All Comments on 'Never Too Old Pt. 01'

Well written (apart from using too instead of to).

However, this non marriage was doomed as soon as he didn't tell his wife what happened and why he chose early retirement. That is the kind of thing you tell her the minute you walk in the door. Then his medical issue - again something you tell your life partner and best friend. So my conclusion is that they should divorce because they don't have a real loving partnership anyway. Mostly on his shoulders it seems. For her part she could have given a compromise of taking more time off to travel. She didn't need to quit her job and she could have explained her thoughts. Maybe if he had been honest at first this would be an entirety different story. Still 4 stars

Brilliant start.

5/5

Happens to many men. They become redundant in their 50s.

Don't go down the usual path of sex with the young guy.

This could be a great story.

Keep it up.

It's not even a good marriage.

They don't share anything. Communication, trust, support.....

Add adultery and there's nothing left to save.

Divorce and everyone goes their separate ways, as they do now.

Obviously not just me thinking.....that's me.

It's selfish of him to expect his wife to sell her dream, immature of him to not tell his wife he'd been made redundant.

In the UK its supposed to be illegal to make people redundant in these circumstances, over here, they sack the experience, and take on apprentice grades, doing to same work.

Happens; not only what but why. Well crafted.

Excellent start to the story. Her feelings - "am I going to want to be with my spouse 24/7 post-retirement" are probably quite common. Small doses, indeed! If he doesn't already have other activities in his life besides work, he's probably a pretty boring partner.

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As others have mentioned, the issues come primarily from his end and his inexplicable lack of communication on every front. Still, she *owns* the reality firm. Why can't she take a few weeks off here and there to travel with her husband? That should keep him going, and poor she can just put up with the awful burden of spending a couple of weeks driving around New Zealand, or in Botswana on a safari, or snorkeling and soaking up the sun on the beaches of Mauritius, or other horrors such as those.

Well ...

I sure hope there aren't many marriages like this one.

Both of them seem to have had better relationship

with customers and workmates than each other.

It's hard to find anything interesting in these persons

or their relationship.

So why write about it?

2 out of 5 from me.

Nice start and well done.

Good stories exist because of character flaws, not their perfections. Conflict is essential to any story and you have outlined a good one. Unlike Someonetwothree, I know people like this and it is a very real problem in our graying population.

I haven't read this yet...I will but you need to explain "Mills and Boon"? What is that?

Pride and lack of communications has doomed many a relationship.

These two idiots will not make it in the long haul.

a bit of a long setup, l started skimming the prose after the first page. Less Hemmingway, more Lee Child please

Awesome story. I gave 5 stars and selected it as a favorite. Well written and really excellent character and plot development. One criticism though, and I've learned this lesson myself with some of my submissions.....You would probably get highers scores if you had written it in one go versus separate parts. Just at the point where the story was getting very interesting, you abruptly ended part 1. Since it's only 2 pages, the highly critical LW readers may take umbrage. They tend to take these things personally, though I don't know why. I'm very much looking forward to part 2. And since you write well, I'm looking forward to more stories from you. Please don't make us wait too long for part 2. Good job!

I wasn’t looking to read a story about someone’s problems. A lot of words about nothing in particular.

Nice start. I advise you to beware of overused tropes. Since you have chosen to tell an "American Story" it's a Camaro in the outhouse, BTW, while an outhouse IS an outbuilding, very few outbuildings are outhouses i.e. an outdoor Sir John Crapper!

I am intrigued though with where you going and await chapter 2.

I can’t blame her for her actions because she doesn’t know what’s going on.

He lied to her and rather than confessing, he doubled down and blamed her for his failures. They could have compromised but that was never an option because it was all or nothing for him. Either she gives up everything for him or he’ll be miserable. And honestly, he was always going to be miserable.

Both are at fault, he for not telling her that he was forced to retire and his medical condition... She is self absorbed, don't see that something is wrong with him, she is chirpy and doesn't even notice that he stoped talking about what he is doing, he became sloppy, is always in bad mood and doesn't wanna do anything, that's oblivious sings of depression but she doesn't even notice/care

Something that’s noteworthy is all this is on the husband. If he loved her, saw her as his best friend, then he would have talked with her about all this without a second thought. He didn’t, and doesn’t, so everything that unfolds is all on him…not her.

Depressingly written, purposefully.

I didn't bother reading it based on the comments. Therefore, I didn't score it either. Based on those comments I think you're going to be disappointed in the end.

Just a ho hum beginning and quite boring. both parties are selfish as it is all about them.

Just like the rest of your tales. Loser husbands and entitled wives who are self-consumed. 7 stories and 58 followers. Mediocre story tellers on this site have 4-5 times that after 4-5 stories. Time for you and wifey to find a new hobby!

A very realistic portrayal of a couple. The husband does NOT communicate with his wife and simply expects her to follow what HE says. Yes, earlier in their lives the marriage was a partnership but remember, he is 8 years older than her. When he was "forced" to retire at least 7 years earlier than what is often considered the normal retirement age of 65, the wife still had almost 15 years to go. But sadly, dickhead never shared the information with her re early retirement or redundancy. Such an important decisions should have been shared.

Yes, it's shocking to feel unwanted but if he had discussed things correctly with his wife, they could have worked something out about him doing something else, work wise, for about 8-10 years, until they they were both of a real age to actually retire. For her, retirement at age 50 is ridiculous. I was fortunate enough to earn enough funds that I retired at age 52 but sadly, I no longer had a partner.

But I just kept on being a Sharemarket investor but took part-time work to keep busy. (My market research took about 30 minutes a day and I continued making 6 figures with that) That husband still kept things to himself re his health and his ED. Why? Pride/Ego? Ridiculous.

An umpteenth femdom men-hater fetish cuck fantasy. Nothing new here.

Like other readers, the plot will be younger lover and husband out. Communication.

Not wanting to rate this story until part 2, bit leaning to dislike more then favorable

2•• but could change

Thanks for the story

So, a retarded husband doesn't communicate with his wife, and she becomes apathetic and takes a lover. Mayhem ensues. Too much exposition, and not enough dialogue between the two to develop a connection to the characters. If i don't feel a connection between husband and wife, then why should i care when their marriage turns to shit?

Might have been a good story if you had posted it in one piece instead of creating a soap opera with several chapters.

This story is

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L

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Communication communication communication

Each of the texts of this typist have been barely coherent, and always from that big bucket of mental illness.

This story is impossible to read. It violates the first rule of fiction, "Show, Don't Tell." Time and again, we read a paragraph that TELLS us what happened, what was discussed, how someone felt or reacted, or how events affected the characters. The reader doesn't want to hear about it secondhand. Let us SEE those scenes. Writing, especially fiction, is about sharing a vision, literally and figuratively. Also, where's the dialogue? Writing fiction without any meaningful dialogue is like cooking without water: you get dry, hard, and tasteless.

Come on chaps! The story is setting up a scenario that might, and should be, quite good,

Problem is of course that it cut off far too early before it drew you in . Let’s see where it goes from here .

Being retired for many years, and doing so as my wife continued to work, I find this story bogus. Your character intros were long and boring. These couples were domed long before his retirement. I can't imagine the story having a second part, it has no where to go.

In spite of your other submissions, I’m not looking forward to this continuation. This male protagonist does not seem to have the willingness to deal with the new challenges in his life, and he is ostracizing the one person who is supposed to be able to help him formulate the motivations to change.

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He is stagnant. Stuck. Worse than being in a rut, because he has hidden his ‘failures’ from her. Privately he will soon be blaming her (if he isn’t already) for not figuring out that his retirement was not voluntary: “If she really cared, she would figure it out without my telling her.” Right. And if HE really cared, he would share with her what he is actually dealing with.

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I must say though, my previous paragraph contained more dialogue—entirely theoretical, mind you—than your first chapter posting. It was one of the most boring first installments I’ve ever read on Literotica. By being dialogue-free, your tale convinced me 1) I wouldn’t miss anything important by skimming 2) you might have forgotten how to tell a good story and 3) since it’s’only’ the introduction, you felt that mailing it in was justified. (That’s American for ‘not giving a good effort’.)

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Your past history in storytelling is good IMO. I’ll look for ch 2 hoping it’s a return to good entertainment, but if it’s too depressing I’ll quit after that one.

I’m sorry. Very silly of me. My previous comment referenced your storytelling history, but I made a mistake and thought you were a different author. One that I read a little while ago.

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Not trying to say anything negative about your storytelling, just that I apologize for not having read enough to formulate a valid opinion.

As many have alluded to in their comments; the husband, to put it bluntly is a bit of a “dick Head”. They were supposedly in a loving caring relationships, a partnership if you will, so what does hubby do with the most important information he has had for years…he lies to his wife and conceals the details of how he left his employment. He then takes his bat and ball home when the wife doesn’t want to sell up and take early retirement as well.

He then compounds his deceit by not telling his wife about his medical problems!!!!

Why didn’t he get a job once he was “finished”, they were obviously reasonably well off so he need something that would fulfil his social need, volunteering at a charity would have been an ideal solution.

But no! Our intrepid hero hits the bottle, becomes a Bum and withdraws from normality. He now obviously has mental problems to add to his woes.

Not sure how the author intends going with this but with the wife now “interested” in a younger man, one can only assume that things will get a great deal worse before they get better, even if that were possible.

Well written. I hope she pull her head out of her ass before she loses George completely i If she hasn't lost him already.

I’m sorry for the low score it just feels to real and it’s fairly obvious where this is going

This is such a good concept/premise and these characters are such good, realistic people, it breaks my heart to have to say that so far this story reads like a newspaper article about problems in retirement. Why TELL us so much when you should be SHOWING us these events and actual conversations? Let us readers witness these sad conversations as actual dialog. Let us witness each of these tragic character’s frustrations and resentments through their behaviors and conversations instead of reporting to us that they are frustrated. A great story SHOWS the events, a poor story TELLS us the events happened. I am hopeful for such improvements as the next parts are released.

Meh, two stars for trying! Man's foolish pride is not a great new discovery! Nor is the woman's search for a younger vibrant male to switch partners with! No wonder your W likes to read your stories; they show how pathetic husbands can be, so the wives can feel superior! I'm not sure I want to read part 2. Good luck to try ti turn it around. Give the bitch some hell! Please!

Been the early retiree while the wife wants to work on.

The author makes some valid points so far.

That was an incredibly boring exercise. Kinda like reading the phone book.

This set up chapter could have been adequately handled in 3-4 paragraphs. I might stick around for one more chapter, but things better pick up quickly

To much development of the characters

Not much happened. It was very boring.

Never too old to cheat. This marriage is done.

Find another hobby...this is complete trash. Jackie is a narcissistic selfish bitch. You've tegraphed that she will cheat...and George is a weak ass wimp.

Mediocre plot, dreadful story telling technique. Its a book report, not the illustration of action and events. Better luck with future efforts.

It’s moot not mute and tarp not taupe. What a whinger.

Well going off the comments dont post anymore!

Finding the story interesting so far, but some of the comments.

Yes, the lack of communication is a major part of this story so far, it easy to see where it’s going but one thing everyone’s painting over and sadly this is so often something that happens in real life.

The guys suffering from depression, it started by being key go from a job he lived, the feeling of not being valued, not important.

Then, has I’ve seen happen with colleagues, he found retirement alone wasn’t the dream he thought, endless days of nothing but solitude.

Like women, men also enjoy the social interaction of colleagues and for a lot of us / make snd female - a great number of our friendships are with people we work with. And sadly once we leave that job, willingly or otherwise those relationships often end.

The number of former colleagues of mine who have either died or went downhill(aged quicker) once the retired is significant especially for those who were single. I believe it’s the solitude and sudden emptiness that does that.

Those married often do better has, like my parent, they head off on adventures they always wanted but could never do due to work/family.

So his depression started when he was let go, his wife’s reluctance to join him (he should have spoke to her before deciding true) and the discovery retirement wasn’t an adventure but some sort of ‘limbo’ helped it and the depression grew.

If you’ve ever had depression you’d have a little more sympathy, it’s not just sitting feeling sorry for yourself, not even close and the loss of his libido was part of that depression - has the author said - it was made worse by drugs for the heart problem and again he should have talked to the wife, though in truth there’s some initial sympathy before like most people they get impatient and start telling him to cheer up and pull himself together (my own experience). My partner who was a nurse simply said ‘I’m too busy to sit around feeling sorry for myself’.

Mental health is a spiralling problem and although there’s support their it’s underfunded and aimed more to children and women despite men making up the largest suicide figure. Society expects me to deal with their own problems and ‘man up’, like this tale where despite him going down hill and changing so much in his character nether the wife or daughter take time to actually try avd find out the root of the problem instead consider he’s simply ‘sulking’

So, he’s been an ass and needs help but hasn’t asked but the wife’s self absorbed and doesn’t want anything interfering in her dream life so leaves him to it. An affair is on the cards that’s obvious, will he get any help for his spiralling depression or become another suicide stat. Probably not the latter has it wet not make good reading - just don’t have him ‘suddenly’ throw off the depression miraculously and come to rescue the wife who’s made a ‘mistake’. Interestingly we will find although she couldn’t find any time around her busy work life for her husband she’s going to find time for an affair?-odd that.

The old old story LACK of communication Looking fwd (I think) to part 2 BUT i am sure i will NOT like it (jaybee186)

AUTHOR... the fact that your wife has to tell you that people are complicated and maybe you should make your character more than one dimensional explain to why so far every one of your stories has sucked loose balls and has gotten unbelievably low scores. You are a bad writer. You're really bad. You should stop

This story is ridiculous in every possible way. First why would they husband not tell his wife that his company had downsized him? It's very common and happens all the time in the United States and most other Western countries. The fact that the husband decides to lie about what happened at work is just contrived. There's no reason for it. And it doesn't make sense within the story.

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Second why would the husband not tell his wife that he has a heart issue? Sure it may not be serious but why hide it? Again forced and contrived and it makes no sense to have the husband hide this fact.

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Finally the fact that your wife Sandy has to tell you the characters can be complicated and stories can have multifaceted aspects to them is something you should have figured out in 10th Grade. This beyond anything else explained why you are bad author and your stories are ridiculous

PLease say that there is another part to this! I know it reads Part 1 and the part abruptly ends like it was missing a page or two. My favorite Authors short stories are 17 pages long. Some 27 to 37 pages. I guess I'm just not used to it after reading tens of thousands of Novels and Editing as many. Still nicely put together so far! 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'s.

The thing about depression is you bottle it up until it’s starts eating you from the inside you start cutting yourself limit you interactions with friends family and most importantly your partner the husband has to reach out or it will get out of control. More men over the age of 50 attempt suicide than any other group I know because I was one of them, the fact that wife hasn’t noticed and just thinks he’s being lazy show just how little she knows her husband.

did she talk to her husband about the separation or just the mother?

What purpose does this story have here?

If I had not found a relatively menial part time job a few months after taking early retirement while the wife wanted to carry on working, I have little doubt that some of the events described so far could have been reality.

People who have been married for decades simply don't behave like this. The entire set and premise of the story is woefully portrayed.

People in long term marriages will have learnt to communicate with each other, even non verbally, and would have discussed problems such as redundancy and ed. I have never met a person as prideful or dimwitted as the husband here.

If this couple really existed they would have divorced years ago.

It is painful to read a realistic story of a couple falling out of love. Perhaps too much narrative instead of more dialog and the main problem is pride and a massive failure to communicate for both the husband and wife. Like, how are these two still together with how poor they are at communicating?

Uther than all the other things already mentioned a person that inherited and loved a Camaro would definitely know how to spell it! I agree with the majority of the other comments about the husband not being realistic in this story so far.

People in longterm marriages DO, in fact, behave like this. I've seen it many times with friends and lived thru something of the sort myself. People in longterm relationships don't always learn to communicate effectively--in fact, often communication becomes a wall because of the fear of a response either real or imagined creates that. So this is very realistic, it's painful, and it's the way far too many folks live their lives. Sometimes it causes divorce, but as I've seen and experienced firsthand, usually it just becomes 'quiet desperation' on both partners. So sad.

Another unfinished story. When do they finally get together and be honest with each other?

I think you pushed a few too many details into the setup. I get where the story is going and look forward to getting a few more details Right now, and I do plan to read it all, i'll give it three stars with great expectations for real drama to flare up.

Thanks

I can totally relate. Being in construction has it down sides. Bad economy being the biggest in the early 90's. I was 3 different jobs at once just to do what I felt like was my duty to the family. No appreciation from my wife, or help with the yard work, that I still had to do. and, then came the day when she suggested I go back to school & learn a different trade, like a software engineering. I had investing 20 years in the my trade, & had no intentions of going back to school at my age, and take a chance I would get hired. We did everything in this story, except have an affair, at least on my part, and eventually divorced in '95. I left the state, and never looked back. Well, sort of. Retired at 62, and moved to Las Vegas, for the second time, and LOVE IT, & being single in a 55 and over community, w/plenty of lonely rich divorcees and widows.