male and female, express displeasure with parts of their physical features as well as their emotional unhappiness. Many times the two are related. Coming to peace with who you are physically as well as mentally is an important prerequisite for the acceptance of retirement. Many, if not most, people wish that they looked better to themselves. The list of desired improvements is long. With aging, the list grows longer.
You must learn to accept yourself and a chosen partner as you are in totality, especially in a new environment where you might be called upon to spend more time together. With aging, the deficits we are unhappy with may become increased, calling for additional levels of adjustment.
My wife looks as good to me as some movie stars her age. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So are wrinkles, blemishes and deformities, which are usually magnified with the aging process. Hair is lost, muscles sag, skin droops and wrinkles—it all comes with the territory. Accept it and move on.
If you can afford to change some of it and you want to do this through cosmetic surgery or similar modalities like botox injections, go right ahead. However, you need to accept and live with the results. Make peace with who you are and with whom you live. This is of paramount importance during retirement when you have the extra time available to look at yourself in the mirror and at your partner.
SICKNESS
Serious illness is a threat to any retirement plan. While preexisting chronic disability can be adapted to, an acute attack that leads to longtime or permanent disability can be most disruptive. However, the effects even of such disastrous conditions can be mitigated with adequate planning. As is affordable, the best healthcare insurance, just like homeowners and automobile insurance, must be acquired to prevent financial and even legal difficulties. Greater specifics will be discussed in the financial planning section.
One of the events that cannot be foretold nor emotionally prepared for is the debilitating illness of a loved one. One can only be financially prepared with adequate insurance (long-term for chronic illness requiring nursing care) and if this is not affordable then be prepared to become a caregiver, which taxes any relationship. No effort should be spared in obtaining the best medical care.
As we age, we require routine medical supervision. Periodic medical checkups are advised, even in individuals with no symptoms of disease. In those cases with specific known illnesses, the proper specialist should be consulted, preferably one with experience in handling older patients. An example would be the consultation of an endocrinologist to outline the treatment for a patient with diabetes. Doctors who specialize in a specific area of medicine are usually more familiar with the latest advancements in their specialties and can make more knowledgeable recommendations than those who do not specialize. Ask your family physician to recommend a specialist or go online and check out the credentials of specialists in your area.
In cases of severe disease or where a serious treatment regimen is advised always get a second opinion. Physicians are not gods, although some act as if they are. They make mistakes and, when the stakes are high, never hesitate to seek out a second or even a third opinion as to the proper course of therapy. If cancer is suspected it might be advisable to consult more than one cancer center and get the opinion of several oncologists, if time allows and the resultant delay is not life-threatening. Except in emergencies or life-threatening situations, whenever surgery is advised for a geriatric person a second opinion is advised. Older patients are more prone to have post-operative complications and surgery should be avoided whenever possible. In many cases, alternative therapies can be found which may yield comparable results to surgical intervention. An example would be the implementation of physical therapy in lieu of orthopedic surgery in appropriate situations.
DEATH
While the analysis of successful retirement focuses on the joy of living, it also has to include the ultimate prospect of the end of life and the most tolerable emotional response to that eventuality. Earlier in this book I called for embracing the thought process of a peaceful end and rest for oneself, but we must also include the response to the death of a loved one. When two lives have been entwined for a long time, such a loss can be overwhelming. Yet it is an undeniable fact that in any relationship one partner will die first and the other will be left to grieve and carry on alone. In retirement, where the two people usually spend more time together than before and get used to spending quality time together, the separation is more painful, especially if death comes suddenly.
In my many years of treating patients with varied therapies for different psychiatric disorders, I have been called upon to administer to some in the solemn state of impending death and also to their family members. The psychotherapy of death and dying is called thanatologic therapy. In 1969 the Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the concept that there are five stages that people go through during a terminal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. While I have experienced all of these emotions in dying patients, not all patients seem to go through all these phases and not necessarily in the order presented.
In my experience, while there is some glimmer of hope for recovery, the best anti-depressive psychotherapy is to engage the patient in active exercises to marshal internal forces and attempt to combat the disease process. This draws one’s attention to the hope for improvement and away from focusing on the emotions associated with hopelessness. In giving the patient a sense of being involved actively in the healing process, concentration is not only redirected from the dangers of the moment, but in admittedly rare cases remissions have thus been catalyzed. In any event, instilling hope whenever the inevitable is still in doubt is good medicine. When the condition grows so grave that the prognosis is no longer hopeful, a different approach is indicated. I have had the best results—if such a phrase is applicable in this context—with promotion of reassurance. Presenting the positive aspects of reaching some sort of paradise, uniting with beloved departed souls, becoming closer to God (for believers) and just emphasizing the end of pain and the attainment of the peace and serenity of eternal rest in honest repetition can bring relief and solace to those approaching life’s end. Those people who believe in some form of reincarnation or soul migration can be consoled by reinforcing such beliefs at the time of impending demise. In all cases, describing some sort of positive future, even if it’s just of eternal sleep, can be of comfort in overcoming the fear of approaching death.
GRIEVING
One of the most common quandaries after death is what is considered to be a reasonable time period to express grief before resuming an active social life. This is certainly an individual decision to be reached separately by each widow or widower. However, it must be cautioned that in advanced age the future is short and time becomes a precious commodity. Extended grieving, no matter how close the lost relationship was, will not bring the deceased back. Loss can only be compensated for with new gain of some comparable sort, as soon as is feasible. Replacement is also a potent deterrent to the onset of clinical-level depression.
DIVORCE
In some ways and in some cases, divorce can be psychologically equated to a form of death. It is certainly the death of a marriage. From a financial point of view, divorce can be a retirement killer. This will be dealt with in greater detail later in this book; however, the psychological aspects of divorce can definitely be a deterrent to the ideal retirement we all crave. Divorce, prior to or after retirement, drives the average middle-class family to a position of instability wherein retirement plans are usually partially or totally disrupted. Besides the financial catastrophe, animosity is built up by the cause of the estrangement,
