Q: My husband and I just retired a couple of years ago and even though I’m only in my late-50′s I have started worrying about getting older, my health, and his death; he’s 7 years older than I am and both of us are morbidly obese. We moved to this neighborhood when we retired and I don’t really have any friends here, since I don’t work anymore my work friends are gone and I’ve never had any children of my own. While I have excellent relationships with his sons, they’re not close/parental ones as they were grown when we married and their mother is still alive and in the area too. I don’t know whether to work on health, lifestyle (how to make friends?) or my fears. I just started graduate school and I’m afraid I’ll just do schoolwork like I have the last 5+ years and try to ignore all problems.

A: If you don’t already have a therapist, I would suggest getting one. All the goals you mentioned are worthy and important. You can work on them all if you learn to prioritize and break things down into smaller pieces. Making new friends is always great but keeping in touch with old friends is just as important. Just because you don’t see them at work and have moved, doesn’t mean they stopped being your friends. Nurture those relationships so they will see you through tough times. Start working on your health today, not tomorrow! If you aren’t around, nothing else matters. Consider finding a personal trainer and/or life coach to help you with this. Not only do they specialize in this stuff but it helps when someone else holds you accountable. Lastly, it is quite normal to start having death anxiety as well as thoughts like “what is the meaning of it all?” after a major life change like retirement. Talk about it, read about it, embrace it and then you don’t have to be afraid of it. Hope this helps. Good luck.

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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 3 Jun 2007