If you’re like many middle-aged Canadians,you used to think that you would retire at 55. Now you’re hoping for 65. Once you used to smile fondly at the retirement ads that showed laughing grey-haired couples golfing in tropical paradises. Now you have an overwhelming desire to jump out of the sand trap and smack those smug retirees with a nine iron.

We feel your pain. So let us reassure you. Despite what you may think, there is a lot of good news about retirement. We’ve talked to a wide-ranging selection of financial experts and we’ve come away with one conclusion — you’re doing far better than you think you are. Join us as we reveal 10 things that most people don’t know about retirement, but should.

1. You’re not behind at all

The ads make it sound as if 55 is a reasonable retirement age. In fact, for most of us it’s not. The median retirement age in Canada is 62 for men and 61 for women, according to Statistics Canada. Who does retire early? By and large, federal government employees, who ditch work at a median age of 58. You can credit their early departures to generous pensions that are indexed for inflation. But even public-sector employees aren’t hanging up their work clothes at 55.

If you look at the math behind retirement, you can see why most of us stick around the office a bit longer than we might like. For every year early that you retire, you pay three penalties: you lose a year of potential savings, you lose a year of growth for your retirement savings, and you gain one more year of retirement expenses.

Consider a woman who hits 55 in good financial shape, with a paid-off condo and $100,000 in savings. She can count on her savings to produce $4,000 or $5,000 a year in returns, but she’s too young to start collecting Old Age Security or Canada Pension Plan. Unless she resorts to desperate measures, such as selling her condo or burning through her savings, retirement is impractical.

But look at what a difference five years can make. If she buckles down and contributes $10,000 a year to her retirement fund during that period, and achieves a 7% annual average return, her savings double to $200,000. That bankroll can generate $8,000 to $10,000 a year in income as long as she lives. At 60, she can also start collecting Canada Pension Plan. If she combines those sources of income with part-time work, a phased-in retirement becomes quite practical.

2. You’ll live longer than you expect

When we’e doing our retirement planning, many of us figure that we’ll live to 80, the average lifespan in Canada. But that average is misleading. It reflects what a newborn baby can expect in the way of lifespan and is dragged down by all the unfortunate people who die relatively young.

If you’ve managed to reach 65 without suffering a terminal illness, you’ll probably live considerably beyond 80. According to StatsCan, a 65-year-old man can expect to live to 83; a 65-year-old woman can look forward to blowing out the candles on her 86th birthday.

And remember — those are averages. Half of retirees live longer, some much longer. Moshe Milevsky, an associate professor of finance at Toronto’s Schulich School of Business at York University, says there is a 41% chance that at least one member of a 65-year-old couple will live to 90. So even if you don’t quit work until 65, there’s a good chance that your retirement could still wind up spanning a quarter or more of your life.

3. You’ll see more of your partner — a lot more
Sure, you love your spouse, but let’s do a little math here. Chances are, for most of your married life at least one of you has worked outside the home. Subtract sleep, travel time and other away time and you’ve seen your beloved for— at most — six hours a day.