Stop judging and let him potter!

DOM SAYS:

Your situation is a common one and I’ve certainly heard other couples express the same dilemma. We spend 40 to 50 years of our lives working and few of us are prepared for when it stops. I often think the best way to retire is gradually, over the course of perhaps a year, by cutting back days, then hours, until you get used to the idea and have happily eased your way into it. But that’s not an option open to many.

Your husband is like a ship without a rudder while you’ve very much got the wind in your sails. You’re a woman in demand, but he feels surplus to requirements. Well, I have a radical suggestion: perhaps he’s happy that way, at least for a while.

It may be that he snaps because he doesn’t want to be cajoled into a hobby or a social life he doesn’t yet want.

He could be getting irritable because he thinks — correctly — that you’re judging him for merely pottering, when in fact pottering is precisely what he feels like doing.

In my view, there’s a lot to be said for sitting down for a month or two after a lifetime of hard work. He has just retired — he’s owed a bit of ‘me time’, surely, and if he wants to spend it reading the paper and mooching about the garden, let him.

The last thing he needs, I’m afraid, is his wife banging on about ‘a sense of purpose’.

Your letter rather reminds me of my mother, who was always trying to get me to play outside when I was little when what I really wanted was to watch telly indoors on the sofa. If he annoys you, my advice is to ignore him and get on with your own admirably full schedule.

Clearly you don’t want him to sink into a proper depression. Make sure he is really enjoying his own company rather than feeling down in the dumps before you leave him to it.

If the inactivity persists, you might think about asking a friend’s husband to come up with a pretext for a beer, or find someone who needs a few hours’ help with something your husband has an interest in.

But don’t push too far. He will decide what he wants to do with his retirement in his own time.

Creating endless odd- jobs around the house, or packing the diary with social events seven nights a week, is a recipe for disaster. Let him happily stew instead!