Do you share a vision?
One of my girlfriends said her husband wants to retire to an island in the West Indies. “What about the kids?” she asked. “What about my ailing mother?” His reply was, “We can take your mother to live with us.” She was rendered speechless. “You don’t even like my mother.”
What happens when a couple can’t agree on where to live when they retire? In February 2014, Fidelity Investments released the fourth Couples Retirement Study, which found that “38 percent of the working couples polled cited some disagreement on what kind of lifestyle they would retire to.”
Roberta Taylor, who blogs on the website retirementandgoodliving.com, is an experienced retirement transition coach whose own midlife transition led her to help others create their vision for life after retirement. Roberta says, “A helpful way for couples to approach retirement planning is to create a Shared Vision. A Shared Vision is a plan that describes how you want to live the next part of your lives. It involves integrating what’s important to each of you individually with what you both want for your relationship.”
My husband and I often talked about heading south to live, to escape to a warmer climate. One January we took some advice from friends and rented a condo in Naples, Fla., to see what that would be like. January in Naples is like July in Rehoboth - endless traffic. The average age of a homeowner in our building was 83. We went to the pool party and the event began with a reading a list of all those who had died the previous year. Ray couldn’t play golf for less than $130 a game. He spilled an entire glass of red wine on the white carpet. We came back to Rehoboth one week early to have a beer at the Pig + Fish with friends Irene and Ed, and it didn’t matter if it was 41 degrees and raining. We were home.
For four years now we have resided off Route 24 in a lovely home in the woods, but I wanted to move east of Route 1. Ray didn’t share that vision, because why buy a more expensive home on a limited income? He worries about retirement funds lasting our lifetime, and he knows we have enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle thus far. I want to live in a community with a clubhouse and a pool, and I like the idea of starting out in a new place with new neighbors who are getting to know one another. So we have decided to move closer to Lewes where we both can enjoy riding bikes. Our new home in The Senators will have the Junction & Breakwater Trail in our backyard. We have a shared vision for our dream home, but let’s hope we can share a limited budget. We opted for the sun room, which we will affectionately call the Florida room. Come winter, we will be unpacking, not stopped in traffic. Write to me about your shared vision at lgraff1979@gmail.com.
