I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. (Jn.9:4)
One of the major determinants of whether or not you are going to be fulfilled in the evening of life is your spouse. Whether you like it or not, you will need one another during old age. You will need one another for companionship, for support as well as for care. Especially for a man, there is a saying that you will need your wife at seventy three, more than she needed you at thirty seven. When you are young, in many cases, your wife is the one complaining that you were not giving her attention, but during old age, as a man, you will need your wife more than she needed you earlier.
YOU WILL NEED YOUR SPOUSE!
Following are some of the reasons why you will need your spouse during the evening of life:
Reduced Activities.
In the evening of life, you would have retired from active economic activities or from your career. Just as there will be reduction in economic activities, it will also affect other activities. Reduction in the options which you have will make you to depend more on your spouse, if you are available for one another.
Paucity of Friends.
One of the major features of old age is that of the reduction in friends and acquaintances which are of your age to interact with. It is a period in which you have retired from active service and you are more or less on your own. Even if you are a businessman, it is time when you have slowed down from business activities that used to keep you busy. A good percentage of the friends that you used to keep when you were younger would have died by the time you get to this age. There is no how that you will not remember may be a friend or associate who has gone ahead of you before you get to old age. Pause, you will remember several ministers of God like you who have gone ahead of you.
Apart from those that are dead, there are those that are still alive but are bed ridden by illnesses or accidents, both external and domestic. Your spouse is that one person who will be there with you for at least two thirds of your entire lifetime.
Susceptibility to illnesses.
During old age, a lot of things that did not matter concerning your health while you were young, start becoming not just relevant but important. You start getting warning about what to and not to eat to sustain good health.
Some of the most common ailments during old age includes hearing loss, cataracts and refractive errors, back, neck pain and arthritis, breathing problems, diabetes, depression and dementia. You will need your spouse to be able to manage your health situation during old age.
Susceptibility To Injury.
As we gradually age, there is tendency for us to gradually slow down in our agility, we tend to have less energy and not really be as strong as we used to be. This slowing down unfortunately makes us to be susceptible to injury more that when we were younger. The three most common sources of injury among the elderly are;
Falls- Falls are the most common sources of injury among the elderly. When you fall, you can suffer from severe injuries such as broken bones. Broken wrists are common because the attempt to break their fall. Hip fracture may also result from falling, as well as broken nose and ribs are other painful injuries resulting from fall. Brain injury may also result from fall if one fall backwards.
Burns- Mainly due to forgetfulness and reduced agility, many elders become susceptible to fire hazards. Seniors have exposed themselves to fire through forgetting to turn off the gas, many have also not been able to quickly move from a position when exposed to fire which has resulted in serious danger which has jeopardized their lives.
Loneliness and Social Isolation.
Loneliness is the feeling of being alone, and it is one of the major problems of old age. The main causes of loneliness among senior citizens are as follows;
– Loss of spouse or other family member and friends.
– Departure of children to start their own homes.
– Less relevance in the life of other family members.
– Retirement from active work.
– Disability ie. Hearing loss, blindness, loss of limbs
– Chronic illnesses
The greatest cure for loneliness is your spouse, if he or she is still around. However, the quality of his or her companionship will depend largely on how you have been relating with one another earlier in life.
Reduced Sexual Activities.
In the evening of life, your need for sex reduces just like it reduces in your spouse. Such mutual reduction in sexual activities adds to your fulfillment in old age. The little you are able to do is likely to be satisfying both way when compared with a situation in which there is a wide gap in between your ages. I always advice people who need to remarry due to loss of spouse that there should not be much age gap between them and their new spouse because of problems that may be inadvertently created in the relationship. Imagine someone who is remarrying at the age of fifty five to a lady that is thirty years old. By the time the man has slowed down drastically in sexual activities, the woman would still be at her prime. It is a breeding ground for sex related issues which may degenerate to other problems.
PREPARATION FOR THE EVENING OF LIFE WITH YOUR SPOUSE.
“Preparation for old age should begin not later than one’s teens. A life which is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled on retirement.” Dwight L. Moody
When are we supposed to start preparing for old age? When you are still young and capable of taking decisions that will affect your life in old age, not when you are already in the evening of life. By then you are already there and the repercussions of decisions or the life lived in early years are already catching up with you.
One major fact that we have noticed is that when talking about preparation for old age, those who are really supposed to learn how to prepare for old age are characteristically not interested in any talk about such preparation. For instance if you are talking to a couple in their thirties that they should pay attention to one another because they would need one another during old age, they would probably think that the period of old age is so far away to be relevant in their present activities. By the time most people start thinking about old age, it has already caught up with them. It is usually when your retirement beckons that you start thinking of old age, when it is mostly too late to prepare..
Be On The Same Spiritual Page With Your Spouse.
Your religious beliefs are very important in preparation for old age. This is due to the fact that you will need the spiritual angle to balance a lot of things during old age. There are many of us as pastors that does not really bother about he spiritual growth of our spouse. A spouse who is your prayer partner and believes in your God will be a source of fulfillment during old age, invest in your spouse now. Triumphs as well as challenges are are mutual if you are close, hence your spouse is the best prayer partner which you may ever have. You must deliberately cultivate this, if you want to have a fulfilling old age.
Joyful Anticipation.
Anticipating old old age, not as a death sentence but as a necessity of life. Everyone of us will get old, baring for accidents which may cut life short. If you pretend as if it won’t happen, it will catch you unawares, and that will be too bad as your indifference might have prevented you from taking certain steps which will enhance your quality of life then. As you prepare, think of the person that will be with you when it comes. It is no other person than your spouse. Consequently, you should discuss old age and what you would desire when it comes. When you anticipate with your spouse, it make it more fulfilling when it comes.
Forgive Offenses.
One of the most important requirements of quality marital relationship is forgiveness. It is is so important because you must offend one another. If the marital journey is such a long one, and you must offend one another, it follows that a good relationship that will still be standing during the evening of life, requires the readiness to forgive.
Inability to forgive brings bitterness and stress that doesn’t do any relationship good especially in the evening of life.
Bond, And Relate Well With Your Spouse.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen.2:24)
The scripture above states that you are expected to cleave or bond with your spouse. Bonding with your spouse will make you close enough to act as one and to be dependent on one another. It is important to know that if you don’t bond with your spouse while you are still young, it will be difficult to bond when you are old. If you relate well with your spouse, it will make your your companionship at old age to be fulfilling. .
Train Your Children.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Pro.22:6)
The effect of training your children will be felt during your old age than at any other time. There is a local proverb in my language that it is a child which you don’t build that will sell off the house that you built. It will be a fulfilling experience for you during old age for your children to be sources of joy to you. There are mainly three ways of training your children ie religious training, home training and academic training. The venue of religious training is mainly your place of worship as we allow our children to participate in Sunday school and practicing biblical truths at home for the children to learn from. For instance if you discourage telling lies and practice it without ambiguity at home, you will be training your children to live a honest life.
The venue of the second training is mainly your home as you make him to be involved in doing house chores, including cooking even for boys.
Academic training which is the third comes up in schools and through other informal sources of learning. There are many parents that out of love for their children, they prevent them from learning.
The three trainings are very important requires that you and your spouse should take joint decisions. If you don’t agree together in taking important decisions, the effect of such failure will be evident during your old age.
Reduce Liabilities.
One of the major ways of preparing for at stress free old age is by reducing liabilities. For instance, don’t go into businesses that will require you to obtain loans towards and during old age. One major reason for this is that your heart may not be able to withstand the pressure that comes when you fail to pay up loan. You may also reduce your dependants during old age. At that age, you have laboured over the years, you are supposed to be resting. If you have for instance helped to train someone while you were young, there is no point for you to start putting on yourself the burden of training the child of such a,person that you have trained. There are burdens that if you don’t reject, people will keep pilling on you except you reject it. You may often be easily carried away by what your heard, and consequently make decisions that will harm your well being if you are not taking decisions in consultation with your spouse.
Communicate.
Loneliness is one of the greatest problems during old age, as you prepare, learn to communicate or to enjoy communicating with your spouse. If you don’t learn to communicate appropriately with your spouse, there are misunderstandings that will erode the trust that your spouse has in you. This may create problems in the evening of life.
Deliberately Plan For Your Retirement.
It is difficult for many of us to realize that we shall retire one day. If you are self employed, though no one will retire you, you must realize that the strength you have now will not continue to be at that level. Consequently, you must deliberately plan when you are going to retire yourself and who will take over when you are too old to continue. Discuss with your spouse and take quality decisions.
One of the decisions which we made early enough, and for which I will eternally be grateful to God is that of deciding to call our children together when they were still in the university and ask them those that would like to take over our schools. Two of them showed interest, Damola a male and Dolapo a female. As soon as they finished their degree programs in the university, I asked them not to look for jobs, and created spaces for them in the schools. However, by the time Dolapo married and the husband got a job in Lagos, I asked her to forget about the school and follow her husband. Then I told Damola that by the time he got married, the wife must be in the school with him. That singular decision helped us not to be agitated about who was taking over, because they have already taken over. By the time the children got married and grandchildren started arriving, we did not have any problem traveling out of the country for prolonged periods of time because we are confident that Damola and the wife were already in charge.
Prior planning will definitely have an impact on the level of fulfillment that you will experience in retirement. Don’t frighten yourself about retirement or old age just because some people are not enjoying theirs. Plan to enjoy yours by avoiding the mistakes that those who are not enjoying theirs made.
There are a lot of issues that you need to decide upon early enough together with your spouse, even as a minister of God. Yes, you need to ask God, but if you are not prepared, you won’t even ask do so. Who takes over? Have you deliberately planned for succession in your business ministry? Think about what will happen if you go home before your spouse or vice versa., what about your will? Have you given it a thought?
CONCLUSION.
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (Gen.2:18).
Your spouse was given to you as a help for your life. The help that he or she is goes all the way to the evening of life. However, there a lot of things that you may do towards making sure that he or she remains your help even in the evening of life, so that your old age may be fulfilling. Even as a minister of God, you need to be mindful of those factors so that your old age may not be filled with loneliness and regrets.
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
