Working out - what is the point?

Husband and I have frequent discussions about whether what I do even counts as working out. According to him: 

1. there has to be a goal. Husband's goals include winning (or at least placing ever higher) in competitions, achieving a higher average heart rate, achieving a higher max heart rate, better time, longer distance, more hours pr week, more hours per year, more days of training in a row before taking a day off and so on. 
2. it has to hurt. No pain, no gain. If it doesn't hurt, it wasn't worth the effort.

Now for me training, or working out is not so much goal oriented, as a question of lifestyle. And as such I think it should be fun. Pain messes with my motivation. So why do I do it? Is there a point to working out if I don't keep aiming to get better?

There are several reasons, or goals for my training: 

1. Staying healthy as I get older: exersise has been shown to be beneficial in preventing as well as improving the outcomes of high blood pressure, heart desease, cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, to name a few. It also improves the immune system. Now I don't have any of these illnesses (yet), but neither do I want to have them. 
2. Increasing my mental stamina in the face of stress. Exersise has also been shown to prevent and improve the outcomes of depression as well as delay the symptoms of dementia, such as Alzheimers. I discovered this effect the year I worked in Ithaca, which was a very stressfull experience. I used to get up at 6 am to do water aerobics at the nearby gym and it saved my sanity.  
3. Weight control. Though I am unsure how effective my exersise regimen really is on this score, as weight is still insidiously creeping on, in spite of my actively trying to stop it for the past 5 years or so. Every year another kilo sneaks onto me and will not be budged!

Since my main goals are physical and mental health and well being, my exersise regimen becomes completely different from that of Husband.  He works out so much that a day without training puts him in a foul mood. The amount of training he does also seems to negatively affect his immunity, as he seems to catch a cold with fever approximatly once a month (whereas I am "never" sick). 

I have heard that 30 minutes of excersize that increases your heart rate and makes you slightly out of breath 3X a week is the minimum for enjoying the cardio-vaskular health benefits of working out. This can be achieved in the form of a brisk uphill walk, bike ride, cross country skiing, ice scating, dancing, or orienteering to name a few of my favorite aerobic activities. 

We women, of menopausal and postmenopausal age also need to find some form of weight bearing exersise to keep our bones strong and our joints supple. My favorite is pilates, because it combines weight bearing with balance and really protects the back. 

The inspiration for this post came from a conversation I had with one of the trainers, who is also a physical therapist,  at the gym that husband and I go too. We talked about different styles of training depending on the goals of the individual involved. My conclusion is that there can be different reasons for working out. And how you do it, and how much, depends on what you are trying to accomplish.