Your thoughts about your wife and her conversations with other women are ones that I see in my life. I consider myself empathetic and a good friend. Maybe not as socially adept as your Mrs but I do ok.
Some of this in my opinion are the difference between men and women and the things they talk about. Women in general are better about talking about feelings, relationships and making sure others feel comfortable. Not all. Of course.
I have a friend who is really good at cultivating relationships and bringing friends together.
Men in my experience like to talk about things that interest them. Sports teams, sports they play, and their interests. My husband is good about asking people to play golf. He knows nothing about their personal life but a lot about their golf game.
I’d hate for this thread to get mired in the muck of single v married and how to meet people. Because it doesn’t feel important in enjoying our lives in retirement or in general as we grow older.
I have a lot of favorite things about retirement. But today one that came to mind is that I can cherry-pick the best weather for various outdoor activities. Today I had a lovely afternoon walk in the sunshine. Plus I can avoid crowds, especially with weekday skiing.
Another favorite thing is that I am in Colorado, where winter sunshine is lovely. This morning I looked at my weather app. Temp here was 24, “feels like 34”. Temp in my Dad’s NY town was also 24, “feels like 12”. BIG diff.
Yesterday we had 5” of snow. It was a little tough driving on my street in a development, which rarely gets plowed. But the main roads were plowed and just wet…and today the development streets are starting to melt. The sidewalks that were shoveled are now bone dry. (The few that not shoveled were mostly fluffy snow, not bad.)
We do stuff based upon the weather and off time also. Raining today, we can do it tomorrow instead. Crowded on the weekend, we will go on a Tuesday instead. So, we end up with a lot of flexibility in when we can do stuff.
Public service announcement here: You can just google an abbreviation – eg, “ITA meaning” – and google tells you. I do it all the time so I don’t look uncool.
Our former gov met his 2nd wife at the gym. Haha. It used to be a popular place for folks to meet. That gym has since closed and I’m not sure where folks meet—gardening? adult continuing ed courses? hiking? dog walking? pickleball? mutual friends?
Walking yesterday did help DH! Due to extended URI and then our time out of state, he will be getting into his regular walking routine, usually about 6 miles. After he loses some weight and is in better shape, he also sometimes jogs some of the time and goes up to 8 miles. It takes a good chunk of time, but he has a decent pace - the jogging is to give him cardio as long as his joints are in good shape on that day.
I told him he can get plenty of exercise and good cardio at our gym with a large pool and full equipment in non-pool area. Our membership is paid for with our Part B insurance/flex card.
My father worked pretty much until he died. He had a stroke the year before he died and worked really hard on rehab and then worked with some of his former post-docs to put out two books that he had been planning to write. He worked full time until age 79, worked to recover from the stroke and get the books out while he was 80, and died at age 80.
If you can do it and afford it, travel. GO!!!
My husband’s back issues have nixed this for us. It makes me so sad as that is what I always dreamed of. We did make it to Europe twice before we just couldn’t any more and I am grateful for that. I think about those trips all the time and look at my photos.
Seriously. We know a few single people, and nobody has ever asked us to set them up, though we did it one time, unsuccessfully. Me, my sister and a couple of friends have all clearly said that if something happened to our husbands, we would never get married again. Me and sis fully expect that at some point we will be two old ladies living together, with the fact that women live longer. Been married for a very long time, not ever going to do it again. I also think that it would be quite easy to find a partner, though I am a “woman of a certain age”.
Have you thought about doing a trip by yourself? All these travel groups, so many ones for women. I hate to think about you giving up on your dream because of your husband’s suffering.
