Two Rocking Chairs on Mars

Sometimes, when I do a little talk during a wedding I am officiating, I talk about the distant future of some young couple. I paint a picture of both of them sitting on rocking chairs on Mars, holding hands and looking back at a rich life. It’s a pretty picture that brings a smile. But retirement and being a couple is not always the easiest thing. The idea that two people would decide to retire at the same time and then agree on exactly what they wanted to do in that retirement is not usually the way it goes. I know a few couples, usually teachers, who pull it off quite well, but they had years of figuring out how to be together all those summers.

My wife, Abby, is quite a bit younger than I am so I am looking at a couple of decades of being retired while she is not. Some time ago, our vision was that when I retired she would take two years off and we would do something adventurous, like tour the country in an RV, which seems to be the current retirement adventure people talk about. Since then, Abby got a job she likes and the talk of taking two years off has subsided, as well it should. By the time she retires, I will be be too old to tie my own shoes, let alone travel to a retirement village on Mars.

Although my case may be extreme, it is not unusual in principle. There are millions of couples in America with complicated spreadsheets about who does what when for their particular wherefores.

Couples are used to negotiating the normal business of life together: Where will we live? How many children will we have? Can we afford to buy a new car? In my chatting with folks, however, I found that people talk more about how to decorate the living room than how they will be spending their golden years. I wonder why that is. Fear of conflicting visions? Lack of clear individual intentions? Procrastination about a distant reality? We know that people often don’t plan the financial dimensions of their older years very well. Perhaps this is just more of the same.