10 Rules for a Retirement Marriages...will it be Heaven or Hell!

Sail away with me...the best is yet to come!
Gibraltar at sunrise by b

Listen up boomers.  Retirement and marriage can be a very bad mix. You thought working was hard.  You haven't seen anything yet.  So get prepared.   Men moving into a different world, women moving from one role to another. Both expecting more than the other is willing to give. It can be very hard!

I know I've told you about the time my husband moved all the silverware from one side of the kitchen to the other because it "would be better over there".  I spent a long time getting used to the new placement of something so simple as a fork.  Well, retirement marriage is like that.  The life you are so accustomed to has been misplaced or replaced and it takes some getting used to.

Hopefully, you are a couple that has always lived in peace.  You can work together and love spending time together.  But if you are not in that kind of relationship, you need to follow some basic rules of civility until you get it all worked out.   Now I know, you have dreamed of a life without rules, i.e. retirement, all of your working life.  Now I am here to tell you that your relationship with your spouse will fill some of the hours you spent working.  You can live a long time with a partner if you seldom see each other.  But when you look up day after day, weekends AND weekdays to find your spouse in the room, it is a different life.  This is not a time to begin a life of anarchy or war.  There needs to be some law and order.  Here are 10 rules of a retirement marriage:

1. If you were the boss on your job, remember you are not the boss anymore.
2. Arguments are bound to happen.  Play fair.
3. It is not so much what you say as how you say it. Mind the tone of your voice.
4. Cooperate and collaborate.  Remember the space you share belongs to everyone.  Problem solve together.
5. Compromise.
6. Leave for a period of time every day.  Your routine needs to include some away time.  A short walk, trip to the library or coffee with friends will work.  This gives you some new conversation topics.
7. Help.  No man or woman want to cook/clean while the spouse sits and watches.  Cleaning is not fun for most people and neither is cooking.
8. Go on a date.  All married people need a little romance in their life.
9. Bite your tongue.  Remember, the person that has been doing a job all their life does not want to be told how to do it when they retire.  Your way may or may not be better.
10. Talk about your dreams for retirement.  If your spouse expects to ride off into the sunset hand in hand and you plan to ride off into the sunset in your golf cart or with the girls in book club, be sure your spouse is on the same page.  The biggest problem I hear about is lack of communication.  It is much better to unveil the dream than to spring a surprise.  That can be a deal breaker.

So there you have it.  I am sure there are a hundred rules.  If you are like my grandson and don't want to hear about the rules because "when someone mentions the rules" you are in trouble, I apologize.  But occasionally we need a reminder or two.

Oh by the way, my husband and I have been married for 51 years (almost) and have been retired for 15 of those.  I speak from experience, both good and bad! We have endured because we always remember the most important rule of all: 

• 11.  Have fun and laugh.  

b

Why Baby Boomer will Have a Great Retirement   US News and World Report
10 Ways Boomers Will Reinvent Retirement  US News and World Report

Technorati Tags: boomers, retirement, relationships, culture, life and style, marriage

Good News...life on Venus is wonderful! 50 is the new 40!

Is 50 the new 40?
I have some good news!!! I just read a blog today with the title Fifty is the New Forty.  See what I mean.  This good right?  If 50 is the new 40 then 80 must be the new 65.  Statistics and numbers can mean anything so why not?  What do you think?

For a woman like me that can remember when being over 30 made you the enemy and old,  benchmarks like 50+ have taken on a new meaning.  Perhaps in my world 50 is the new 30.  We are, in fact remaining healthy vital active people for a very long, long time.  I will be 70 in November.  I just finished cataract surgery and can see better than I ever have.  I have resolved that, since it looks like I am going to live a long time, I am going to take Aubrey de Grey's advice and keep my body as strong as my mental age.

I believe that most of outcomes in our life are a result of self-prophecy.  For example, when you go to work and your pencil breaks, you can do two things.  You can sharpen the pencil.  Or you can say "Oh this is going to be one of those days." put the pencil in the garbage and spend the rest of the day blundering around with no pencil.  It is all a matter of what you visualize coming down the pike.  I believe that when people talk and visualize their retirement they should be realistic and upbeat.  The retirement self-prophecy will be what you make of it.

Women in the baby boomer generation are very influential and they will be the ones that change everyone perception about what aging will look.  They are shaping the "self prophecy" for women approaching old age.  That too is very good news.  More of these women are educated and working at pursuits that satisfy them than woman of my generation.  As a result, we are seeing more and more positive, encouraging blogs, websites and magazines designed for the 50+ crowd. The successful positive women are more visible than ever.  At my age I benefit from all those things.  I love More magazine,  Fab Over Fifty website. Advanced Style Blog and even all the things that AARP has to offer now. The world of the aging female is expanding in size and importance.

In our 70's and still loving bling!

I read somewhere that women do indeed live on Venus...even in retirement.  The 50+ woman is taking care of business but they are talking about living. Male bloggers are more focused on work related subjects and financial concerns.  Like women have done for so many generation, they keep the books and manage the daily life for themselves and their families. When they write, women talk about love, working, having fun, learning and maintaining their health.  It could be that the attitude of woman is entirely different.  Many of us approach the aging process with an eye to aesthetics.  Many women have always done day to day things so retirement is not a wonderland of doing nothing.  They know better...retirement is just living.  Hopefully, all women view that stage in their life as an opportunity to grow intellectually. On Venus the doors are always open and it is so beautiful here!   And the numbers associated with the length of our existence are meaningless.

I invite you to visit the websites I mentioned above:

• More Magazine
• Advanced Style by Seth Cohen
• Fab over Fifty
• AARP
• Fifty is the New Forty Blog
• Fifty is the New Forty website
• TED Why We Grow Old and How to We Can Avoid It 
• Men are from Mars Women are from Venus 

Have a wonderful Sunday and week to come.

b

Note: And now I see that GenX is following in the Boomers footsteps.  More's editor and chief, Lesley Jane Seymour was one of those interviewed for  a wonderful article in the Los Angeles Time.

Gen X women, young for their age.

Related articles

• Sagging underarm problems??? Shopping for the look! (retireinstyleblog.com)
• Advanced Style (itsnicethat.com)
• Style, the Mirror and a Pose! (retireinstyleblog.com)
• Learn to be old...be true to yourself! (retireinstyleblog.com)
• How to Retire...Live on LESS Than You Have (retireinstyleblog.com)

How To Live in a Condominium or YOU'RE TELLING ME I CAN'T DO WHAT?

Someone comment to me the other day that I was living the good life.  I paused for a minute before I realized I really was.  I live in a beautiful condominium located in the award winning neighborhood called Orenco Station here in Hillsboro, Oregon.  I love our life, location and amenities.  But is has not always been that way.  It has taken several years for us to get truly comfortable with condo life.

Living in a very small space is not easy...especially if you are a boomer moving from a 4 bedroom 4 bath house and 2500-3000 square feet to a much smaller condo unit.  All you are doing is downsizing, right? I actually thought getting rid of the "stuff" would be the hardest part.  Silly me...!

This is how it will go if you decided to do what we did.  It will turn out that living in a building owned by everyone in your condo group from the paint out is very trying and it has nothing to do with all that stuff you have crammed in the garage that needs to be given away.  What you are about to face after owning a home that you could paint and hang things on, is a life with no control.  There are rules, lots of rules.   A condo association can make your life very miserable.  If the officers of the association administer the CCandRs as a document written in blood by someone that actually cared about how you would live in your condo, you will find that the rigidity of their view leaves you absolutely no room to breath.  It is very difficult, at least for us, to see their point of view.  If your association CCandRs are imported from California and adopted by the builder as ours were, you will find that the language may not apply to your situation.  When our association was actually formed, none of us saw the implication for using this document. We did not take the time to dissect the forms before we signed off on them.  It was an error on our part.

WHAT CAN HAPPEN
Let's say you have just moved in and you love those beautiful hanging baskets. They sell them at our local farmers market on Sunday.  You buy one and want to hang it outside on the deck.  Can you do that?  NO, not without written, documented official permission which you probably won't get.  We are not even allowed to put a hanger that fits over the railing and does not require screws.

Or you want to put a flag hanger on your unit so you can display decorative flag or even the United States Flag but the association will not let you drill a hole in the wood trim because the CC&Rs forgot to provide for this.  What can you do if the people on the association do not interpret the rules to allow for any of these things?  Even the law of the United States says that you should be able to do this. In fact neither one of these things are allowed.  Damage that could be caused by any one of these things will cost everyone.  That is the facts of condo life.  We came to understand the reason for these rules. 

What if you have always loved to garden and want to fritter in your flower bed but the association sends people around to inspect and then puts plants in front of sprinklers in unbalanced arrangements that makes your investment look shoddy?  Remember you do not get to tell them what to do and you cannot move the plants.  What if the landscape service is competent but not interested and you are not encouraged to take ownership in the common property?  It can happen. The simple fact is that the planter bed does not belong to you but to everyone.  What you do affects the value of every one's property.  We have learned who to call to get part of these problems addressed.

When the windows on your unit need replacing, and they will, the association will tell you what you can put in and you will pay for it.  You will also pay extra if the money for a new roof or repainting is not in you association bank account.  It can amount to thousands of dollars.

The list of no-nos goes on and on.  Screen doors, flags on the buildings, planter boxes, garbage can placement, exterior light replacement,  and fixture cleaning...these are just a few of the things that have been a problem or controversy. In our case, even the placement of a mail box for a handicapped resident was ordered removed at the owners expense.  The hoops you need to jump through are many and very, very real!  We have learned to pay close attention to procedures and the needed steps to get things done

IN THE END...
It has taken us almost 10 years to get used to this type of living.  We made the move so we could travel without worrying about over grown lawns and exterior issues.  In our case we got a lot more than we bargained for.  So just keep in mind...a condo is not an apartment.  The manager will not come and fix stuff.  They do not wash windows or sweep the sidewalk.  A management company has you by the throat and will call/email or fine you for "being naughty"!  We have not been fined but we are not dead yet!  I expect that we will be before this is all over. But we are learning and in the end we have fallen in love with our condo again.  As we have gotten to know our neighbors and management company employees the process has become easier.  The benefits outweigh the problems.  We are totally at home.  Finally!

Have a great day.

b