After decades of devoting yourselves to your children, the last child has left the roost – or at least is at college most of the year. This can be a challenging time for many couples. It’s a time to readjust priorities, to focus more on each other after years of focusing on the children, of finding ways to spend your time, money, and energy that aren’t wrapped up in the kids. This alone can be a bit of a challenge. When combined with emotional stressors, it can cause what is often called “empty nest syndrome,” a particularly stressful time in the lives of parents.
The beginning of the empty nest period takes some adjustment, just as any new situation does. Do you remember the adjustments you had to make when you first got married? When you had your first child? When you moved to a new city or state? These are major life changes, and you need to adjust. But with a positive attitude, your empty nest phase can be one of the best times of your life together! I offer some suggestions, but keep in mind that sometimes having the helpful and supportive ear of a trained marriage counselor can help you if you find the adjustments difficult to handle on your own.
Adjusting to the “Empty Nest”
The first step is to affirm yourself and reconnect with your own identity without your children. Yes, your children are a permanent part of who you are, but they don’t define you. What do you love to do? What are your interests? If you have put off a hobby because you were focused on the children, now is the time to pick it up! Do something different, challenging, even adventuresome, and allow yourself to really have fun, not as a mom or dad on holiday, but as a person with unique interests.
Now that the children are (mostly) gone, turn to each other even more. You nurtured the children and affirmed and supported them for years. Now it’s time to put that focus on each other. If your marriage is strong, you have probably been doing that through the years already and you now can increase that mutual attention. If you haven’t been giving each other that affirmation and attention, your marriage is probably a little stale. If so, now is the time to rekindle the love that brought you two together.
Develop shared interests that you and your spouse can do together. Go out on dates weekly. Learn something new about each other – even after many years, there is so much more to learn! Say something nice to each other every day. Increase your intimacy and touch, both sexual and non-sexual, to rekindle the romance.
Take care of something or someone else. Get a pet. Volunteer at the daycare center or at a soup kitchen. Care for a garden or a challenging indoor plant. By focusing on others, we forget about ourselves and our problems.
Issues that complicate the matter
Sometimes complications make the adjustment more difficult. You may have dedicated so much of your life to your children – especially if you were a stay-at-home parent or if you were running your children to activities every night of the week – that your own identity was built around your children.
Your marriage might be shaky; you didn’t have a lot of shared experiences outside of the children, or maybe you have unresolved hurts that were buried just so you could stay together “for the kids” and now you are thinking you may want out.
Your children may be leaving the house but are still financially or emotionally dependent. Maybe they just moved in with a friend but still need you to pay support. Maybe you have a strained relationship, or you don’t agree with the decisions they’re making. Maybe you feel like they’re taking advantage of you, but it’s hard to say no.
These issues can feel too big to be solved without some help. This is where counseling can be very important.
How counseling can help
A good marital counselor is there to help guide couples through the process of renewing and strengthening their relationships. We help couples improve communication; address old hurts and resolve them in light of their new situation; build new shared experiences and interests; and develop new friendships.
Another aspect of couples counseling for empty-nesters is helping them work through redefining their relationships with their adult children. This can include addressing feelings of guilt if they feel they’ve made mistakes; possessiveness and control issues if it’s hard to let go; and learning how to set boundaries to help their adult children learn the last lesson they have to learn from you – becoming independent.
If you need a little help navigating the “empty nest” phase of your life, reach out to me.