Amy Rose Herrick - Marriage After Retirement: 25 Questions to Ask

25 Questions to Ask Amy Rose Herrick, ChFC MARRIAGE AFTER RETIREMENT 25 QUESTIONS TOASK. Copyright 2015 by Amy Rose Herrick. All rights reserved. Nopart of this book may be used or reproduced in any mannerwhatsoever without written permission except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Forinformation, address inquiries to: . Amy Rose Herricks books may be purchased foreducational, business or sales promotional use.

For informationplease write: Special Markets Department, at . Createspce Edition, License Notes Thank you for respecting the hard work ofthis author.
To My Past and Present Clients, Thank you for sharing your love at any agereal life experiences with me.

Finding love later in life brings with it adifferent view of the world and the promises of the future held init. Marriage later in life can have differentchallenges that come hand in hand with changes that may already behappening in careers that are ending soon. Perhaps full retirement is already a part ofyour days now with old demanding jobs replaced with fulfillingvolunteer activities on your schedule.

Maybe you mourned the loss of a spouse orpartner after an illness for a time. Maybe you are now in a different place inlife after a divorce long ago left you with children to raise whoare now grown. You are free to put yourself first for a change andfind love. You seek out different things in a mate andyour perspectives and expectations have changed too. Most importantly, you are willing to tryagain with this person because of who they are to you and your ageis no reason to hold you back. Understanding that love, no matter how muchyou seek after it, how powerfully it pulls your heart strings, howpatient it is for the eighty-seventh time, is often not powerfulenough to conquer nor overcome every emotional or relationshiprelated issue.

You may have already learned this lesson the hardway. Some relationships fail to be long term withor without marriage certificates. Hopeful promises were made andfuture dreams shared before they ended with promises that wereunable to be kept or dreams never to be fully realized. By reading this book and being willing to askthe hard questions before you are deeply committed to a newpotential long term relationship shows you are looking for tools tobe successful in what, for some, is elusive - a long term lovingrelationship after retirement. It takes courage to complete these exercises.It takes courage to tell the truth about how you really feel aboutan issue when you dont know how the other person feels about youranswers. Planning takes on a different importance insome areas related to health.

It takes courage to listen to every wordspoken to understand how another person you are thinking aboutspending your life with feels about a topic when youdisagree. These short thought-provoking questions werecreated to help you as a couple talk through the issues that ifleft unchecked could over time erode the happiness out of your longawaited relationship. Each question has space for each of you towrite your thoughts if you choose to. Some questions may soundsilly to you in your life experience context. Some may make youlaugh. Some answers given by your partner could upset you.

Otheranswers could result in the assurance you are both in totalagreement on the topic. Ask! Listening is the key. Do not get distractedformulating your response while the other person is still talking.You cannot listen and formulate a response at the same time. Be realistic. If your partner is 100%passionate about an issue and you are barely 5%, can you besupportive and do it his/her way with ease? Can your chosenone give his/her blessing when you are 80% passionate and he/she is50% either way? Can you meet somewhere in the middle that isagreeable to both of you? Do you intend to really do your besttrying to compromise as conflicts arise? Do you already compromiseeasily? Is even thinking about working out a compromise in adiscussion difficult for you? Do not try to do all 25 questions in the samemarathon session. Take the time needed listening and beingheard.

Here are some quick, simple ideas on how toapproach the twenty-five questions in the following chapters: One question a day will take a little less than amonth to cover all 25. Make slips of paper numbered from 1 to 25. Put themin a jar or bowl. You will each pull one slip at a time out of ajar at random per session. The final session is threequestions. This will take you 12 sessions.

Doing one chapter at a time will take you ninesessions. There is no question that is off limits fordiscussion. Every question should be answered by bothindividuals. I grouped the questions in sections allowingyou to choose where to start if my suggested format is not yourpriority. These sections are not necessarily in order of importanceto you as an individual. They are compiled in this order only tohelp you easily move through a variety of broad relationshipareas.

There is no magic scoring key at theend that you can flip to first and see how compatible you are. Theonly scorecard is the mental one you create from the deeperunderstanding I hope this book helps you to have as a takeawaywhile you learn about more deeply about your chosen partner. Amy Rose Herrick, ChFC
Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands
February, 2015

Question #1 Do I find you affectionate to the degree Iexpect from my life partner? If yes: What do you do that makes me feelspecial? If no: What do you do that does not make me feelspecial? Name: ____________________ Response Name_____________________ Response Question #2 Do you feel I truly listen to your ideas,dreams, physical limitations and complaints? If no: Do I frequently: Interrupt you? Tune you out? Ignore you? Talk over you? Tell you what to do? What am I doing when you feel you are notbeing heard or understood that makes you feel this way? How do you see me fitting in to your dreamsor ideas as a partner in your future retirement lifestyle? Name: ____________________ Response Name_____________________ Response Question #3 Is there any personal activity, existing petor any existing personal relationship that you expect me to give upto continue this relationship? If yes: Why would you expect me to give this up foryou? Name: ____________________ Response Name_____________________ Response Question #4 Do you dwell on or bring back up pastevents that were hurtful to you? What are they? What happened? Will you forgive the person/persons involved? Can you change any of the results of what happenedthat still hurt you? What is a private discrete signal we can use betweenus to change the course of the conversation on this topic to avoidyou becoming upset about it all over again when we are inpublic? Name: ____________________ Response Name_____________________ Response