When I was a practising therapist, I was sometimes approached by individuals who didn’t want to see me about their own problems but simply wanted advice on how they could persuade partners to alter their behaviour. 

I had to tell them that the only person in the world you have any likelihood of changing is you – and even that’s not guaranteed. Far from it. 

I can understand people’s wish to get advice though. Persuading someone we love to make personal changes is fraught with difficulty. We can be perceived as bossy or controlling or just downright rude.

However, it’s not all bad news, sometimes the men and women in our lives are actually keener on changing their ways than we fear. 

I remember one couple who had quite a stormy marriage because the husband smoked, and the wife hated his habit.

She raised the topic one day, as she had done before, however, this time, much to her surprise, he agreed to try giving up, but only on condition that she made a change in her own behaviour – which was to offer, as he put it, “more action in the bedroom department”!

I won’t go into details. This is a family newspaper after all. But suffice to say the husband has not smoked in more than 20 years and they now appear to have an extremely happy relationship.  

If only all problems could be solved so amicably. 

A woman called Julia got in touch recently because of tension between her and her best friend.

This friend has a sister, who now lives with her, and Julia can no longer be sure of doing any of the usual things with her mate because the sister never seems to go out or have any life of her own. More than that, she complains about everything, and is snappy with anyone who comes to the house and seems to be pretty awful to Julia’s friend as well. 

Julia asked me if it would help if she took the sister aside and told her a few home truths. I had to say I didn’t recommend it. But it’s a tough one, isn’t it? 

I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where someone we care for has introduced other friends or a new partner into their lives which has not been good news for us. Often, after a while, everyone settles down and gets on with it. But sometimes life is never the same again and we end up seeing much less of the person we were once close to. 

After some discussion, Julia decided she would get her friend alone somehow, explain how she misses their friendship as it used to be, and ask if they can somehow meet without the sister in tow. I hope this improves the situation. But dealing with the dynamics of other people’s families can be a minefield.  

Last week, at a talk I gave on positive ageing a woman asked me what you can do if you go to an exercise class, feel much better for it, believe your husband would benefit if he came too, but he won’t discuss it.  

This is a common scenario. 

I told her a story about very old friends of mine who are in their eighties. 

The wife enrolled at the local gym and loved it. Soon she was going three days a week. She would have liked her husband to join her, but decided not to waste her breath by trying to cajole him.  

However, in his own time, and shortly after his 88th birthday, the husband opted to accompany her. Since then, he’s become a cross between a pet and a mascot for other gym users and is being spoiled rotten!  He’s getting fitter too. 

However, it’s not always men who are reluctant to step outside their comfort zone.   

A former colleague had always planned to travel once he stopped full-time work, but his partner is a homebody and only seems to want to focus on old friends in their neighbourhood or their children and grandchildren who live nearby.  

“She’s no longer the girl I met,” he confided to me. “She used to love holidays and new experiences. I think she may have lost confidence during Covid. I really want us to go on a trip to Tuscany to soak up the art and architecture. But she’s not interested.  

I sympathise with both parties here.

Sometimes we want to age in our own way, and it doesn’t always suit our nearest and dearest.

But in a spirit of compromise, I suggested that maybe going abroad is too big a step to start with and that instead perhaps my colleague could interest his partner in a short UK trip – somewhere with beautiful architecture such as Durham or Bath. 

Will this work? I don’t know. If it doesn’t, he’s going to have to decide whether or not to do stuff on his own while he still can. I don’t envy him this choice, or how to deal with any possible fall out.

But I do think people are entitled to adventures in their retirement, and need to have plans, projects and dreams if they want to stay young at heart.