Marriage Challenges After Financial Independence and Retirement

I don’t purport to be a marriage/relationship expert. However, after reflecting on our weekend I’ve decided to write about this deeply personal topic for several reasons.

This blog focuses on creating a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling life. Your relationships play a vital role in all these domains. Marriage is the most important relationship for those of us who choose this path in life.

Your marital success or failure also directly relates to your financial outcomes. Many people try to protect themselves from “black swan” financial events. Yet many of us willfully ignore the risk of divorce. This common event can cost us half of our assets and upend our lives. Ignoring this risk won’t make it magically disappear.

While divorce rates are generally going down, the incidence of “gray divorce” is not. According to an ABC news report, the rate of divorce among those aged 50+ has more than doubled since 1990. This often occurs around the time of retirement. Anecdotally, FIRE practitioners aren’t doing materially better at finding marital happiness than traditional retirees.

Whether you are happily married, struggling in a relationship, or single, I encourage you to read on. Lessons we learned at the marriage retreat can be powerful for nurturing relationships through times of transition. They may lead to a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling life….

It Won’t Be Better When….

Kim and I have tried couples counseling with different counselors with varying degrees of success and satisfaction. The constant across different professionals and approaches is that this is emotionally demanding work. 

Our weekend retreat was like our previous counseling sessions on steroids, condensing months of this work into a weekend. It was hard. We agreed on the way home that we felt a level of physical exhaustion similar to what we experienced after climbing a 20,000-foot mountain.

So it is ironic that my first big take-home lesson came from a video shared in the workshop to provide a moment of levity. Behind the silliness is an important message. Watch the video embedded below. (Hang in past the first minute to see where it is going. It’s worth it.)

Unrealistic Expectations Can Make Problems Worse

This idea of erroneously thinking “things will magically get better when…” equally applies to achieving financial independence and retiring. This is certainly true of issues in our marriage.

Instead of getting better, our previously manageable problems were amplified after achieving financial independence and making major lifestyle changes. Different and unrealistic expectations of the impact of these changes played a substantial role.

In our marriage bootcamp, someone shared a quote from relationship expert Esther Perel. “Most of us will have 2 or 3 marriages in this life. And if we’re lucky, they’re with the same person.”

Making drastic life changes after achieving financial independence and/or retiring alters the dynamics of a marriage. You may essentially have a new marriage. Navigating this change presents challenges, particularly if you have different expectations from one another.

Recognize this challenge. Discuss it with your partner. Have patience and grace with one another as you navigate a new path forward amidst all of the change.

Related: Exploring the Pros and Cons of Retiring Before Your Spouse

The Importance of Boundaries

Another topic from the retreat that resonated deeply with us was the importance of establishing appropriate boundaries. This is important with your spouse and other relationships and aspects of your life. 

Boundaryless in Relationships

In group discussions at the retreat, many other participants, particularly men, noted that they felt neglected by their fathers growing up. Male roles traditionally focus on careers and being providers which can lead to being walled off from relationships. It was a common pattern that several men in the workshop noted they were living out.

This often results in men who feel isolated and depressed. My decision to deemphasize the role of work in my life and create strong boundaries in that area to focus more on relationships initially seemed pretty smart!

However, as we discussed the concept of boundaries more fully, they were presented as a continuum with healthy boundaries in the middle of two extremes. On one extreme you can be completely walled off to your spouse, children, or others. However, the other extreme is being boundaryless. This can be equally harmful.

This is part of my dynamic that has created problems in our relationship. When I lost the sense of identity and purpose that work provided, I went to the extreme and became boundaryless in my relationships. My happiness, in fact, my identity and purpose, became dependent on the happiness of others, most importantly my wife.

I felt it was my job to take away her stress and anxiety. I couldn’t be happy unless she was happy. This created impossible expectations for both of us and eventually resentment on my part, sending me to the other extreme of being walled off from her. I am working on creating and enforcing healthier boundaries.

Boundaryless With Work

You need to create appropriate boundaries in all areas of your life. This applies to work, marriage, other relationships, hobbies, etc.

An example many of you may relate to is working from home. Kim officially works 20 hours per week and her work is fully remote. On paper, it sounds great.

She initially cut back from full-time to part-time work after having our daughter. She again decreased her hours from 30 to 20 hours per week two years ago.

We assumed these changes would improve our relationship. (See: unrealistic expectations of things magically changing.) In reality, these changes made things worse.

Her workaholic tendencies didn’t change. She is always connected to her work through her phone; at dinner, on the weekend, in the car, and when we’re sitting on the couch together. Anytime we’re home, she’s seconds away from her computer.

Without appropriate boundaries, the reality is she makes less income and sacrifices benefits such as health insurance and paid vacation by working less. Yet she feels the same demands and resulting stress and anxiety she had when working full-time. She now recognizes this and is working to create and enforce better boundaries around her work.

Creating Appropriate Boundaries in Relationships

Having appropriate boundaries in all aspects of your life is hard. There is no objectively “right” place to draw those boundaries.

Creating appropriate boundaries requires intentionality, judgment, and an understanding that things change over time. When a partner is involved, this requires all those things times two to reach an agreement.

This challenge is present in any relationship. Recognize that with major life changes, your roles and the boundaries around them will change. Have patience and grace with one another as you navigate a new path forward.

Skills + Hope = Possibilities

I reviewed the handout from the weekend for other key lessons that may apply to you. Lessons included:

As I went through the packet, I had to chuckle. The lessons and skills taught seem so simple it almost seems absurd to have to learn them as adults.

Yet, most things in life are simple. But they’re not easy. 

This is certainly true of the most important financial planning topics I write about on this blog. Knowing what to do and actually doing those things is not the same.

This begs the question. If things are so simple, why don’t we do them? What determines if you will make changes or continue on the same path that got you to this place you don’t want to be? 

Often it is hope. You have to believe that doing something different can lead to desired changes.

Your toolbox may be overflowing. Without hope that you can improve your situation, it is doubtful that you will use those tools.

This may be the biggest thing I took away from our weekend bootcamp. Investing the time and money to have this experience together and being in the presence of other couples willing to be vulnerable and supportive was incredibly inspiring and motivating to start making changes needed to improve our marriage. 

If you are feeling stuck in toxic relationship dynamics, I encourage you to do something to change them. If things aren’t getting better on your own, look for help.

Marriage, Financial Independence, and Retirement

It is common for people to work and plan towards their retirement dreams for decades. Some people pursue FIRE to escape from work and into their dream lives much sooner. Yet too often, those dreams can become nightmares if we lose our life partner to divorce.

Marriage has many benefits. From a romantic and pragmatic perspective, it is almost always in your best interest to work to improve your marriage. (I acknowledge that some relationships are abusive, and I am NOT referring to these relationships!)

It is important to recognize that this can be easier to say than do. Drastic life changes will dramatically change your marriage dynamics. This is normal.

You’re going to have multiple marriages. I hope these ideas shared today will help you have them all with the same person. 

Please share your best relationship tips that have helped your marriage or lessons learned in relationships that didn’t work out in the comments below.

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[Chris Mamula used principles of traditional retirement planning, combined with creative lifestyle design, to retire from a career as a physical therapist at age 41. After poor experiences with the financial industry early in his professional life, he educated himself on investing and tax planning. After achieving financial independence, Chris began writing about wealth building, DIY investing, financial planning, early retirement, and lifestyle design at Can I Retire Yet? He is also the primary author of the book Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence. Chris also does financial planning with individuals and couples at Abundo Wealth, a low-cost, advice-only financial planning firm with the mission of making quality financial advice available to populations for whom it was previously inaccessible. Chris has been featured on MarketWatch, Morningstar, U.S. News & World Report, and Business Insider. He has spoken at events including the Bogleheads and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants annual conferences. Blog inquiries can be sent to chris@caniretireyet.com. Financial planning inquiries can be sent to chris@abundowealth.com]

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