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| Tarnished Golden Years: Counseling Couples after Sixty-five by G. Wade Rowatt, Ph.D. |
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| Wade Rowatt / Marriage and Family |
| Written by Wade Rowatt |
| Monday, 22 September 2008 12:57 |
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“Forty-seven years! I can’t believe it is over after all that time,” bemoaned Bill, a 76 year old retired teacher. Helen filed for divorce after a shouting match ended when Bill pushed her aside to get out the door. Fred and Jenny celebrated their Golden Anniversary with a cruise as planned a decade earlier. Three days after they returned, he ran away from home with no warning. He traveled the country alone for three weeks and returned unannounced. The family had been frantic in their search and finally called the police. Fred was outraged at the fuss. Jenny said he could live with their only child for a few weeks while they sought counseling. Lana and Elmer exchanged notes for six weeks, but neither broke the icy silence. Finally, she wrote, “I called a counselor at church today. If you don’t come with me, I will call a lawyer next. I am sick and tired of this frozen excuse of a marriage.” They went for help. These couples reflect a growing number of older couples whose stress has strained their relationships to the limit. They comprise a larger portion of my counseling load than ever before. Increasing numbers of senior adults become irritated, aggravated, annoyed and frustrated. They often sink into depression. There is even an increase in the number who attempt suicide. For many seniors, the golden years become tarnished with layers of disappointments, unmet expectations and intolerable relationships. No single thread dominates the pattern in the fabric of their despair. Several stressful strands come together to create this taxing marriage situation. First, seniors are living longer and facing more years together. Most do not have the money to sustain their pre-retirement standard of living. Boredom and frustrations mount up. Soon they impatiently turn on each other. Joining new groups, clubs and activities (traveling, ballroom dancing, swimming, walking, reading, games, etc.) adds some glitter. As health declines and caring for each other becomes more of a daily routine, caregiver stress builds. In the early crises times, spouses eagerly step up to tend to each others' need. But as the years wear on and health wears down, the relationship is often strained. Getting assistance reduces the caregiver fatigue. Adjusting to retirement can become difficult. Too much time together, isolation from work friends, grieving the loss of status and other factors create unreal demands on the spouse. As one wife said, “I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch.” Couples who do not maintain enough space for separate outside activities smother each other. On the other hand, partners with too little time together drift apart. Discussing new schedules and remaining flexible help some older couples. Memory loss can introduce the blame game into a relationship. “I told you that!” is met with “You never mentioned it at all; you just think you did.” Even writing it down may not resolve such quarrels because notes get misplaced and lost. For some, a bulletin board and a posted schedule at home have helped. Irritations mount up at a time when communication skills decline. Finding the right word to express an idea clashes with the loss of hearing. Impatient partners often fail to stop to clarify what their spouse is verbalizing. Old, poor patterns of communication (interrupting, assuming, non-attending, etc.) return as impulse control declines with aging. Counseling with older couples needs to focus on building new communication skills and agreeing upon approaches to solving problems before they escalate. Much of the research in counseling has been based on younger couples (Gottman) and mid-life couples (Clinebell). We invite you to share your experiences, insights, research, and resources in response to these initial observations about the tarnished golden years. My mentor, Wayne Oates, was fond of making up words like “workaholic.” He often called articles like my clinical musings “shirt-sleeve research.” It was from a few notes jotted on the shirt cuff during an encounter with the living human documents. Let us hear from you at oates.org.
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 16 October 2008 14:31 ) |
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