As I was leading my 'Retirement Reality' seminar a few days ago I was struck by the collective enthusiasm my audience of couples in their 50's and 60's had for the nature of the conversation. They were clearly thrilled (and in various moments somewhat terrified) as we talked about various aspects of the emotional and psychological shifts that occur and need to be addressed when retirement finally occurs.

One of the strongest responses that I noticed was to my suggestion that now was a good time for them to begin to think about renegotiating their relationship, to begin to notice that whatever agreements they'd come to in the past about how duties were shared, what their priorities were, how time was spent and the other myriad aspects of coupledom could benefit from a spring cleaning.

Think about it. As we age, our needs, interests, abilities and values tend to evolve and shift. And yet the vast majority of us remain stuck in habits of interacting that we established 20, 30, 40 and 50 years earlier. One woman in the seminar was clearly stunned to hear that part of my renegotiations involved my husband taking over most of the housework. I dust, shop and cook, he cleans, does laundry and dishes. Between the two of us we tidy. It works out great for us and is a very different arrangement than what we started with. And it represents the fact that we have been willing adjust as life has unfolded. By mutual agreement we don't entertain nearly as much as we did in our earlier years. We have both discovered that we are much happier only having close friends over and when we do it is typically one or two couples at a time. Gone are the grand dinner parties for 20 ...we began to notice that they were exhausting and socially unsatisfying in that we were so busy handling logistics for that many there was almost no time to interact with anyone in any meaningful way.

One of the things I've discovered from this process of renegotiating the terms and conditions of our marriage is that it means we each have to be awake to our own needs and interests. And we each have to hold ourselves accountable for the quality of our experience of our marriage. We can't any longer live out of habit, feeling vaguely dissatisfied and wishing the other person would notice our discomfort. Each of us must find the place inside where we claim our voice and speak it, identifying where our thinking is going and requesting the adjustments we need to feel like an active, satisfied part of this couple called Greg & Gwen.

And that, I think, is the toughest thing for most people to live with. It is so easy to live out of habit that many resent the time and effort it takes to keep their relationship alive and vibrant. When we are young and have our careers, our children and our active social lives to distract us we can set many of these issues aside and just keep running our habits. But whether you choose traditional retirement or opt for a modified version, when the kids leave, the career plateaus and you've acquired all the material things you were hell bent on acquiring ...slowly or suddenly we all come to a place where we look at our life partner and wonder "am I going to be able to continue to live with this person as I grow older?" I believe that unless and until you are willing to step into that place that often feels vulnerable and say "I'd like things to be different between us and for us" you can count on not much changing. And the choice is always yours!