Retirement: Our New Normal

Jenna and her husband, Dave, at a deployment homecoming in 2019.

Over 200 years ago, Robert Burns said, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” and that kernel of wisdom is still very true in today’s world, but especially insofar as the military is concerned.

When my husband joined the Navy in 2002, we were fresh out of high school, and, like most 17 and 18 year olds, had our own ideas of what the future would look like. Just like the chunky highlights and foam platform sandals I wore the day I watched him and his recruiter drive away from our hometown’s recruiting station, those plans went out of style quickly. His original plan was to serve his original six year contract, get out, move back to our hometown, and go to school.

That was 22 years ago. Six years quickly turned into 10, 10 turned into 16, and 16 turned into 21. Suddenly, his coworkers were presenting him with a shadow box on a breezy July day, he was growing a beard, we were getting retiree IDs, and he was entering what he jokingly called his “Billy Madison era” as he transitioned from a salty career sailor into a full time student. Retirement was never part of the original plan, but when it did become clear that retirement from the Navy was going to be the new “best laid plan,” we wanted to be prepared, and we prepared as best we could: TAPS classes, utilizing a veterans’ service organization, following all of the suggested timelines, saving money. 

I thought that once the Navy was behind us, that would be it, but the Navy wasn’t done with us quite yet. The Navy still had a few final pearls of wisdom to bestow upon us- wisdom that would rewire my brain.

Now, life post-retirement consists of regular weekend nature walks and grocery shopping after, the Flower Fields at its May best, and more.

The most eye-opening lesson I learned upon retirement was that our ”normal” had  never been normal.

I believed for my husband's entire 21-year career in the Navy that it wasn't abnormal to be away from each other for months at a time, and that it was totally normal to live a disjointed existence when he was home. Unwritten, but established, rules in military culture, made me feel like there was something wrong with me for missing the very obviously missing piece in my home, and made the servicemember feel guilty, because, "If the Navy wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one." We did the best we could with the information we were given. 

My husband had an experience on a Tiger Cruise in 2019 that shocked him to the core, talking to one of the fathers of a young sailor who worked for him about how much he missed his wife. In 20 years of marriage, they had never spent a night apart, and he missed her terribly. 

There is some anger and some grief at what we lost. I once sat down and calculated how much time we were actually apart and lost count after 6 years. We will never get those years back, but what an absolute joy and privilege it is to move forward now, and discover what we were missing all those years. 

If your spouse has yet to retire and things are challenging, let me reassure you that there is nothing wrong with you for missing your spouse and feeling like there is a piece missing. Resiliency only goes so far; our reality was not the same reality as it is for most families.

Now, life post-retirement consists of regular weekend nature walks and grocery shopping after, baseball games at Petco Park for the first time ever, the Flower Fields at its May best, meeting leopards and binturongs at wildlife sanctuaries, soup nights with friends, spending my lunch break together in Balboa Park, Stevie Nicks concerts and vendor fairs, and best of all, no Slack notifications or 2 a.m. phone calls or sustaining a marriage from states or continents apart. (We bought our house while he was in Fallon, Nevada, and I was home in San Diego, and the distance made an already stressful process even more unpleasant.)

Our way of life for 21 years was us doing the best we could with what we had at the time, and neither of us was at our best during that time. We have settled into what we like to call “blissfully boring,” a life of delightfully predictable routines. The most egregious untruth of all that we were led to believe when he was preparing to retire was that we would be sick of each other in no time once he was home all the time, but our reality has been very different: blissfully boring looks good on us. 

You can find additional resources on retirement and more in the Mentorship-HUB.

Jenna lives in San Diego with her husband, two cats, and lots of plants. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking and baking, reading, nature walks, and naps. She has been with MSAN since 2019.