I sort of think the “reality” is don’t have a “fantasy”! Because with life, you never know how things play out.
I am a little jealous of my H’s retirement “free time” and how he uses (or doesn’t) use it. I think ideally (for me) there is no real retirement fantasy - just a “reduce work by 10-15 hours” fantasy. I love a routine and a schedule. I love a checklist of things I want to accomplish - in and out of work. My kids tell me I’m overproductive. 
Retirement is another facet of marriage that can point out differences in wants/desires. And that develops over the decades. At marriage at 22 and 26 we could not predict what either of us would want in retirement.
This weekend at our cottage I refinished our porch/small deck where the grill has sat for years. The plan is to turn the deck back into a sitting area - another hang out spot. When my H told one of our kids about the space he described it as “a place to sit or rock and watch the world go by”. I would not be kidding that to me sounds like a death sentence! - it fully describes what I have over the years dreaded. “Watching the world go by” - without me active in it. But for H, that is heaven! I guess we’ll be using that porch differently!
Editing to say…I do admire to a point those that rise to the occasion of retirement and seem happy and busy!
I’m dreading it (retirement) because I don’t know how we are going to support ourselves! My fantasy has been it will all work out somehow and we will manage somehow (like everything). I suspect reality is going to be different.
I don’t know if either of us will want to stay married to each other. If we do stay married, I don’t know how we won’t get on each other’s last nerve. As it is now, we are friendly, but do not enjoy spending time with one another.
Unless I am struck down by bad luck disease or accident, I am healthier/stronger/more active and believe I will outlive H.
Work is a very important part of our lives. Social, mental, being useful, part of a team.
I don’t know what’s going to happen! I do love hearing about fabulous retirement lives and seeing retired people eating up life.
What helped with the transition? If I had to pick one thing it’s outdoor exercise.
We walk miles a day with our dog. We her got at retirement. We can now choose the time of day we get out. It is actually light in the middle of the day in the middle of the week in the winter. Who knew?
I am kind of enjoying this stage of my work career knowing I don’t HAVE to work and can pull the plug at any time. That said, I need to make sure I don’t over-react to the inevitable “bad days” or stressful travel and decide to bag it. I have a compensation package where whenever I leave I will be leaving a lot of money on the table (RSUs that vest in thirds, etc) and you just have to suck it up and go when it’s time. One of my counterparts just announced his retirement for late August and the first thing I said was “Don’t you want to wait through the next bonus cycle?” He said,“No- it won’t change the quality of our life and at some point you just have to leave it there.”
“I am really on the fence about retirement. I am getting tired, so there’s that, but my world would shrink greatly.”
@MomofWildChild From what I’ve gleaned about your life, personality, and activities from your posts over the years, I have a feeling you’ll manage just fine and will find interests where you’ll meet new people.
Thanks, @doschicos . I would be fine in many respects, but I get to deal with really interesting people all over the country, and am part of some professional groups that I really enjoy, and that would all be gone. It would just be very different. I don’t have grandchildren, have no expectation of having any, and don’t want any, which is another consideration. I think people really enjoy the time with grandchildren when they retire.
Wow - such an interesting thread! We are not there yet but we have started talking about retirement and, like many people here, it’s not really either of our fantasy - we like our jobs and, in DH’s case, he lives for his work. I don’t live for mine but I’ve spent the last 30+ years working and taking care of kids/family; I don’t have much outside those activities in my life. I do think if your social life or non-work activities are super important to you it helps with the transition because you have more time for things you really value. We love to travel and that’s definitely one thing we know we’d like to have more time for.
I don’t know I would call myself retired but I don’t work much anymore. We own our own business. I can talk at any time about anything with the office and will go to some public events and I bounce ideas with hubby and continue to support the vp of operations. But it’s not sit at a desk and do things.
Hubby has always worked from home so I don’t know any different. I do my best to keep him from talking on the phone in the common areas.
It seems as soon as I slowed down other things popped up that need my attention. Both kids are home right now. What kicked me into retirement was needing another shoulder surgery. I’ve focused on recovery, I also live in a zoo now with everyone’s pets here. We’re also building a second house in another state.
My sister has had a total breakdown and I’ve become a defacto counselor. I even had a conversation with another counselor to help me deal with it.
I have great friends with similar interests.
My biggest issue is winter. In the nice weather I have tons of hobbies. In the winter not so much.
Some time next year we will pay our last mortgage payment and last tuition payment - then we can start to think about it. We will be almost 50 so we will both probably find some part time jobs but I would love to give up the day to day responsibility of being a small business owner! Either that or we will have to hire our own replacements and keep our businesses but become untethered from them a little bit.
Another thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that I simply love being in my own house. Years ago, when my kids were young, I worked full-time at a very demanding job with an absurd commute, and I was simply never home! I’d make it home in time for dinner, to read a couple of books to the kids, and to unwind and go to bed. I now enjoy being able to fix a little mess in my house before it gets out of hand – eg, walking around with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser in my hand and dealing with fingerprints on wall plates in real time. I take real pleasure and pride in having things be neat and tidy.
Great thread.
Not retired (though I no longer work one of those awful 10hour day + commute corporate jobs, yea me) and DH still works at a company he founded 20 years ago.
I can’t imagine him retired. He’s such a creature of habit, I don’t know what he’d do with himself with those extra 8-9 hours a day.
We sort of had a double whammy as we did a major downsize and out-of-state move in conjunction with dh’s retirement. While we retired to my home state of Florida where I still have several childhood and high school friends, I have missed our friends in our previous state of residence. We have not returned as much to visit as we had planned. Also, we haven’t traveled as much as we thought we would. Most of that has been my fault for being enrolled in online classes. Even though I can do class work anywhere, I prefer not to have that going on while I am trying to vacation/visit family and friends. That will end in December, however.
Dh has done a good job of plugging in with a local run/tri group. He does two runs a week with that group - both during the evening. He eats out after for one of those, but the other has kind of goobered up some of my meal prep and what he wants/needs to eat after, etc. We play trivia at our local pub once a week, which we love. It’s been a good mix of time together and time apart doing our own thing.
Like others, I kind of miss my privacy. I feel awkward having long phone conversations with girlfriends when dh is here. It’s not like I’m talking about HIM - it’s just that I don’t feel as free with my, “girl talk.”
Dh definitely helps significantly around the condo. We no longer having a cleaning person, so we do that together once a week. He has also taken over all laundry duties. We do not have W/D in our unit (though one set of the community ones is very close by - fewer steps to get to than in our former home’s MBR to laundry room!), which is one thing I wish were different. However, since he knows that bugs me, he does it.
Initially dh was around more than I would have liked. However, he started driving for Uber which has been a fun and great thing for him to do. I think many people think we are nuts doing what we did - retiring mid-50s, selling our large home and living in a small space, dh giving up a very good corporate job for Uber driving, etc. But, we are pretty dang happy with our choices and lifestyles. Just need to bump up the travel a bit.
I have not worked in years, so keeping myself busy was something I was already used to.
Another thing that frustrates me with my spouse retired is that he seems to equate that this is “his time” like I had “my time” when I was working part time (like 30 hours) years ago. He seems to forget that those part time years I was the main “everything” to three children and most everything around the house. Now he has no one home except the dog he might do one of the three walks a day for and home projects he isn’t so interested in taking care of! He does do some laundry now - but then again, literally 3/4 of the laundry is his!
I really like the honesty on this thread. It’s very helpful. I remember how difficult it was for my MIL, who had never worked outside the home, when my FIL retired & was in her space all the time. She was open and honest about it, and it helped them figure things out.
H retired at the end of November, and he is enjoying the de-stressing process. He is open to doing some type of work in the future if he feels the need to get out and about, but he is happy to just do little projects for now.
I am leaving my job at the end of June, and I have no idea what I will do next. Since I don’t have a job lined up, H said, “You aren’t going to be around the house all the time, are you?” Gee, thanks, dude! But the truth is, I am not ready to retire. I just need to dial it back & do something that leaves space in my life (and in my mind) for things other than work.
When the time comes for both of us to be truly retired, I have no idea what it will look like. I enjoy reading about the reality of retirement for all of you.
I have heard it said once you retire, you can’t imagine how you ever found time to work.
In other words, you find fun and different stuff to do, whether it’s puttering around the house, volunteering, etc.
I am honestly equally anticipating and dreading my husband’s retirement, so thank you everyone for all the honesty. My husband works 70-90 hours a week most weeks and he has no idea how to be still or how to handle boredom, so I think he’s going to drive us both batty when he retires. He craves the freedom from the military straightjacket but will 100% miss the rules and order to it all. The plan is to enjoy 6-9 months of a “vacation” when he retires before settling on a permanent location and both getting low stress, set hours jobs.
The same advice applies to retirement as prepping for the kids to be gone - years ahead of time, start building your own life and interests outside of work/parenting!
In the spirit of complete disclosure, I believe I would completely adore not working but it would be a bumpy ride having to spend so much time with my spouse (who’s already mostly at the house all day). If I were on my own, I would do things like rent modest houses for a few weeks or months at a time in my favorite areas and drive around the country visiting friends with no beginning or end dates…but my spouse would 1) not like doing that and 2) wouldn’t support me spending money in that way (I can’t blame him) and even if the two first things were to magically change, I don’t believe we would do well being together 7 days a week, in a new town, for multiple months. Plus, I have a prickly personality and likely wouldn’t be good at doing this with anyone. So anyway.
Retirement will be early 2020 for us. Spouse has gone part-time this year and the other day when I got home from a full day while they had been home all day, the expectation was I would either cook or pick up dinner. WTHeck, you are the one who has been home all day. That said though, I would feel guilty if I had said, hey go figure it out while I destress for awhile with the paper.
I’m tired of allowing myself to maintain old ways and want to change. This change is going to create problems with in my own self image and relationship with spouse.
Thing is, spouse would have been fine with my saying- figure it out yourself. The problem is me allowing myself to change.