Personal Finance

3 Conversations All Married Couples Need to Have Before They Retire

Maurie Backman

Published: February 14, 2025 10:30 am

Retirement represents a major transition in life. Not only does your day to day schedule change completely, but your financial circumstances might undergo a major shift.

That’s why it’s so important to plan carefully for retirement. And if you’re married, that means having the right conversations with your spouse to get onto the same page. Here are three specific things you’ll want to hash out before making your retirement official.

1. Where you’ll live

Some people use retirement as an opportunity to relocate — either to somewhere less expensive or somewhere with a better climate (or, if you’re lucky, both). But moving can have a huge impact on your social life and routine. So it’s important to talk about where you see yourselves living as retirees.

It may be that your preference is move to a state with lower living costs while your spouse’s priority is to live close to family. This is an important matter to resolve before moving forward with any concrete plans.

2. What you’ll spend

In any given couple, there may be one person who likes to spend a little more and another person who’s more conservative in that regard. Since retirement represents a huge financial change, it’s important to establish a budget or some type of framework you’re both comfortable with.

One thing you may want to do is identify your priorities in terms of retirement spending. You may, for example, feel that you’d rather allocate more money to a nicer home and have less money for experiences. Your spouse might feel the opposite and want to free up more money to do things like dine out regularly and enjoy the theater.

This is another key area where it’s important to get onto the same page. You may need to work out some compromises, so it’s best to do those before retirement actually begins.

3. What you’ll do with your time

Some people retire and find that they love it. Others end up bored and unhappy. To avoid the latter scenario, it’s important to have a plan for how you’ll spend your days once you’re no longer going into work. But it’s also essential that your plans align with your spouse’s.

It may be that you want to travel one or two weeks out of every month, but your spouse isn’t interested in doing that. That has the potential to cause some conflict and unhappiness if it’s not addressed before retirement begins.

Have those important talks

Some folks put off talking about retirement issues until that period of life officially begins. But if you want to both enjoy retirement and avoid conflict in your relationship, then it’s best to have these discussions well ahead of that point.

It’s also a good idea to bring in a financial advisor to work with, especially if you and your spouse are conflicted about money or aren’t confident you’ll have enough to do the things you’ve always wanted. An advisor can give you a realistic idea of what to expect and help you invest your money wisely so you’re able to get as close to your dream retirement as possible.