Notice where your sense of usefulness has been living
For many women, work has quietly carried more than income. It carried competence, being consulted, being the person who knew how something was done. That does not vanish at retirement, but its outlet does, and the gap can feel unexpectedly personal — a kind of invisibility that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with no longer being needed on a Thursday.
Work out in advance where that capability is going to go. Mentoring, a board or committee, a community organisation, teaching the thing you spent thirty years learning, or a few days a month of consulting. It doesn't have to be grand. It has to be real, and it helps enormously if someone somewhere is slightly inconvenienced when you don't turn up.
Have the conversation with the person you live with
If you share a home, retirement changes their life too, and they may have feelings about it that they have not said out loud. Suddenly two people are occupying rooms that one person used to have to herself. Household jobs that were divided by availability need redividing. Someone's lunchtime routine is about to be observed and commented on.
Talk about hours, not just plans: how much time do you each expect to spend together, and how much alone? Who does what now? What are you each looking forward to that the other might not share? Couples who negotiate this openly tend to find the first year delightful. Couples who assume it will be obvious tend to find it abrasive by about March.
