Quality of and satisfaction with life are of particular importance for individuals as well as for society concerning the “demographic change” with now longer retirement periods. This study will contribute to the development of life satisfaction discussion and quantifies life satisfaction and pattern of explanation before and after such a prominent life cycle event, the entrance into retirement. In particular, with the individual longitudinal data of the Socio-Economic Panel and the appropriate microeconometric panel methods we ask and quantify if actual life satisfaction indeed is decreasing before retirement, is increasing at the entrance into retirement, and is decreasing then after certain periods back to a foregoing level. Thus, we ask if such an anticipation and adaption pattern– as known from other prominent events – is also to discover for life satisfaction before and after retirement in Germany.