I couldn’t believe it! My 70-year-old husband refuses to retire. Can I really handle it all?! Find out!

I have been married for 50 years and I love my husband very much. We raised two children together and have always worked full time. I retired six months ago with the hope that my husband would also leave his job. He is a hard worker who has been working remotely since March 2020. His work is unpredictable and transactional. The CEO of his company places unreasonable demands on him and his time and calls him even when we are on vacation.

Although my husband seems to thrive on the intensity of his role in a successful private company, I am deeply concerned about this toxic situation. His compensation has not changed in over a decade and his contributions to the company are not recognized. I can’t understand why he’s willing to put up with this, and I’ve been trying to be patient with the situation for far too long.

We have experienced many ups and downs over the years and have weathered the storms. Now that we are in our 70s, I worry that we will never be free from the tyranny of my husband’s work. He refuses to discuss his retirement plans or give me a time frame for them. Is it unreasonable for me to expect him to honor my feelings and make plans to free up time for us to enjoy the rest of the years to come? Although he is a generous person, I feel that he is being selfish by insisting that he is not ready to retire. Don’t I at least have the right to insist that he put limits on his work and limit his working hours?

We are blessed with reasonably good health and a stable financial profile, but I am deeply disappointed and hurt that we cannot agree on a plan for the rest of our lives together. Do you think spouses have an obligation to compromise on this important life decision? — Name withheld

From the ethical:

Engagement begins with communication. When she says that she retired “in the hope” that his spouse would do the same, she does not say that she discussed the matter with him at the time. If he had assured you that he would join you in retirement, you would have written about a broken promise. He perhaps anticipated that it would prevail in the argument that he is presenting now. However, in a loving relationship between equals, it would have been better to talk things out ahead of time, even if it simply meant that you walked out knowing that he wasn’t planning to follow you.

You present two reasons why you should quit your job. One is that your workplace is toxic: Your boss is tyrannical and doesn’t value your contributions. What you report sounds horrible. However, he also says that his spouse thrives at his job. Perhaps you lack the self-respect to insist on proper treatment. Or maybe he doesn’t see the situation the way you do.

A second reason you put forward is that your spouse owes it to you, and perhaps to himself, to free up time so you can spend your remaining years doing things together. It’s certainly understandable that you want him to make your relationship a priority right now. But his reluctance to resign from his position in the company is also understandable. Many people derive so much from the sense of worth of their work that they are frightened by the prospect of a life without it. Depression is more common among retirees than among people of the same age who are still working, and retirees are depressed at significantly higher rates than the general population.

Give some thought, too, to how retirement will affect your relationship. You have spent half a century living together but working separately. That means they are not used to spending so much time together. (Although her husband has been working remotely, he presumably spends hours in something of a home office, interacting with colleagues.) As devoted as you are to each other, your spouse may not be drawn to the prospect of long, uninterrupted days together. .

Yes, any successful relationship will involve compromise. What we properly call compromise, however, is not about one spouse simply doing what the other spouse wants. The compromise could be to plan a vacation together where you agree to leave those calls from the boss unanswered. Retirement may seem more attractive to her husband if you can show him that he would enjoy the activities you envision doing together.

I hope he can get better at talking to you about what he wants out of life. Right now, it’s like the horrible boss is the third member of his household; I understand why you would want to kick it to the curb. But this is not a problem that you can remedy on your own.

“Don’t call anyone happy until they’re dead” was a well-known adage in ancient Athens: a life had to be evaluated as a whole. However, the philosophers who write about human flourishing, the central theme of classical ethics, for the most part have not had much to say about the later stages of life. So remember that the usual social scripts don’t work for everyone. If your spouse’s work gives shape and meaning to his days, he can’t just tell you that he’s wrong. You can encourage him to find other forms of purpose; It can encourage you to restrict work to working hours or transition to a part-time role. But Margaritaville isn’t for everyone.

readers respond

The question in the previous column was from a reader who witnessed an incident of physical abuse in his family. They saw his father severely beat his younger brother, who was a baby at the time; the resulting injuries were attributed to a fall. Our reader wrote: “Over the years, I have wondered if I should reveal what I know. I think my father suffers tremendous guilt, but I don’t know if it would bring him relief or shame to reveal it. For my brother, I wonder if disclosure would provide an answer to his anxiety issues.”

In his response, the ethicist noted: “The first question is what will be the likely consequences of its disclosure. Even if this injury caused a lifelong anxiety disorder, I don’t know if there are “answers” to such conditions. In mid-century psychological thrillers like “Spellbound,” uncovering a long-hidden truth would bring a cure, but clinical evidence offers no such guarantees. The only thing we can be pretty sure of is that this revelation will disrupt their family relationships. There will be recriminations, anger and pain. … His brother’s right to this truth is, I grant, a weighty consideration. But when it comes to what he describes as a one-time incident, many decades ago, his first priority must be to do what’s best for his brother.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)

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I always love him The ethicist’s answer to these thorny questions. As a therapist, I feel like the older brother who witnessed the baby brother’s abuse was traumatized by the event. I would encourage the author of the letter to first reflect more deeply on the meaning of this event for himself and better understand why for years he clung to it in silence. — smooth

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The author of the letter must speak first to her parents about the beating they witnessed. It is essential to first give the responsible party the opportunity to take responsibility. Anything can happen: Denial, confession, explanation, reconciliation, or all of the above in a series of reactions. Deciding what to do next can be based on how things go with the parents. — Nelle

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This is an aberrational incident. and it is unlikely to be a single case of abuse. In any case, the brother has suffered a trauma early in his life that he will remember somatically in his body, if not in his consciousness. There is a moral imperative to share this truth, which can facilitate eventual processing of the trauma and reduce self-blame between both siblings. — Jenny

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The ethicist is totally wrong here. The younger brother’s anxiety is probably related to this traumatic event that he does not have the ability to remember. That this knowledge can’t “cure” anxiety is beyond the point, and frankly, it’s not how trauma or recovery from it works. The brother must be informed so that he has the opportunity to understand the truth and begin a path to healing. — Raquel

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Another important aspect to this situation is the obvious lasting effect on the writer of the letter. They have witnessed a traumatic event and have been dealing with their own reaction ever since. Talk to your family members about what you witnessed, including the perpetrator, and seek therapy for yourself. Perhaps the only thing worse for a child than being abused is helplessly watching another family member get abused. — Carol