Just wondering how other people handle the lifestyle change.
It wasn't really a problem. Spouse and I have similar backgrounds and we were used to following each other's careers. In fact each of us probably damaged our own careers by following each other's careers. Maybe the military does a better job with dual-career couples today. Maybe not.
In 1999 I was all set to retire in 2002, and her in 2003, when her assignment officer started coming up with "unrefusable offers". She ended up leaving active duty for the Reserves in 2001 and going "part time" for the next seven years. Her first week off, the state's school teachers went on strike for three weeks and she ended up in a neighbor hui keeping an eye on a half-dozen eight-year-olds. For that few weeks I felt kinda lucky to still be working.
Otherwise by the time I retired she'd already finished decompressing. She still had Reserve weekends and the occasional stint of active duty, but that tapered off over the years and she was more than ready to retire when the time came.
The one who's not working can probably earn a lot of brownie points by not sleeping in (too much), not hogging the bathroom in the mornings, and perhaps having dinner preps underway when the worker gets home. It's probably not a good idea to complain about the quality of the surfing, either. Otherwise we just renegotiated chores & schedules as necessary.
I'm also interested in how many people are or intend to use the postponement of social security for one half of the couple.
Our lifetime earnings records are within a few percent of each other, so it really doesn't make much difference. We'll probably both wait until 70-- her because of extreme family longevity, me because there's no urgent need for the money (nor for paying taxes on it) and I'm willing to try to hang around until payback.
But the decision point is still over a decade away.