Two women, one in her 70s and another in her 60s, have publicly described a profound loss of identity and purpose after decades of professional and domestic life, according to separate accounts published in Argentine media. The first, reported by Radio Mitre, recounts how a woman who retired after more than forty years of work discovered that her job had provided not only income but also structure, purpose and a social role. “I thought retirement would give me a feeling of freedom, but it turns out that all those years I had been holding something else up, and now there is nothing left to keep it in place,” she is quoted as saying. The second, carried by Clarín, details a sexagenarian’s feeling of becoming “invisible” within her long marriage, a realisation crystallised when her husband repeated her own remark at a dinner and received the recognition she had been denied. She described a gradual erosion so subtle that she did not notice it, leaving her caught between staying to preserve peace and leaving to “destroy everything,” with neither option feeling like an easy loss.

Mental health specialists cited by Radio Mitre note that such experiences are frequent: retirement demands not merely filling free hours but redefining one’s identity, objectives and social role. The Clarín account adds that psychologists explain how monotony, without daily rituals of deep connection, can extinguish desire and leave both partners emotionally stagnant. Viewed from Buenos Aires, these testimonies challenge the societal idealisation of long marriages and stable careers as unqualified triumphs.

Generational attitudes toward work, analysed in a separate Los Andes article, provide context. Baby Boomers, raised in the 1960s and 1970s, were socialised to see dedication, permanence and constant effort as the natural path to progress; working extra hours was interpreted as responsibility, not imbalance. This cohort, now entering retirement, may be particularly vulnerable to the void described in the personal accounts. Meanwhile, an article in Iran’s Hamshahri Online underscores a parallel financial dimension: sudden layoffs, even of specialised staff, have become a reality, prompting financial experts to argue that true security now lies in multiple income streams rather than a single job. The piece recounts a worker who, after four years of successful projects, was dismissed via a single human-resources message with no meeting or explanation.

The dossier remains one of individual testimony and expert commentary rather than policy response. No legislative or institutional steps are identified in the source material. The accounts, however, illuminate a quiet crisis of meaning among older adults whose identities were built around work and marital roles, at a time when both pillars are proving less stable than once assumed.