Being able to afford to stop working and enjoy retirement is something many of us daydream about while we’re in the office. But more and more people are deciding to return to work after having decided to retire – and become “unretirees”.

Some find they are bored; some need the extra money as the cost of living carries on rising; some discover a new passion which they turn into a new career. Yet, not everyone who goes back to work gets the sense of fulfillment they are looking for.

So, is this the age of unretirement? Two writers who have tried unretirement, and , give their perspectives.

In January 2016, I ended my 20-year career in the tech industry. The day of my departure went entirely unmarked by the company. My husband – affectionately referred to as “The American” – simply messaged: “Is it done?”

Though successful at my job, it severely affected my mental health and wellbeing. I regularly worked 60-hour weeks, and was away from home multiple times a year. Working for global companies with US management meant I worked on both UK and US time, which impacted my family, my diet and my sleep.

More than anyone else, The American was aware of this. As a result, we spent the 12 months leading up to my “retirement” scrutinising spreadsheets to see if we could afford for me to permanently quit. We worked out we could get by on one salary if we made some compromises on luxuries like holidays and eating out. I was 42.

A decade into my 20-year career I entered therapy for the first time. It wasn’t until much later that a psychologist suggested that my job was a significant contributing factor to my diagnosis of complex PTSD.

Therapy is centred around the notion of self – we can change ourselves, but not others. This can feel hugely empowering, but it can also feel like a trap. So, when I entered therapy looking to deal with my existing trauma, I was completely oblivious as to how my work environment was creating more.

So it took a while to recover. I did all the things that help with burnout: I exercised, improved my diet, spent time outdoors and with my kids. And I was happy doing what retirees do: spending more time with my family, learning a new skill and volunteering. Like many women I speak to with burnout, whilst the relief was instantaneous, it took months for my body to catch up to start sleeping properly, to not class everything as urgent, to stop feeling guilty for not being productive.

Yet, I still had an itch to do something. Shortly after retiring, I enrolled on a counselling course. At the time, there was no strategy to retrain, just a desire to reconnect with learning. In parallel, I volunteered as a mentor at Google. Working with female founders helped me understand the importance of integrating the personal and professional.

A few months after I retired, Brexit happened and a few years after that, Covid-19 struck, and our income was impacted. This led to the realisation that being able to afford to quit working indefinitely is not the same as being able to afford to retire.

And at the same time I started to realise that I didn’t only go to work for financial gain. I realised that there was something beneficial in the structure of a working day. That I missed the serendipitous conversations over a Diet Coke. I missed the resilience I felt after overcoming a challenge, or finding a solution to a problem. Ultimately, I missed being with people.

And having been diagnosed with ADHD in the last couple of years, I now understand why for me routine and structure are not just nice-to-haves, but non-negotiables.

So, in 2021, five years after I retired, I unretired. Having continued to train as a psychotherapist, I tentatively re-entered the workplace by joining the practice management team at a charity I volunteered with. For the first time, I was in a workplace with an all-female team. It was such a brilliant experience.

I’m grateful that a combination of personal therapy, formal training and experience working with trauma has led me to where I am now: my second and most rewarding career as a psychotherapist.

When I was working in the tech industry, all I could think about was stopping. With a six-figure salary, it seemed entirely plausible that I might retire at 60. But the relentlessness of it all meant that that felt like light years away.

Now, at 52, I have no plans to retire. As long as I have my health, I will continue to support women in therapy, coaching and in my role as a business advisor. In the corporate world, I felt more like a cog in a machine. Now, I’m an accredited therapist. I feel part of a community.

For a lot of us, being able to stop working like the dream. It felt that way for me too. But when it came to it, what I really needed was to have a sense of purpose, to help others and to feel supported – and since I unretired, I feel that every day.