Three single women in their 70s. All have lived alone for several years—one never married, the other two are widowed. All are in relatively good health. Each is financially comfortable. Yet the three have vastly different expectations about when they want to leave their homes.

One of the most emotionally charged things we face is deciding how we wish to spend our last years, when we have a choice on the matter. The question comes down to with whom, where and for how long. It’s tough to leave what you know for the unknown. And eldercare communities can be the great unknown. Leaving what we know is most difficult when the focus becomes what we are giving up, but every once in a while clients make the decision because they are thinking about what they will gain.

All three of the women in this story are social, yet they also value their privacy. Let’s first focus on the one who actively chose to make the decision to leave her home.

When her husband died, she was able to get many of her social needs met through activities in which she had been involved. She was still physically active and enjoyed regular bike rides. Her adult children were out of town, but they would often come back to visit and the house served as a nice place to congregate.

But this client believes in planning. While she always hired out the maintenance and services for her home, there were little things going on for which she had to call for help. She also was thinking about how she wanted to build community while she was in a position to do so.

She visited several types of facilities: independent living (which means basically living on your own in an age-restricted community); assisted living (it was too early for her to consider this because it is usually for those who require help with some everyday activities); and continuous care communities (campuses where you may start independently but graduate to assisted living or skilled nursing as your needs increase). We settled on a continuous care community where this client could initially live independently. Since there was not a rush for her to move, she put her name on a waiting list and chose to pass until a unit came up that met her criteria. Surprisingly, this happened several months earlier than we had anticipated.

Change is rarely easy, and it is more difficult when the change is a clear signal of an important ending. This move marked the end of the middle of the client’s life and was an acknowledgment of an eventual end. I am not trying to be dramatic, but when clients start to give up things—homes, driving, travel—it is a signal of mortality. Even though our client was going to be living independently, she was still in a community where she would be facing the gradual decline of her capabilities, surrounded by others experiencing the same. The key benefit, though, was this shared experience.

After an adjustment period, she found herself immersed in a community that allowed her to be as social or as private as she wanted. She had friends with whom she could eat, bike and play cards, or she could instead quietly sit alone out on her patio. She watched others experience the death of a spouse and could call on her own experiences as a way to support them. As in any community, there were certain people with whom she did not get along, but rather than focus on them, she paid attention to those whom she felt connected to.

When factoring in the ongoing cost of repairs and services at her home, the financial costs of the change were far less than what she anticipated. While she is not necessarily aging in place, she is certainly aging in proximity—if she has to move to assisted living, she will have friends already there.

Some clients, it’s true, have had a more challenging time moving into continuous care communities, but some of that challenge was the fight they put up in the first place. By waiting until they had to move, their transition was more difficult. Even though they could pick where they were living, they couldn’t pick when, so at some level they took out their frustrations about aging on the facility itself.

Our next client didn’t want to move, but also didn’t want to be ill-prepared if she were forced to. She had grown up in another state, and thought she would move back to it to be near family (she still had a cousin there). Her mother had done something similar when it was time to leave her house.

When we asked this client about her mother’s experience, however, she recalled that after returning to be close to family, her mother ended up spending very little time with them. It would most likely be the same for our client if she moved back home.

So we focused on the people in her life and her current spot—the support network she already had around her. Regardless of where she chose to be, we concluded, she would have to develop new networks and social contacts. It would be easier to do, and easier to stay connected with her friends, if she stayed in the area. If she moved back home and lived near her cousin, on the other hand, there was no guarantee she’d have a social network. She also had other connections in her current city that were important—the professionals she saw, the church she belonged to, and the communities she was engaged in.

Once we decided that it made more sense for her to stay in state (regardless of the actual residence), we could discuss when she would leave. The challenge with assisted living is that many people want to enter a community right at the moment they are no longer able to live independently in their existing home. This doesn’t work with facilities that have waiting lists or if something happens forcing you to take action earlier than you expected. Our client waited to move, but chose the facility she was interested in and decided when to go on its waiting list.

Our third client in this story had no children in state and zero desire to leave her current situation. When we finally got her to look at places that could be a fit, she chose one that had wonderful amenities but would cost more in both a down payment and monthly rent than she reasonably could afford. We went through the numbers with her. We asked her if she wanted to be in a place where she could not afford to participate in the same activities her new friends did. It is not easy being the poorest person in the facility.

Her children are rightfully concerned about what responsibilities may fall on their shoulders. While they love and support their mother, they live in other places all over the world. It wasn’t a burden for them to take their mother in, but she’s proud and would not consider it.

The good news is that because of demographics, more places will be opening up, and she may find an affordable one that will work for her. But she is gambling that she will stay healthy enough to make the choice on her own terms. The stakes are high and her avoidance is a game she doesn’t need to be playing.

Some Things To Consider

When counseling clients on this stage of life, here are some considerations:

Transitions are always hard. It really doesn’t matter if it is a good or a bad transition—changes are difficult. Transitions start with an ending, have an indeterminable middle, and only then a new beginning. Regardless of what we are leaving, endings are rarely easy. We have developed rituals or habits that will need to change. We become habituated or comfortable with where we are. We enter an unknown. While endings are difficult, the middles are often worse. This is where we have either made or been forced into a decision and we are trying to sort out how this new world agrees with our old one. As we work through what we are giving up and what we are getting, we are at least momentarily grieving for what is behind us and nervous about what is ahead. And many times, especially when we are forced out of something—a marriage, a job, a home—we are not looking forward to what’s next as we try to understand the now.

Acceptance of aging is difficult. While we gain wisdom as we age, we also come to grips with loss. People in our lives pass away, we are no longer able to physically do what we did before, our children are less reliant on us, and replacing meaningful work is challenging. As we continue to age, rites of passage go from buying our first home to leaving our last, from getting our driver’s licenses to giving them up, and from having a whole life ahead of us to more that is left behind us. Our 50s and 60s may mean the death of our mentors, but the 70s and 80s inevitably mean the death of our closest friends and loved ones. While fighting it is not possible, acceptance is uneasy.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. It is hard to imagine what things like community living can be when you have been able to call your own shots. While you may cook in your new facility, many of your peers may be on meal plans. In fact, one of the biggest issues with the elderly is that they don’t eat; meal plans often are an antidote for this because if residents pay for it, they gosh darn better use it.

A mistake seems severe. There is not a guarantee that the place you choose will be one in which you are going to be comfortable, but unless there are safety issues, that is more your own issue than that of the facility. I have had two different clients in the same place, one who is looking for what is right about it and the other looking for what is wrong. Guess who is happier there.

There are also reasons this stage of life can be wonderful:

You don’t have to worry about all the extras that homeownership involves. Picking up the phone is generally easier than picking up the screwdriver. While some people may miss the work involved in home upkeep, some of those skills could be used in helping others or volunteering. A parent of one of our clients is in his 80s and making cabinets for friends. While he doesn’t live independently, he replaced his tinkering around with his craftsmanship. If his customers are willing to be patient, very patient, they will end up with high quality work from someone who is grateful to be doing it.

You don’t have to be lonely. Rest assured, any communal living involves a lot of different types of people, but if you work at it, you are likely to find some with whom you can form friendships. Since this is a stage of life where we are often losing friends, being able to develop new ones reduces our loneliness and relieves the pressure that our children may feel to occupy us. And it can be therapeutic to walk with others experiencing life’s stages as you are.

You don’t have to worry if something happens. Caretakers are on call, ready to assist should you fall or have a health issue. Especially when you’re living alone, having a more reliable source of help is a tremendous benefit. The first woman in our story had an agreement with the woman across the hall that each would text the other every morning to confirm she was safe.

Less is often more. Rather than focusing on what you no longer have, enjoying less can be therapeutic. Simplicity can be underrated.

In our firm, we have someone responsible for visiting and monitoring facilities so that when clients are trying to understand their options we can help increase the likelihood of fit. Working with clients through this has been one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of my career.

Ross Levin, CFP, is the founder and chief executive officer of Accredited Investors in Edina, Minn. He can be reached at [email protected]