“Discordant Retirement”

After you turn 60, you start getting a lot more retirement-related communications — just like you begin to notice that you’re getting a lot more spam mailings and internet ads about things like cheaper prescription drugs and various devices that help the enfeebled perform daily chores.  And it all starts, really, when you get that AARP application in the mail that is the official acknowledgement that you are old.

Most of the retirement materials you receive are just a variation on the kind of stuff you’ve probably received for years, that talk up some great investment opportunity that is so bullet-proof you’d be a fool not to put your money in, or promise to take great care of your savings and lead you to the retirement of your dreams.  For me, those kind of “cold call” communications get moused into the trashcan.  But sometimes you see something that’s actually interesting — like this piece on “discordant retirement.”

What’s “discordant retirement,” you say?  That’s the name retirement planners have given to married couples that effectively retire at different times — where the wife keeps working after the husband stops, or vice versa.  It’s a cultural phenomenon of sorts, because it’s obviously a reflection of the prevalence of two wage-earner couples, rather than the ’50s sitcom model of working husband and wife on the home front, where the husband’s eventual retirement would be the decisive, unilaterally defining retirement event.

And it’s also interesting in that it illustrates something else about the concept of working:  people react differently to it.  Some people tire of working and decide that once they’ve reached a certain financial point they just won’t take it anymore, while others find work empowering, or important to their self image, or a significant part of their social life that they just aren’t quite ready to give up.  The article notes that “retirement” isn’t always easily defined, and often a “retired” person has just decided to do something else, like work for a charitable entity.  There are many reasons to “retire” — however you define that notion — and an equal number of reasons to keep working, and everyone is going to approach the issue somewhat differently.  In a sense, the notion of discordant retirement shows just how far we’ve come, with each half of a couple making their own individual decisions about when and how they want to retire.

After reading the article I thought about couples we know and how many of them are illustrations of “discordant retirement.”  So, what are potential “discordant retirees” supposed to do?  Well, obviously, it’s something that couples need to talk about, just as any successful married couples need to talk through and reach agreement on many issues in their lives.  And discordant retirement offers opportunities, and challenges, as couples try to figure out when and how to pull the trigger on things like Social Security payments, Medicare coverage, and other consequential retirement-related decisions.

“Discordant retirement” sounds bad, like it’s a cause for bickering — and perhaps, for some couples, it is.  But it’s actually the result of people exercising their basic individual freedoms and working through their desires and needs in the context of a partnership.  The retirement planners need to come up with a better name for it.

A Matter Of Degrees

The annual Webner Thermostat War has begun again.

The traditional summer armistice, when the parties have reached a prolonged truce on a suitably cool household temperature during the warm-weather months, is over.  The first salvo in this year’s contest was fired last night, after an ugly, wet, cold afternoon that turned into a wet, cold night.  When I turned in, the thermostat was set at a pleasant 69 degrees.  At 2 a.m., however, I awoke to a stuffy, overly warm room.  I padded downstairs to discover that the thermostat had been dialed up to an unearthly, sweltering 73 degrees.  Of course, I then nudged it back down to a slumber-friendly 69 again.

The parties will do battle over the thermostat settings constantly during the next few months, trying to find that happy medium where Kish is not too cold and I’m not too hot.  (Kasey, not being able to manipulate the thermostat, doesn’t get a say.)  The battlefield is over a matter of only a few degrees, and the fighting is focused almost exclusively on the nighttime hours — but when you’re talking about personal sleep comfort zones, fine gradations in temperature seem to make all the difference in the world.  I’ll happily throw another blanket on the bed to deal with cool temperatures, but I simply cannot get a good night’s sleep if the room is even a few degrees too hot.

Now that the War has started again, I guess it’s time to start thinking about my next offensive.

A Day To Remember Something Important

It’s February 14, in case you haven’t checked your calendar lately.  Today, with love and passion in the air, the daters among us will give each other gifts, send each other cards, and go out for a romantic dinner, and the jewelers, florists, candy shops, restaurants, and Hallmark stores will turn a few handsprings at the surge in sales.

But what of those of us who have long since moved past the dating phase and have been happily married for years?  With our metabolisms slowing, we’ve made each other promise not to bring home that enormous, heart-shaped box of sinfully rich chocolates.  Because we’re in the perennial savings mode another piece of jewelry doesn’t seem like a smart move.  And a card stamped with some generic, manufactured sentiment doesn’t really seem to fill the bill, either . . . because a stilted, sappy poem can’t fully capture the depth of feeling generated by years of happiness, love, and devotion.  That leaves flowers and a nice dinner at a fine restaurant as the preferred option, for a delicate floral bouquet and a good meal and chance to spend some time together and talk about our world together is always welcome.

Valentine’s Day has its cheesy, commercialized elements, of course, but it’s also a helpful reminder of the huge difference a single person can make in your life.  And even in an ever-changing world, both those who are searching for that person, and those of us who are lucky enough to have found them, can remember that once again.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Monitor/Keyboard Tug Of War

You can always tell who in our household has been the last to use our upstairs desk and computer.

If it’s Kish, the  monitor and keyboard are positioned at the front of the desk.  She likes to get up close, almost to the nose-touching-the-screen position, when she’s checking her email and the New York Times. 

If it’s me, the monitor and keyboard are at the back of the desk, as far away as I can move them.  I’m like the squinting guy at the restaurant who can only read the menu if it’s held out at extended arm’s length.

So every night and every morning the computer gets repositioned, alternately scooted back or tugged forward.  We’re going to wear a groove in the surface of our desk, but that’s what happens when eyesight changes happen to a married couple.

The Matching Teddy Bear Outfits Test

Some years ago, our family was enjoying a trip out west.  We stopped at a diner in Arizona and were sitting at a table chatting when an older couple came through the front door and headed to a table, too.

I glanced at them and then did a double take.  The husband and wife were each wearing matching pink sweat pants and sweat shirt outfits, on which dozens of oh-so-cute teddy bear patches had been sewn.  The wife walked in first with a big smile on her face, with the husband trailing behind.  It looked as if she had created the outfits herself, perhaps in a sewing or crafts class at their nearby retirement community.  I’m sure she thought they were just frigging adorable, but they were so bright and saccharine and embarrassing it was painful to even look at them.  I pointed the couple out to Kish and the boys, and we all got a good chuckle about them as we sat at our table and ate our meal.

Still, there was a serious aspect to this comical incident.  I felt sorry for this old guy, because I was reasonably confident from his demeanor that wearing matching pink teddy bear outfits with his wife to a local diner wasn’t his idea.  I’m sure he loved his wife, and I’m guessing that she wanted to make the outfits and brought it up until he yielded as the path of least resistance.  But there was an obvious issue of self-respect involved, too.  Once, I thought, this older gentleman had had a successful career as a business executive or banker, a man who was admired by his colleagues and neighbors.  Now he was out in public at an Arizona diner, wearing a garish, overly cute outfit that he wouldn’t have been caught dead in just a few years earlier.  It wasn’t a pretty picture.

Later that night, Kish and I talked about it.  We agreed that she would never suggest that we wear matching teddy bear outfits — or for that matter, any matching outfits — and I agreed that if I ever indicated an interest in doing so, she could put me away for good, because the matching teddy bear outfits test would show I had finally and irretrievably lost it.  It was one of those small but significant agreements and accommodations of which successful marriages are made.

Deleters Versus Retainers

They say that opposites attract.  It must be true, because Kish and I are complete opposites in one very important modern characteristic.

I am a dedicated email deleter.  She is a confirmed email retainer.

We get along well despite this significant difference in our approaches to modern communications.  It’s just one of those distinctions and behavioral quirks that we ignore in furtherance of the greater good and the ultimate goal of happy household harmony.

In reality, I try to avoid even looking at Kish’s email box when its on our home computer screen, because it usually provokes a grim sense of horror.  Even a casual glance tells me that her inbox is chock full of obvious deletion candidates, like that Williams-Sonoma solicitation for us to buy high-end knives — one of dozens of Williams-Sonoma emails that we’ve received since we bought some cookware there a few weeks ago and reluctantly agreed to track the delivery of our order on-line.  (Sigh.)

In my in-box, such unrequested solicitations and other junk emails would be identified, highlighted en masse, and deleted immediately, with great relish.  But in Kish’s emailbox they are examined, and then . . . accumulate and remain, apparently forever.  She is a gentle soul at heart, and no doubt is pained at the thought that whoever sent the email might be troubled by a quick deletion — especially a deletion without even being read.

I like the idea of keeping a crisp, limited in-box, so that the important emails aren’t mixed in with a bunch of crap and unable to be promptly located amidst the clutter.  And, candidly, I enjoy the little thrill of accomplishment that comes from highlighting and deleting an entire screen of junk and then hitting the garbage can icon.  It gives me the same sense of control and glow of basic achievement that also comes from rinsing off the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, putting them in the dishwasher, and wiping off the counter, or sweeping off the back patio to remove the debris falling from the trees overhead.  “Begone, solicitations, and Twitter announcements, and Facebook notifications!,” I think.

I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to experience the joys of regular email deletion — but I guess such differences make the world go round.

Final Thoughts On Same-Sex Marriage, And America

The Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling has America talking.  It’s one of those events that can’t help but cause people of all persuasions and perspectives to stop and reflect — not so much on the relative merit of the Supreme Court’s opinion as a matter of constitutional jurisprudence, but rather on the fascinating, shifting, never-set-in-stone course of public opinion in our country.

In many recent conversations with friends, people have shaken their heads in wonderment at the speed with which people in the country have accepted the concept of same-sex relationships and, ultimately, same-sex marriage.  It’s hard to think of any other issue, during my lifetime, where prevailing public opinion seems to have shifted more rapidly.  Millennials have had a lot to do with this change.  At a recent dinner party, one of our friends was relating a conversation she had with her Millennial son about sexual orientation, and he said:  “Mom, to us it’s like being left-handed.”  I thought that was a really interesting — and encouraging — perspective.

On another level, the issue of same-sex marriage shows that, in America, if you wait long enough and pay attention, you’ll notice that things often come full circle.

Those of us who lived through the ’60s and ’70s remember that the avant garde, liberal position in those days was that marriage was passe.  Some people advocated free love and “open relationships” and argued that true commitment couldn’t really be based on a mere piece of paper, others derided marriage as a quaint throwback to the outdated notions of prior generations that could only stifle personal expression, still others pointed to the increasing divorce statistics and argued that the realities of the modern world meant that old-fashioned marriage simply could not work in the fast-paced modern world.  Of course, those arguments didn’t stop most of us from getting married, anyway.

During the ’60s and ’70s who would have predicted that, decades later, the issue of the right to engage in a legal marriage, in all of its get a license from a public agency, say your vows in front of the world, traditional glory, would be at the very forefront of the social change agenda?

The Value Of Marriage

I’ve long supported same-sex marriage because I think marriage is a great institution.  It has made my life immeasurably better — so why shouldn’t every couple have the opportunity to enjoy its timeless benefits?  I simply don’t understand the objection to couples who want to legally declare and formalize their fidelity to each other.

I was therefore struck by the fact that Justice Kennedy’s majority decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, where the Court held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to legally marry their partner, extols the value of marriage.  In fact, the opinion concludes with a ringing endorsement of the core, intrinsic value of marriage:

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

I am thrilled for my same-sex friends, and happy for every couple that will now have the ability to explore and revel in the wonders of a happy marriage.

Why Are Marriage Rates Hitting New Lows?

The latest census data show that the rate of marriage in America is still declining.  In fact, the marriage rate has hit an all-time low, and the number of Americans over 25 who have never been married has hit an all-time high.  In 1960, nine of ten Americans over 25 had been married; in 2012, half of that population segment had never been married.

Why is this so?  The article linked above discusses three possible reasons, two of which seem totally off-base and the third of which may be looking in the wrong direction.

The first is the economy and issues of “financial security,” which some young people cite as reasons to defer marriage.  There no doubt are people who want to be settled, in terms of their jobs and careers, before they get married, and the current economy is making that settling process more challenging.  However, the decline in marriage is a long-term trend, not a temporary blip that tracks economic performance.  Moreover, data shows that married couples, with their pooled resources and shared expenses, are far more likely to be wealthy than their unmarried or divorced counterparts.  No one should get married for purely economic reasons, of course, but if you are in love, getting married and staying married is far more likely to produce financial security than any other course.

The second is whether the increasing availability of same-sex marriage has caused rates of marriage to fall.  I think it is far more likely that the opposite is true.  As a mathematical matter, the fact that couples who previously could not marry are now part of the potential marriage pool is bound to increase marriage rates, and the zeal with which loving gay couples have pursued their right to marry assigns a value to the institution that should encourage more people to make that commitment, not the other way around.  It also seems implausible that those people who vigorously resist any change to “traditional concepts of marriage” are going to eschew getting married simply because gay people now have that right.

The final potential reason is the eradication of taboos on unmarried cohabitation and having out-of-wedlock children.  Those taboos, too, have been gone for a long time and therefore wouldn’t explain recent changes in marriage rates.  I think other, less noticeable long-term social forces provide an explanation.  It’s not the eradication of sex-related taboos that is at work, but rather increasing acceptance of the concept of being alone, both by the individuals in question and society as a whole.  Whether it is because they enjoy their private, internet-focused lives, or because they find their work far more rewarding than awkward social interaction, or because they don’t want the pressure of a permanent relationship, more people are perfectly comfortable with being single.  Decades ago, their families and friends would have put enormous pressure on them to get married; now those forces don’t exist.

Life’s Unspoken Signals

The other day a group of us were at our traditional lunch with summer clerks at Indian Oven.  I wanted to get the check, so I caught the waiter’s eye and gave the universal “I would like the check” sign — that is, left hand held flat and extended, right hand scribbling across it, like you are signing your name to a credit card receipt.  (I’ve been told by waiters that they prefer this to the one finger raised in the air and waggled, like Horshack begging for Mr. Kotter to call on him.)

Except that the universal sign apparently isn’t that universal.  The Unkempt Guy looked baffled and asked what the hell I was doing.  A quick poll of the table confirmed that everyone else at our lunch, aging attorneys and fresh-faced clerks alike, understood the meaning of the gesture.  It just confirms what most of us have long believed:  the Unkempt Guy needs to get out more.

The fact is, a surprising amount of our communication is usefully non-verbal and therefore capable of getting the message across from a distance or in a loud setting where the spoken word might not be heard.   Whether it’s the thumbs-up signal of approval, or the finger twirl telling you to speed things up, or the index finger tapping at the temple to remind you to use your noggin, or the finger drawn across the throat instructing you to stop, just stop, our hands and fingers are extremely effective communication tools — and that’s without even getting into the kind of vulgar gestures that drivers might use to express displeasure at your abrupt, no-signal lane change on the morning drive to work.

The eyes are an wonderfully effective non-verbal communication tool, too.  Long-time married couples are adept at reading each other’s eyes and faces.  A glance and look can tell you unmistakably not to get into that topic, or that it’s time to get heck out of there.  Correctly interpreting the non-verbal cues of your spouse is a crucial element of any successful marriage.

Self-Marriage? Give Me A Break!

I was surfing the net recently when I ran across an odd piece in the Huffington Post about a North Dakota woman “marrying” herself.  Six years after dealing with a painful divorce, the woman went though a commitment ceremony with herself.  She describes herself as “very happy” and “very joyous,” and she takes herself on “dates” to “invest in this relationship.”

At first I thought it was one of those oddball stories about the curious antics of one person — but apparently it isn’t.  There’s actually an entire website devoted to self-marriage ceremonies, with links to sections like “self-marriage unveiled” and “about self-marriage.”

I’m not a hidebound traditionalist about who should participate in a marriage.  I support same-sex marriage, for example.  But I also think that the whole concept of marriage has to involve another person.  A crucial part of the institution is making sacrifices for the betterment of someone else, and legally committing yourself to that separate individual in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer.

I don’t care how many “dates” you might take yourself on.  I don’t care how schizophrenic you might be.  I don’t care how disastrous your prior relationships have been.  You simply can’t “marry” yourself in any meaningful sense.

One reason I support same-sex marriage is that it recognizes the importance of the institution of marriage.  Gay couples who want to marry are eager for the commitment, welcome the legal enforcement of that commitment, and understand that making that legal commitment means something important.  They want to participate in an institution that has been crucial to the advancement of civilization.

Proponents of “self-marriage,” on the other hand, are really devaluing and mocking that institution.  It’s transparent, pathetic, and kind of sad.

Marriage And Money

How much of a successful marriage is attributable to what money can buy?  Do good marriages now carry a price tag that working class Americans cannot afford?

Those are some of the questions explored in a scholarly paper that looks at work and marriage in working class and middle class families.  A Slate article on the paper contrasts the stories of two families.  A Mom in Ohio works at a minimum wage job and has had two failed marriages, one to a man who left and another to a man who beat her; her 20-year-old daughter also has had an abusive relationship and is now dating a guy in jail.  Neither wants to get married soon.  The middle-class family in the Pacific northwest, on the other hand, can afford weekends at a vacation cabin, annual travel, and building a barn and buying a horse for their daughter who had begun “acting out” and then enrolling her in a private school involving horses.

The paper, Intimate Inequalities: Love and Work in a Post-Industrial Landscape, is based on interviews and surveys of more than 300 Americans.  It focuses on job stability and security.  Secure middle-class couples can afford luxury items like vacations and gym memberships that keep their marriages viable, whereas working class people who don’t have stable sources of income are more concerned with keeping a job and their own survival than with providing materially and socially for others.

I have no doubt that economic uncertainty and loss of a job can provide additional stress that can turn a rocky marriage into a divorce.  The two stories in the Slate article, however, also suggest that other, more important factors can come into play.  Marriages simply don’t last when one spouse is physically abusive, no matter how many horses a couple can afford.  Men who can’t make a long-term commitment aren’t going to make good husbands, regardless of socioeconomic class.  Dating guys who are in jail probably isn’t a good recipe for a stable and satisfying married life.  Serial philanderers, people with emotional problems, and others who are ill-suited for marriage similarly are found at all income levels.

There’s something a bit off-putting, too, in the implicit suggestion that successful marriages are primarily about money, rather than love and compatibility.  Depicting marriage as primarily an economic arrangement that people will endure because it allows them to take nice vacations inevitably discounts the essential emotional component of a strong marriage.

Sometimes marriages end in divorce because people grow apart over time; sometimes they fail because people just exercised poor judgment in getting married to people who weren’t suitable in the first place.  Money woes and job concerns may be a factor in some instances, but I think successful marriages are about a lot more than what is in the bank account.

In Defense Of Marriage — For Everyone

Last night Kish and I attended the wedding of a friend’s daughter.  It was a lovely ceremony.  We heard, once again, the familiar words of St. Paul’s epistle about love and the importance of selfless commitment in loving human relationships.

Those of us in the audience who are happily married reflected, once again, on how fortunate we are to have found someone with whom we can share our lives.  Marriage allows us to make the ultimate pledge to our loved one and to go forward as partners.  There is no doubt that successful marriages enrich the lives of both spouses.  They say that two heads are better than one, and it’s true . . . but then, for the most part, two people are better than one.  It’s wonderful to have that special lover, partner, and friend that you can confide in and consult with, who will gently coach you on how to smooth your rough edges, who will work and sacrifice to make your collective lives better, and who will always have your back.  You can’t help but feel a certain blessed, happy pride that you are part of such a relationship.

When you get married, you don’t necessarily think about the legal aspects of the decision, but they nevertheless are part of the bedrock on which marriages are built.  Marriage is a legal commitment that, once undertaken, can only be undone by another legal action.  The legal aspect gives marriage a formality that distinguishes it from more casual relationships.  And the other legal benefits and rights that go with marriage — be they tax breaks, insurance advantages, pension preferences, or one of the many other consequences built into federal and state law, 401(k) plans, and the other welter of documents and provisions that govern modern life — make working together as a team much, much easier.

I’m a big fan of marriage, and I think it should be encouraged whenever couples have decided, after mature reflection, that they have found that special person.  That’s why I support same-sex marriage.  Marriage has made my life immeasurably better.  Why shouldn’t every couple, regardless of their sexual orientation, have the same opportunity for lifelong happiness?

Batching It

My lovely wife is out of town for a few days, down visiting a friend in Florida.  So, I’m back to being a bachelor temporarily, and “batching it” kind of sucks.

The house seems awfully big and empty and quiet without Kish here.  Her absence disrupts our settled rhythms and routines in countless ways.  When I get home from work at night, I find two very hungry and impatient dogs who normally would have eaten several hours earlier.  They demand to be fed immediately and walked so they can give their bladders and intestinal systems some relief.  Without someone to sit down and converse with, my dinner becomes a sporadic, nibbling affair that typically extends over the course of 90 minutes and involves the standing consumption of a cup of cereal as one of the “courses.”

I find myself puttering around at night, straightening up, so the house will look nice when Kish gets home.  When I finally sit down to watch some TV, Penny and Kasey sit and stare at me where they used to stare at her.  Even worse, I find myself talking to them from time to time.  (They don’t answer — yet.)  And I sleep poorly, without the gentle sound of Kish’s breathing to lull me into slumber.

Don’t get me wrong:  I want Kish to have fun, and I’m happy when she takes trips and visits her friends and spends some time in warmer climates.  She deserves it.  But I miss her when she’s gone, and I’ll be happy when she returns and once more warms the house with her presence.

About Weddings

This afternoon, while we are sitting and enjoying the wedding ceremony for our nephew Joe and his fiancee Laura, my guess is that every married guest will be thinking, even if only for a few moments and with a secret smile or two, about their own wedding.

Your wedding day is one of those days — like the day your first child is born — where the intensity and unprecedented nature of the experience deeply engraves every action onto your memory.  Even after the passage of decades, you remember that day, still brightly lit in your brain cells, when the recollection of every other day before and since has dimmed and fallen away, lost forever in the fog of a lifetime of experiences.  But your wedding day is, and always will be, special and distinctive.

It’s not surprising, because getting married is such an enormous step!  You change — and you must change, if you want your marriage to be a successful and satisfying one — from being a self-oriented person who typically makes decisions based solely on what it means for you to being a person who will carefully always consider the thoughts and feelings and interests of that person with whom you have decided to spend your life.  You’re making a lifetime commitment and pledging your faithful love and devotion to that person.  When you are standing before the minister or rabbi or judge and happily making that pledge, you can’t help but be moved and thrilled and astonished, all at the same time.  It’s a hugely powerful feeling, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

It’s no wonder we remember every detail of our wedding day.