Many of the clients I see are struggling with loss of identity after a career change or to find purpose after retirement. What we believed would be a new and better life often feels more challenging than anticipated. For many of us, work becomes much more than a way to make a living. It gives our days structure, provides goals to pursue and problems to solve, and introduces us to people who depend on us. It can give us a sense of competence and accomplishment, and over time it can become an important part of how we understand ourselves. When someone asks what we do, we often answer with our occupation almost without thinking. We may say that we’re a physician, a teacher, a business owner, an executive, a therapist, a contractor, or any of the many other roles through which we have spent years expressing our abilities. Eventually, that answer to What do you do? can become intertwined with the answer to a much deeper question: Who are you?
So what happens when that answer changes?
Maybe you retire., you lose a job or change careers. Perhaps the business you built for decades is no longer what it once was. Or maybe technology is changing your profession so quickly that you’re no longer sure where you fit. Sometimes nothing dramatic has happened at all. You simply wake up one morning and realize that the work that once gave your life direction no longer does.
These transitions can be surprisingly unsettling. And sometimes the effects show up first in our relationships.
When the familiar structure disappears
Work provides an enormous amount of structure to adult life. It tells us where we’re supposed to be, what we’re supposed to accomplish, and often what we’re supposed to care about. It gives us a rhythm and a community. It can provide recognition and, perhaps most importantly, a feeling that we matter.
When that structure disappears, we may experience a loss that is much bigger than the loss of a paycheck.
We may begin asking ourselves: What am I supposed to do now? What am I good for? Where do I belong? Who am I if I’m no longer doing the thing I’ve spent my life doing?
These questions can be especially difficult when a person’s partner has grown accustomed to the old version of life, too.
One person retires and expects freedom and adventure, while the other suddenly feels as though their home has been invaded. One partner loses a career they loved and becomes withdrawn or irritable, while the other interprets that withdrawal as disinterest in the relationship. Someone who once felt confident and capable at work begins struggling with self-doubt, and that insecurity follows them home.
Couples may find themselves arguing about schedules, money, household responsibilities, sex, or how time should be spent. But underneath those arguments may be something more vulnerable: I don’t know who I am anymore.
The person experiencing the change may feel lost or ashamed. Their partner may simply see someone who has become distant, restless, angry, or unmotivated. Neither may realize that they are both trying to adjust to a profound change in identity.
This is one reason major life transitions can place so much pressure on a relationship. The couple isn’t simply trying to figure out what to do next. They are trying to figure out who they are now.
We can mistake a role for an identity
There is nothing wrong with taking pride in our work. Meaningful work can be one of the great sources of satisfaction in life. The difficulty comes when our role becomes the container for our entire sense of worth.
If I have come to believe that I am what I accomplish, then losing the opportunity to accomplish in the same way can feel like losing myself.
And if my partner is going through that experience, I may not understand what is happening. I may encourage them to find something to do, get back to work, develop a hobby, or simply “move on.” Those suggestions may be well-intentioned, but they can miss the deeper struggle.
Sometimes what a person needs first is not a solution. They need someone who understands that something important has been lost and that they are still trying to discover what comes next.
Purpose doesn’t have to come from a job
One of the most useful distinctions we can make is between employment and contribution. They are not the same thing.
Employment is one way we contribute, but it isn’t the only way. We can mentor someone younger, care for grandchildren, volunteer, create something, become more present to our friendships, help a neighbor, or learn something we’ve always wanted to learn. We can make music, build something, tend a garden, coach a team, participate in our community, or become the person who brings people together. Contribution can be large or small. What matters is the experience of having something to give.
Psychologists sometimes use the word generativity to describe this movement outward—the desire to use what we have learned and experienced in ways that contribute to the lives of others. It can become particularly important during periods when an old identity is falling away.
Instead of asking only, What am I supposed to do? we can begin asking a different question:
What is mine to give?
That question can open possibilities that weren’t visible when we were focused only on our job or our former role.
What about AI?
Artificial intelligence is making these questions more urgent for many people.
For younger adults, AI may create uncertainty about careers they have spent years preparing to enter. For people further along in their careers, it can raise questions about whether the expertise that once defined their value will continue to be needed in the same way.
But the deeper psychological issue isn’t really about technology. It is about identity.
If my sense of worth depends upon being exceptionally good at something that a machine can now do, I may experience technological change as a threat to me, not simply to my job.
The challenge is to remember that human worth has never depended entirely upon productivity. Our capacity to love, connect, care, imagine, encourage, create meaning, and participate in the lives of other people is not contained in a job description.
The same is true when the change comes through retirement, illness, a career transition, or any other circumstance that causes us to question a role that once seemed central to who we were.
What can couples do during a transition?
If you or your partner is going through a major change in work or identity, it can help to resist the temptation to solve everything immediately.
Instead, become curious about what the change means to the person you love.
You might ask:
- What has this change meant to you?
- What do you miss about the life you had?
- What are you afraid of losing?
- What parts of yourself are still there, even though your role has changed?
- What have you always wanted to explore but never had time for?
- Where do you still feel useful, connected, or alive?
- How can we create a next chapter together rather than simply trying to return to the old one?
And then listen. Not to fix. Not to reassure. Not to convince your partner that everything will be fine. Listen for the person underneath the problem.
When someone is struggling with identity, “You should find something to do” rarely feels helpful. What they may need is the experience of being understood by the person who matters most to them. Do they really understand the loss of identity you’re feeling after retirement or career change?
A new chapter doesn’t mean starting over
Transitions can be frightening because they often involve letting go of a version of ourselves that worked for a long time. But letting go of a role doesn’t mean letting go of everything that role developed in us.
The experiences we have had, the relationships we have formed, the things we have learned, and the qualities we have developed through our work all become part of the person we bring into whatever comes next. A career may have been one important expression of who we are without ever being the whole of who we are.
That realization can be particularly important for couples. When one person’s familiar role begins to change, both partners may need time to adjust to the person who is emerging. Rather than trying to recreate the life they had before, they may have an opportunity to become curious about what this next chapter could look like for each of them—and for their relationship.
Sometimes the work of a new chapter isn’t figuring out what job comes next. It is discovering what kind of person we want to be now, what kind of relationship we want to have, and what we still have to offer the people around us.
That process can be uncomfortable, particularly when the old answers about who we are no longer seem to work. But it can also open something new. When the structure that once defined us begins to loosen, we may have an opportunity to discover that our identity is larger than the role we have been playing.
I’m Michael W. Regier, Ph.D. I provide Emotionally Focused and Psychospiritual therapy. For 40+ years I’ve helped individuals and couples learn how to love self, others and the divine within each of us. Along with my wife Paula, I’ve co-authored Emotional Connection: The Story & Science of Preventing Conflict & Creating Lifetime Love and Relationship Foundations online course.