April 21, 2008

With his longtime New York City estate and business law practice winding down, Robert Rubinger was ready to retire five years ago, at age 76. But his wife, Nancy, who was then 66, was not.

Ms. Rubinger had started working at a nonprofit organization only 13 years earlier, after the couple’s two children were grown. “I was really having a very good time,” she said. “I find it extremely gratifying to help people.”So Mr. Rubinger happily retired, while his wife happily kept working. But problems cropped up. 

“There were some mornings when I would have liked to have slept in, and he’s fast asleep,” Ms. Rubinger recalled. She would ask herself, Why do I have to go out in the snow and rain? Then, when she got home from work at 7:30 p.m., she would ask her husband whether he had made plans for dinner. No, he would reply, “I’m waiting for you.” 

Ms. Rubinger said, laughing, “I would suggest that maybe it would be a good idea that he would do a little bit more” around the house, but finally she gave up. “I knew it would be a lost cause.”Her husband’s version: Housework, he said, “was never part of my life. She would have to guide me, but we never had any real deep discussions as to what my role would be.”

Scenes like this are becoming more common as the first mass generation of career women reaches the traditional retirement ages of 60 to 65. Experts on aging say that the phenomenon began about five years ago and will continue to expand as more women enter their 60s. These are the wives who swept into the work force in the late 1970s and early ’80s, just as the women’s movement was pushing open career doors. Many had stayed home taking care of the house and family, and often, like Ms. Rubinger, put off entering the work force until their children were in school, in college or even grown. 

“In the past, other generations for the most part only had to deal with one retirement,” said Phyllis Moen, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota. But nowadays, when the husband is ready to relax after four decades of work, the wife might have barely begun her working life. “Wives often feel, I finally got rid of the kids, I’m finally moving up in the job, and I don’t want to retire,” Dr. Moen said. “There’s just a mismatch between the two.”

Of course, even a traditional retirement, like any life-cycle transition, can cause strains in a marriage, so the timing mismatch just adds one more hitch. There may be arguments over washing the dishes, vacations and moving. Roles that have been set in stone for decades are upturned. “When you’re retired at different times, there are very different agendas,” said Maryanne Vandervelde, author of the book “Retirement for Two” and a founder of the Institute for Couples in Retirement in Seattle.

The cases usually involve a retired husband and a wife who is still working, like the Rubingers, rather than the other way around. The feminist movement and the fact that many women are entering the working world late in life make up only part of the picture. Wives in this generation also tend to be younger than their spouses and thus further from retirement age. Moreover, experts like Dr. Moen say that men are more likely to have the kind of work that pushes them to retire, because of physically demanding labor that they can no longer do or generous pensions that allow them the luxury of quitting.

Housework is probably the No. 1 cause of friction. When both spouses were working, the woman might have done most of the cooking and cleaning. Now, Dr. Moen said, “He’s home all day, and the wives feel he should do more.”
Ideally, the couple can work out a schedule. But sometimes the husband just waits for the wife to ask for his help. Many men take on chores like loading the dishwasher or organizing the kitchen, said Sheila Felberbaum, a psychotherapist in Hauppauge, N.Y., who said that about 30 percent of the older couples she worked with were in a situation where only one spouse had retired. 

Why those particular tasks? Because they appeal to the “engineering personality,” Ms. Felberbaum said. But even carefully planned arrangements can leave a trail of resentments. “He does a lot more than he did before,” Dr. Moen said, “but he’s not doing what she expects.” On the other hand, if the husband becomes too actively involved in housework, some women have trouble adjusting to this invasion of what had been their domain. The husband who re-engineers the dishwasher loading, Ms. Felberbaum said, “is telling the wife she’s not doing a very good job of that, even though she’s done that for 30 years.” 

Leisure time also creates discord. Wives feel guilty about leaving their husbands alone. Husbands pressure their wives to spend more time with them. But a working woman can’t dash off to Arizona on vacation the way her retired husband can. 

Laura B. Wilson, director of the Center on Aging at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, has seen both sides in the last decade in the volunteer programs and adult-education classes that she runs for people over age 50. 
“The men are being sent by their wives,” Dr. Wilson said. “The women are staying in the work force, and they’re afraid their husbands are going to sit in front of the TV.” Meanwhile, she added, the husbands are complaining, saying: “I want to travel. I want my wife to retire. I want her to be with me to do these things.” 

Often, the husband’s pressure works. In about 20 percent of the couples in her programs, Dr. Wilson said, “Women say things like, I retired because of him, and I’m going crazy.” Experts say the solution is to talk about the issues, starting years before retirement age. “You have to think in terms of compromise,” Dr. Vandervelde said.
The woman could work part time, or the man could take up a new hobby. Gordon F. Homes Jr., a senior financial planner with MetLife, said that husbands might have a self-interest in making their wives’ lives easier.

 “Sometimes the wife’s economic contribution is substantial,” he said. “Her continuing to work is part of what makes it possible for him to retire.”

Patricia Clark, 61, a medical secretary on Long Island, said she did not mind when her husband, Charles, 64, a retired operations director at Estée Lauder, visited their son in Florida without her, because they play golf all day. “It isn’t like a real vacation for a couple,” her husband said.

And if the strains persist, experts say, the mismatch will not last forever. Eventually, even the most dedicated career woman stops working of her own accord. Ms. Rubinger, for instance, retires in June. Then these couples face new problems. Do they really want to be together 24/7?