I have often heard it said that when a spouse gets in your space after they retire it can cause stress. Although that is a frequent comment in articles regarding retirement it became personally understood, and appreciated as a fact after my wife had her wisdom tooth extracted and could not go to work for a week because of subsequent complications. I could always feel her presence in the house and it was a new experience for me.
Now I’m only recently retired mind you, and to be honest I’m still burning up all my vacation and won’t truly be retired until July 1st. The fact remains that I was home and to have her in my space was somewhat disconcerting. What’s even more interesting, to me anyway, was that I had already claimed the home as “my space”. How weird is that?
Please believe me when I say my wife is not hard to get along with. Most of the time she isn’t anyway, and we all have our moments. It’s more that I was thrown off my whole routine, much like what used to happen on weekends.
My routine, if you can call it that, is largely established now and it doesn’t include having someone else involved in it. I struggle enough at this point even maintaining what little routine I have and to be suddenly thrust into a position of flux was, well, disconcerting and destabilizing. And this is not news to her either, we had a good discussion on it and for all intents and purposes I assured her it was nothing personal and even though I said before I understood what it was like to have someone always around now I REALLY understood. I even had to say I could see her sisters point of view (hard to believe I know) because she had been lamenting that point after her husband retired. It had become an issue between them and while it wasn’t serious in the big picture it was enough to cause some concern.
So we all have something to learn and I hope I’m never to old to admit it. If you feel someone’s presence just be thankful they are actually there, it’s when you can’t see them that you should start to worry.
