Can two people who have held down jobs and made it through the ups and downs of a lifelong marriage enjoy a blissful retirement together? Probably not. Hence the retired-couple cliche, with its undercurrent of boredom and blame.
Retirement is as full of myth and misconception as that other post-industrial social perversion, the 'happy' nuclear family, especially now that women have careers. To make matters worse, men and women do not have the same reactions or needs at this stage in their lives.
Fortunately, most baby boomers (born between 1945 and 1964) sense that their own post-career future is going to set a new pattern, and in some respects hark back to one that has been suspended for a few generations. Most do not expect ever to retire completely, surveys show, but rather to move on to a different productive activity rather than simply leisure.
Yet, while they are concerned about their future health and happiness, the vast majority make no plans beyond contributing to a pension fund. Presumably they think they will just deal with it when the time comes. This is a choice that takes its toll on marriages and increases the chances of premature mental and physical decline.
There is no longer organic community support for this major transition. That dried up when cradle-to-grave welfare became a matter for governments. Nor would today's retirees necessarily want the kind of community which existed in their grandparents' day, when there were few choices in the average person's life path. However, the alternative of finding your own way requires constructive involvement and, in the case of couples, serious negotiation.
For women, a harmonious marriage is the key to retirement bliss, according to a Cornell University study of how post-retirement employment affects quality of life. For men, it is activity.
At first, career-oriented men go through a retirement 'honeymoon' in which they enjoy the freedom from work pressures. They delight in doing all the things they have put off for years such as reading, playing sports, travelling and so on. However, if they have not anticipated their longer-term reactions and planned accordingly, depression often sets in. In this respect, jobs with less power seem to prepare a man better for retirement because his identity, ego and energy tends to be less tied up in what he does for a living.