Enjoying the Empty Nest Years
If you’ve just sent your last child off to college this fall, you and your partner might be wondering what’s ahead for your marriage. Enjoying the empty nest years is not only possible, but also crucial since the years ahead may be the biggest chunk of your marriage!
How are you and your partner looking at this stage of life? Some couples charge into it with zest and a sense of adventure. Some are caught a little off guard, and miss the energy and vitality their teens brought to the household. Other couples wake up one morning and wonder who is in bed next to them, finding they don’t really know each other anymore, have nothing in common but the kids, and wonder if they can rekindle their long marriage.
I think this stage is a great time to really pay attention and look at your marriage. These empty nest years I consider the second half of your marriage! Now is when there is that elusive time available to both of you, when you can create a couple-focused marriage instead of the child-focused marriage. Now is when you can deepen your friendship, renew romance and passion. Now you have a chance to re-invent and to re-connect in a more meaningful way.
If that sounds like something you and your partner want to do, but you’re stuck with old resentments, habits of silent spaces between you, or habits of arguing, you may benefit from couples counseling. When couples in your position come into counseling, we work on helping letting go of past struggles, deepening your friendship, and developing new ways to communicate.
Meanwhile, here are some tips you might want to try out:
- Take this quiz and then actually sit down with you partner and share your answers-not about what you got right or wrong, but what the answers are for you. Ask your partner to do the same.
- Change the way you greet each other when you’ve been away from each other all day. Try a really long embrace, and see if it doesn’t feel pretty good. Then do it the next time too.
- Plan a breakfast date, then do it and see if you can turn it into a lunch date. While you’re downing those pancakes, share your dreams and even fantasies about the future with one rule-no one can tell the other what’s wrong about that dream or fantasy!
- Find one activity you can enjoy together-and do it. It can be a favorite show on Netflix to early morning walks in the neighborhood or anything in between.
- Make a new bedtime ritual. Try to go to bed at the same time at least a few times a week and spend some pillow talk time talking about what you are grateful for. It’s nice to fall asleep with feelings of gratitude!
Try out some of those tips and see if you can begin to notice a difference in how you feel towards your partner. My hope is that you can be an empty nest couple with a commitment to making the second half of your marriage the best.