if there’s anything terrifying about retirement, it’s social isolation.
It can paralyze your efforts to make new friends, especially if you’re not ready for it. Friendships can be built on different criteria. First is a bonding relationship, one where you have a certain sense of connection with someone with whom you share plenty of interests and, especially, values.
These friends are generally very close to your heart, and you are likely to stay connected throughout your life. The second type of friends (or, better yet, acquaintances) are those who provide you with information. These friendships aren’t necessarily close, but they offer you needed information, whether it’s work-related, political, cultural, or even gossip. After all, we also need that in our lives, right?
Here’s a book recommendation about a retirement planner who decides to use his background in psychology to help his clients navigate all aspects of retirement.
If you found this article insightful, here’s another one you might want to read: 5 Benefits of Pet Therapy for Seniors
