Keeping Your Marriage Happy in Retirement

If you are your spouse are both heading into retirement around the same time, you’ve probably dreamt about what this would be like. Maybe you were going to travel the world together or take couples cooking classes or just spend the days hanging out, enjoying each other’s company.

Unfortunately, much like with many dreams, the reality can be quite different. Retirement and marriage can be wonderful, but the truth is that retired couples often have more arguments as well.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Understanding these reasons can help you avoid frequent fights and help make your retirement and your marriage happier. 

Why Couples Argue More in Retirement

Even if you’ve gone your entire marriage thus far without significant arguments, retirement is a different story. For a lot of couples, this is a drastic lifestyle change. There’s a good chance that your relationship up until this point has been relatively consistent. You both head out to work all day, you run errands when you have the time, and you are together on evenings and weekends. Retirement changes all of that. 

That can mean more disagreements, hurt feelings, and even general annoyance.

The first reason this happens is that you’re simply spending more time together. This is probably new for you. No matter how much you love another person, everyone also needs some alone time. If you’re side-by-side 24/7, you can end up getting annoyed or frustrated by even the smallest things. This isn’t because you don’t care for the other person, it’s because you need some personal space.

Your lifestyle probably isn’t exactly the same as your partner’s lifestyle. Maybe you like to sleep in late or keep your pajamas on until noon while your partner is up early and dressed by 9am. These differences don’t cause much issue when they only come up occasionally on weekends, but they can start to 

Couples also argue about how to spend their time. One partner may want to spend their retirement relaxing and taking it easy while the other might prefer jam-packed days with activities, hobbies, and visiting friends and family. While this in itself doesn’t have to cause arguments, it certainly can if one partner expects the other to have the same lifestyle. 

Another common point of tension is division of labor around the house. When you were both working, you probably fell into a rhythm. Maybe it was that whoever got home first made dinner or whoever worked closer to the grocery store stopped to buy food on the way home. In retirement, your lifestyles have changed, so arguments can happen if one person feels like they’re the one “doing everything” around the house. 

Spending can also lead to conflict. When you’re retired, you live on a specific budget. That means you only have so much to go around and spending in one area usually means a reduction in another. If the two of you have different priorities, this could become an issue. You may get annoyed when your partner makes certain purchases or spends money on certain experiences because that takes away from things that you wanted to buy or do. The same may be true from their perspective. 

How to Fix It

Just because people are more prone to arguments in retirement, it doesn’t mean you’re now destined to squabble and bicker for the rest of your lives. There are things you can do to help avoid arguments without anyone ending up with hurt feelings.

The first is to understand that everyone needs time to do their own thing. Just because you’re both retired, it doesn’t mean you need to spend all your time together and neither partner should have that expectation. However, it’s also natural to feel slighted or hurt if you want couple time and your partner isn’t interested.

A good way to solve this is to plan couple time and individual time into your schedule. The concept of having a retirement schedule sounds weird at first, but it can actually make a lot of sense. Many retirees have trouble filling their days if there’s no structure. You lived your whole life under structure and that doesn’t all have to disappear when you retire. Of course, your schedule doesn’t have to be as demanding or rigid as your work schedule, but having a plan certainly helps.

However, much like with many relationship troubles, a lot of the problems can be solved through communication. Talking about how you’re feeling, your expectations for retirement, and any smaller issues that come up can help avoid larger arguments down the line.