Wondering about age gap relationships and retirement

[qwertyskoo]

Dh and I saw his friend and wife today. She's 8 years younger than him, so not a massive age gap, but still, by the time she reaches state pension age he'll be 76. No idea why this thought hit me while we were talking but now I can't stop thinking about it.

Both of his parents' health rapidly deteriorated after 70. One sadly died before the age of 76 and the other was (still is) living in a residential home due to high care needs. So, if he takes after his parents health-wise they're not looking at much of a retirement together. He drank and smoked heavily when he was younger so probably hasn't done himself any favours there, though he has stopped smoking now and doesn't drink so much anymore. Also had some kind of health scare when he was about 30 I think.

So anyway, I was thinking that I hope they're putting extra money into pensions and investments so she can retire early if she wants to and they can at least enjoy some retirement together.

But I don't know how they would afford to. I don't know their exact salaries of course, but neither are in particularly high paid professions. They do seem to fritter money away a bit and also take out loans when they need to buy a car or do home improvements. Nothing wrong with that of course, as long as their debt is manageable and they're not frittering beyond their means, but I don't see how it would leave them with money to spare to put away for the future.

They have two children together and he has a child from a previous relationship, so the entire time they've been together they've had dependents. By the time their youngest is 18 he'll only be a few years off retirement age, so it's not like they can even start ploughing money into pensions once their children are grown.

I know I'm likely to get a load of responses asking why I'm obsessively overthinking another couple's retirement plans. And I know that for all I know they've won the lottery or something and have millions in their pensions.

It just made me think, would you warn your children off relationships with age gaps of more than, say, 3 or 4 years for this reason?

Does it matter if they won't have much of a retirement together as long as they're happy now?

Why are you obsessively overthinking another couple's retirement plans? For all you know they've won the lottery or something and have millions in their pensions.

I’m in this boat. 15 years younger than dh. The odds are he’ll be dead by the time I retire. So I will be on my own. Never crossed my mind when younger. Saying that I have friends with similar aged husbands and they’ve lost their husband before retirement. So even be a similar age is no guarantee.

But yeah I wouldn’t change anything. We’ve been happily together nearly 30 years

How do you know she wants to retire early? 😳

I’ve ended a 14 year age gap relationship for this very reason. He was older and wasn’t prepared to plan or save for me to retire earlier (or us to retire earlier) and I didn’t want my retirement to consist of looking after a nearly 80 year old man. It’s a shame but I could see it coming.

I find this level of detail really creepy. What right do you have to speculate openly about people in this way? If you were my friend I would be furious.

My DH is 8.5 years older than me. It’s something thats at the back of my mind but equally we’ve had 20+ happy years together so far. Kids are teens now so managing a couple of holidays as a couple leaving them at home etc. In reality though, we don’t have great pensions regardless of ages and I wouldn’t swap all the good years we’ve had for someone closer to my retirement age, especially as no one is guaranteed to reach retirement age anyway.

You can't plan your entire life around retirement, there's no guarantees about getting one or what life or your health or marriage will be like when you get to it. There's a ten year gap between myself and my husband. I'm not worried about it and don't want to retire young or at all particularly.

Yes, I suppose you're right, death and illness can come to any of us at any time.

Maybe sometimes it's right to prioritise happiness now over what might happen in the future.

Well, I don't.

It's just that retired couples I know tend to like doing things together, and unless she retires early that seems unlikely for them.

I am 67 and DH is 76. DC are 27 and 29. So while they are not long left home we had nearly 20 years as a couple before having children.
It's fair to say the age gap is a little more noticeable after age 60 than it was when we met. He's fitter than me, goes to the gym every day and walks a lot. It could end up me being the one needing looking after because of health.

Whether you can afford retirement is not related to an age gap.

Okay.

They're not really my friends.

Dh's friend who I tolerate and his wife who seems nice enough but doesn't socialise much so I've never got to know her that well.

I’m ten years older than my partner and I just don’t think about this 🤷🏻‍♀️

Doing things together is what annual leave and weekends are for.

I can't wait for my husband to retire (2 years before me), so I won't have to do any cooking or housework after work.

We have also discussed DH taking a step down soon as my salary has almost doubled in the last 2 years and he would then become responsible for the housework and cooking etc. We will definitely have this arrangement in a few years once he is nearing retirement age.

Me and DH have that exact age gap. So weird to think an acquaintance might be giving our retirement plans this much thought and speculating whether we should even be together.

I certainly won't be warning my kids off this kind of age gap, no. But then I'm not a control freak who likes to plan other people's lives down to the last detail

It’s quite a modern thing. By modern I mean last 50 years when women work.
Back in the day women would just be looking after a retired man instead of a working one.
These days it makes sense to be with a man about your own age to avoid this clash of retirement ages.

My DH was 9 years older than me. He didn't reach retirement age. He died very suddenly on his way to work when he was 62. We had no idea he was ill - his post mortem revealed undiagnosed heart disease and he could have died at any time.
Nobody knows what is going to happen in life and I find OP obsessing about this couples private life really intrusive and inappropriate.

Yes, it is quite modern. My grandparents had quite a large age gap but my grandmother had to leave her job when she married. She had no choice, the organisation she worked for just wouldn't employ married women.

Obviously it's good that things have changed and things are better for women in the workplace (though still not perfect).

Even so my grandmother spent more of her life as a widow than she did with my grandfather.

My parents have a 12 year age gap and both said it was difficult when my Dad retired and mum still had more than a decade of work ahead of her. Mum said it was the first time she had really seen their age gap as a negative. She ended up going part time and then retiring early and accepting less in her pension pot so that they could have more time together. I'm very glad as my Dad has been in poor health the last couple of years so I'm glad they had time to travel before he got ill.

I think both would acknowledge it hasn't been ideal but then surely you'd trade many years of happiness in a relationship for a less than ideal age of retirement. They've been happily married for over 40 years so it definitely worked out for them.

Firstly, I also think about things/situations to that degree or more, so I don't think that's too unusual. OP won't know all their details so it can't be too intrusive. And I think everyone speculates about others' lives at some point.

It's not meant to be intrusive but rather considering a different situation and showing some empathy. If you've ever spent time wondering seriously about how it would be to live in another country or another city, or if you'd married 'Jack from 6th form', you're not far off.

I know what you mean about disparity in retirement. My DSis is in this position - she's not ready/old enough to retire but her DH was made redundant with a good package, has worked his whole life in IT, building up good savings, and so has packed it in. He's early 50s and 'retired' but she's still working. They spend time together but he, obviously, has loads of free time so goes off for a mini-break, painting or seeing bands or whatever.

His parents both had a terrible retirement: shortly after he retired, his father developed something like Parkinsons so was in a home, just when his mother (career housewife and professor's spouse with 3 kids) had thought they'd be able to do fun things like golf, wine tasting, cruises and long trips and grandkids. She was fortunate that they could retire to a home with a high level of care but having a rota of carers in and out of the flat, no matter how spacious, was not great ... Her husband predeceased her but by then she was succumbing to dementia so hardly knew and spent her last few years in a home herself.

My DSis tries not to think about how their son, her DH, might age ...

My late DH was 6 yrs older than me so potentially we'd have reached a similar situation where he was retired and I was content/needed to keep working. Because in his last years he was WFH, it was like he was sort of retired - he could put on a load of washing or start the evening meal or pick up our teen DDs.

I have a friend married to a man who is now retired. She still has 10 years to work. She also has an elderly unwell dad who lives a long way from her that she needs to visit often for several days at a time.

Yes he helps out a lot with the cooking and housework and willingly goes with her to visit her dad. But it seems their lives would be simpler and better if they were both retired. They can’t travel as much as the husband would like. Am not sure if she has plans to retire early.

7 year difference here, I plan on retiring at 60, so dh will have his full pensions and I will take one of mine then, im also paying money into avcs which I plan to use for the gap before I get my state pension and other pension ( I might take this one slightly early at 64 (with reductions). As we get closer to retirement the more I am glad that we have put plans in for this.

Dh is 7 years older than me and it is what it is. He is 60 in the Spring and determined to take what he can get to enable him to at least work fewer hours (physical and boring job). He has said many times that he's happy to make decisions to benefit both of us. But I've insisted that unless his (various small) pensions are way more than anticipated - which they won't be - we need to make decisions to benefit him first, then see how we go once mine (barely visible to the naked eye thanks to self employment) comes into play.

Basically we're a team.

I am the same age as my husband. I was retiring 10 years early and he was going to carry on working. A relative told me they thought that was stupid ... i'd be at home on my own and he'd be working. I realky thought about it and said he should retire with me, even with his poor pension. Weve not looked back in the last 6 years, very good decision.