What if DH ever retires??

[nswef]

Oh Cathy, You sound so distressed and frustrated. I know it sounds easy to say just accept how he is and do what you need to do to make yourself happy with the house, no matter the cost of hiring out work and no matter how much you want DH to do it. we've been married 44 years, it took several years for me to accept that DH was not speedy. He was thorough and very slow to get started. I had a few snit fits and yelling, but the best way was to sit and say I am upset. I feel unappreciated but more importantly I want you to take over some chores. He is a perfectionist so doesn't want to start something unless he can finish it PERFECTLY...thus not much gets done. Once we retired, both from teaching, we settled in to a different routine. More traditional I guess, although he does much more cooking than he used to do. I do the laundry, social planning, we split calling repair people and setting it up. He mows marvelously, blows the snow, weed whacks the edges...I do the flower beds and we work well together on projects as long as I remember that he just takes longer to do things. So, long explanation, but what helped me was to accept his methods that are very different from mine. We do laugh a lot about how I go zooming off full bore and he thinks, and thinks and thinks, then does. Patience on both our parts has helped too. And I love him.

[SteveinMN]

Being home most of the time, I've thought about what happens when DW retires in a couple of years. It will be an adjustment for both of us. I'm so used to having the house to myself (except for the bottomless pit of need that is our dog) that I don't even let others unload the dishwasher because I spend more time looking for where they put things than I save having someone do that task for me. I probably could work in my kitchen blindfolded because I know where everything is.

Both of us value our time alone. Fortunately for us, the house is big enough to indulge that. The kitchen is mine (sometimes a discussion point when she takes all the towels to wash them and doesn't leave any in their places). The laundry room is hers (sometimes a discussion point when I'm working on a project and I use that space). We negotiate our bedroom but we're mostly on the same page there. Each of us has our own room with a door which we can keep as we like it; the public areas stay (relatively) uncluttered.

The biggest thing I have to remember is that sometimes DW likes the place to herself. So on those days I'll make sure I do outside errands -- lawn work, maintenance, or even shopping and other errands. I'm hoping that remembering that becomes more automatic for both of us.