avatarSherry McGuinn

Summary

Sherry McGuinn reflects on her feelings of apprehension and guilt as her husband retires, marking a significant life change that impacts their financial stability and her own struggle with unemployment and ageism in the job market.

Abstract

Sherry McGuinn's husband has recently retired from a stressful career, a transition she has dreaded due to the loss of income and her own difficulties in finding employment after being let go from a high-paying job. Despite her husband's right to retire and her efforts to secure a new income stream, McGuinn faces the harsh realities of age discrimination in the job market and the challenges of making ends meet. She discusses the emotional toll of these changes, her concerns about their future, and the need to adapt to their new circumstances while also acknowledging the relief and satisfaction that comes with her husband's well-deserved retirement.

Opinions

  • McGuinn admits to feeling like an "asshole" for her concerns about the future, highlighting her internal conflict between understanding her husband's need to retire and her worries about their financial situation.
  • She expresses frustration with the job market, particularly the ageism she has encountered, which has led to her being repeatedly passed over for positions despite her qualifications and experience.
  • McGuinn is critical of the convoluted application processes and the lack of feedback from recruiters, which have contributed to her sense of humiliation and disillusionment with the corporate world.
  • She feels guilty for previously benefiting from her husband's income while he was unhappy in his job, and now for potentially hindering his retirement due to her own job struggles.
  • Despite her concerns, McGuinn acknowledges that she and her husband should be able to enjoy their later years without the stressors of their past, thanks to their savings and Social Security benefits.
  • She resolves to be supportive of her husband's retirement, planning to celebrate the occasion and focus on the present rather than dwelling on uncertainties about the future.
  • McGuinn takes a defiant stance against the recruitment industry and the job market, deciding to move forward with a positive attitude and to make the best of their situation.

My Husband Retired Today

Now, what?

Image by Alex Knight/Pexels

I’ve been dreading this day. And I feel like an asshole for admitting it. But, as someone who constantly worries about the “future,” I don’t handle significant life changes like this, all that well.

He has every right to retire. He turned 70 in March and has paid his proverbial dues. He handled an extremely stressful gig for over twenty years, so I don’t blame him for wanting out. But, we need to address the fact that we’re losing income.

Income used to help pay the mortgage and utilities and food and all the stuff everyone else has to shell out their hard-earned dough for.

As for me, I was canned from my long-time gig in February of 2018. All it took was a phone call and BOOM! A six-figure salary was kaput in a heartbeat.

The Universe knows that I’ve tried my best to recover. I’ve applied to every job posting imaginable that I felt would be a “good fit.” Even some that weren’t, because you never know. If nothing else, I figured I could get by on my charm.

Yes, I can be charming, so don’t sneer.

I didn’t care whether a position was senior-level, or not. I merely wanted to bring some money into the household.

But, no one would give me a shot because I’m too damned old for corporate America to stomach. After months and months of getting nowhere, I ultimately gave up. I’d had enough of being ghosted by recruiters and filling out applications that were so convoluted, I didn’t understand WTF the job even was.

However, I wasn’t overly concerned as my husband was still working. And yes, if truth be told, I felt guilty, as I knew he was at the point where he hated what he did. And we know what that does to a person.

Also, I still had a manager in L.A. who was working on making a sale for me. You probably already know how that’s going as I’ve been very vocal about it in previous stories.

And then, I landed here. Enough said about that because this is not an “income.” Ev William doesn’t owe me that. But I and so many other writers here deserve…yes, deserve…a hell of a lot more than what we’re currently earning.

I’ve tried to figure out what the top earners are doing that I’m somehow missing. It keeps me up some nights. I think of all the stories I’ve written and the hard truths I’ve revealed and I just don’t get it.

You know how that feels, don’t you?

But this isn’t about Medium. A couple of years ago, my husband took a salary cut for a reduced role at his position of Senior Editor at a publishing company specializing in the manufacturing industry. It is…was…a very stressful gig with constant deadlines and feature stories to write along with editing highly technical stories from overseas.

Yeah, he took a cut, but his responsibilities were hardly “reduced.”

When chronic insomnia began to affect my husband both physically and mentally, the job became that much harder and the stress, greater.

We had discussed his retiring, but I was always too selfish to actually say, “Do it! Do it now!”

But, I finally realized that if something was to happen to him because I played the victim card, I could never live with myself.

At 68 and 70, which I and my husband are respectively, we shouldn’t have to worry about the “stuff” that made us crazy in our 40s and 50s.

I’m not saying that we should live like those insufferable couples in a Schwab commercial, planning our vacation home on a lake somewhere, but, we should feel at ease, you know?

And maybe I’m making too much of this. We have savings and Social Security, which we deserve as we’ve paid into it all our lives. (Don’t you love how they tax that shit, too?)

I mean, we’re not destitute. I have my pittance here and on News Break, but, as. you all know that is a day-to-day endeavor.

My husband was able to work from home seven days a week, so our being in the same house together all damned day, won’t be as big a challenge for us, as it would be for other couples, but still, I worry and wonder, “What is he going to do?”

What are we doing to do?

I may hop back on the job-hunt-wagon as I haven’t been sufficiently humiliated by dimwits whose every remark ends in a question.

“Hi, I’m Brandy from Creative Circle?”

“Are you asking me who you are, or telling me?”

Yeah. That kind of dimwit.

For good or bad, my days with recruiters like that are over. I’ve publicly skewered them too many times for one to give me a shot.

Fuck ‘em.

That’s better, right? That sounds more like me than the whiner who initiated this story, don’t you think?

What I need to do is forget my feelings, for now, pull up my big girl pants, and let my husband know that he did the right thing. I’ll make a good dinner, crack open a bottle of wine and try to let it all go.

Because I don’t want to ruin his day, the day my husband has been longing for, I need to stop thinking about the future and concentrate on the “here and now.” At least, for tonight.

Wish me luck.

© Sherry McGuinn, 2021. All Rights Reserved.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s soon-to-be-ex-manager is currently NOT pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

Thanks for reading, guys. If you enjoyed this, I’d love for you to check out the following, as well as my newsletter, Sherry Raw.

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