At the moment, one theme that is emerging from my discussions and questions about retirement is that there is often a general 'uneasiness' about the substance of the life people are leading before retirement. The biggest reason people give for either retiring or wanting to retire amongst the people I polled is "Desire for a different life." Assuming we are not talking about mere variety, it indicates a dissatisfaction with life that retirement presumably will or did address.
The features of retirement that are imagined to bring a more satisfactory life are clearly an increased attention to family, friends, and relationships in general. Recent longitudinal and cross-class studies in America are showing that longevity, health, and satisfaction are tied to the reported richness of relationships in life, or more simply put better love means better life.
And yet, there are surprisingly few resources about relationships compared to financial planning or even to the resources about buying a good sleeping bag. Headline media has surfaced with some "Five Ways to Have a Better Marriage! Number Three Will Surprise You!!" but they tend to be shallow and often not based in anything other than the price per click being farmed. (You are still wondering about number three.) The complex and often difficult business of relationship is best done in the context of a trusted community supporting relational values. i.e. the church. Other than marriage counseling, not sure why we haven't been better at relational enrichment, before and after retirement. Small groups have been a bit of an answer in the life of a the church. New vocabularies and quasi-scientific metrics have also been helpful for relational understanding, including the 5 Love Languages, the 4 Myers-Briggs variables, and the 9 Enneagram types. I'm going to start working on an article called "The 6 Limitations of Structural Typologies." Although the Christian tradition does celebrate the 10 Commandments, we don't much emphasize the number of beautitudes, or even the summation of the law and prophets ("The Big Two"). If we promoted better relationships as much as we promoted environmental sensitivity or even personal spiritual growth, we may actually help people more.
Why Not
One of the reasons relational depth may be so longed for is that there may be less time for it before retirement. The demands of a job, of having perfect children, and of having so many relationships all may work against having the few that really support a person when they struggle. The pressures of having two income families has changed the amount of time available for relational investment. Even if the church were to offer a six week course in the "7 Relational Skills," the folks who need it most might not be able to clear their schedules to do it. Just to relieve you, I made up that last title, but I'm not ruling it out for my next bestseller.
The business of having rich relationships is matched by the desire to have a life of some significance. Another part of the business of wanting a different life is the feeling that the current one has lost some meaning. Just going through the motions may be what happens in any job after a while. However, people in certain professions I have interviewed seem to be able to keep the edge of their feelings of effective agency sharp. These tend to be physicians, pharmacists, and farmers. Some lawyers, too, but I gave up trying to find an F sound to start their proFession. The commonality here seems to be the ability to practice a profession on ones own terms, not only in time, but in constituencies served. This may suggest that greater vocational freedom earlier on may lead to greater satisfaction along the way.
I'm going to stop this particular post now, because I sense that I am trying to reach conclusions a bit early in the going. More high sounding learnings are yet to arrive.