I have recommended earlier editions of this book to numerous friends and given it to many other as well—all of them loved it. The new edition is the best yet, addressing the larger experience of an engaged life as we age. Written by a psychologist with vast experience in marital counseling and work-family balance, it combines the latest research findings on aging and retirement with warm and sympathetic real cases to help us all plan for the psychological issues that arise at this life stage. In planning retirement, people often mistakenly focus only on its financial aspects. Dr. Yogev describes both the individual dynamics people face and the changes couples experience in their relationships as they enter retirement age. She offers practical suggestions ranging from how to handle time together and apart, to finding purpose in one’s life, and how to manage relationships with money, housework, alcohol, friends, family, and the seeming impenetrability of the new but necessary technologies. Wise, practical, wryly good-humored, and immensely helpful, this book is a must-read for the millions of boomers enteringretirement age.
—JANE MANSBRIDGE, PhD, Adams Professor, Kennedy School, Harvard University
In the third edition of her very valuable book, A Couple’s Guide to Happy Retirement and Aging, Dr. Yogev discusses the psychology of this life phase with case examples from her practice and questions that help the readers apply the material to their own situation. This topic is becoming increasingly important as the seventy-seven million baby boomers enter retirement age. Dr. Yogev addresses the changes in maturing adults living in a society with age bias. Aging, rather than being viewed as a new phase of life, is viewed with negative bias by younger people as they compete for the resources and jobs the older still command. Society even dictates that sixty-five or seventy is the Chronological Age of Retirement, regardless of one’s ability to continue and contribute to the general public. We believe that a new perspective on aging as generations of people with experience, wisdom, and judgment, who are chronologically older but still can contribute to the growth of society, will become more accepted as the numbers of people over sixty-five increases. (According to the 2010 USA Census, people older than sixty-five years represent 16 percent of the population, a number that continues to grow and will reach 20 percent by 2030.) It is not only in the USA, but also in other civilizations across the world. Few countries have addressed this problem affecting millions of their citizens.
The dynamics between couples going through the processes of retirement and aging are not well known. The psychological experiences each person feels individually as they mature, as well as the altered ways in which they relate to each other, are surprising, unrecognized, and can be devastating, as the author points out. Dr. Yogev guides individuals and couples in the transition to the positive value that each maturing individual has to oneself, to each other, and to all of society. She provides a worthy psychological insight into the changes both the male and female are experiencing in this evolution, with a better understanding of their own feelings and relationships with each other and with the community. There are very few publications that address this challenge facing maturing adults who are adapting to these new careers and progressions in their lives. We highly recommend this terrific book to all those who are entering this phase of life, providing them an extremely helpful perspective in meeting the challenge of aging and retirement, young or older.
—James I. Ausman, MD, PhD, and Carolyn R Ausman, BSS, executive producers and creators of The Leading Gen®: What Will You Do with the Rest of Your Life?, a public television series
A wise, optimistic, straightforward, and practical guidebook . . . I highly recommend it.
—William Pinsof, PhD, founder and past president of Family Therapy Institute, Northwestern University
