Here Comes Empty Nest

Empty Nest is a huge transition for all couples.  Some couples have been looking forward to this time and couldn’t wait until the last child “flew the nest”.  But the majority of couples find this transition time to be filled with emotions and challenges.  

Parenting

When we become empty nest parents, our roles of close-up day-to-day parenting have expired. The children are adults (almost) and no longer need or want that amount of advice and monitoring.  

And we’re left with all that love and attention to give day after day, week after week, and no one to give it to.

As parents then, we must radically change how we interact with our adult children.  And that isn’t easy!

And daily, the only people living in your home are you and your partner.  Boom!  

That’s a gigantic transition, after 18-25 years of children under the roof with you.

Who Are We Now?

There are at least three transitions that are happening.

First and second, each partner finds themselves challenged with rethinking their life.  Who am I now that my role as a parent has changed greatly? That’s two people, each figuring out what to do next–2 transitions happening at once, under the same roof.

Third, there’s the relationship with each other. 

As you look across the room do you see your partner as a partial stranger?  This happens to many empty nesters.  They realize they haven’t kept up with their partner’s hopes and dreams, their partner’s likes and dislikes.  Or what their partner wants to do with the next decades of their life.  

It’s easy to lose track of each other amidst the sometimes oppressive weight of careers, child raising, money concerns, caring for aging parents, illness, job changes, and many other circumstances of life.  

Partners can lose touch with one another in the scramble to navigate all of the pressures that have appeared in their lives.

Some of these couples become paralyzed with grief and their fear of the future with just the two of them.  They spend a lot of time being sad, numb or both.  They move further apart from one another and it takes a long, long time to begin to inch back towards each other. 

Other couples look at each other with curiosity and they want to explore:

• Who am I now?
• Who is my partner now? 
• What will our relationship look like now?

The most important elements to explore and why they’re important.

VISION

When you let yourself imagine what you want your life to be like, you have completed the first step to building the relationship of your dreams as well as your own life.  The poet Mary Oliver asks, What will you do with this one wild life? Ask that of yourself.

What’s your relationship like at this moment?  What are your strengths and areas that need to change for you to be happier?  This gives you a realistic view of today so you know where you’re starting. 

And it implies that you, as a couple, are interested in building on the strengths that you have now and are willing to look at what elements of your relationship aren’t working for you right now and work to change those things.  

What am I like at this moment?  What are your strengths and areas that need an upgrade as a person and as a partner?  Your relationship is built upon the foundation of the two people who are the partners.  The best way to build the relationship you want is for you each to be able to work on building yourself into the best version of you.  Then the relationship can be the best version it could be. 

What is your shared vision as a couple?  This is a crucial element of a great relationship.  Your shared vision can be your North Star, guiding you both to bring your best selves forward and build that relationship that you’ve dreamed of in your vision.

MINDSETS

Mindsets are habits of thinking and beliefs. They’re built on either very early in life experiences and how you made sense of what the experiences meant. 

For example, if your parents didn’t allow angry feelings to be expressed in the home, you may have learned that your feelings don’t matter and also that you’re a bad person for having negative feelings.  

If you were told, “No one cares what you think” then you bring this into adulthood and don’t offer your ideas in meetings or in your relationship.

One of the most powerful actions you can take, which will greatly improve your relationship and your life, is to become aware of how some of your mindsets are holding you back from feeling happy.  These are called limiting beliefs.  And then to shift the beliefs that limit you and replace them with beliefs and habits of thinking that serve you and your relationship.

COMMUNICATION

Empty nest couples have been together for about two decades.  In those years it’s likely that you’ve created styles of communicating that are unique to you two.  Some of them are excellent habits and others are probably not.  

As an Empty Nest couple, have you noticed that your communication styles are under a “spotlight”?  

What I mean by this is that the ways you communicated when the children were living with you just aren’t cutting it any more. It’s like there’s a lot more attention paid by both of you to how you interact and talk with one another.

In fact, there’s a lot more attention paid to everything you do, because now your relationship has center stage.  And communication is usually the first thing that couples notice when they enter this empty nest stage.

Since communication is the way we know each other, understand each other, share ideas and insights, figure out our principles and our values about anything and everything, communication styles that aren’t optimum are holding you back from reaching the potential that you could have in your relationship.

Having difficult conversations is necessary if you’re trying to have a great relationship.  However, many empty nest couples have gotten into habits of avoidance or angry arguments and don’t feel like they have the tools to change their patterns because they’ve been talking (or not talking) this way for so long.  They worry that they can’t change.  But they CAN.

CONNECTION 

This is the core problem that empty nesters report.  They say, “we’ve lost our connection”.  “I feel lonely even though I’m in the same house with my partner.”  

Often they don’t realize that connection is the result of taking many small actions that draw you closer towards your partner.

Some of these are:

• Inquiring about your partner’s well being such as “how are you feeling?” and caring about the answer.
• Listening deeply to one another so that you understand your partner.
• Doing little special things to help the other.
• Voicing appreciation.
• Spending time together doing something you both enjoy, even it’s a TV series you’re watching.
• Pitching in on chores so you’re working together.
• Planning a date night which could be a stay-in-the-house night or going somewhere.
• Be truly curious about your partner. Ask questions to engage your partner.
• Creating a romantic environment for a special night of lovemaking.
• Etc…

TRANSFORMATION vs TRANSITION

Empty Nest is a transition that is thrust upon us by the natural order of things.  Our children are born, they grow up, they leave the nest, and they make nests of their own.

Children undergo transformation because they have to.  It’s how life works.

As adults, on the other hand, you have already transformed once as we left our parents’ nest and made one of our own.

But, you don’t have to transform as a result of your transition into an empty nest.  

You can, if you want to, stay the same as you’ve been and never stray from your usual patterns of thinking, communication, behavior and actions.

It’s a choice.

When you choose transformation you, of course, give yourselves some time to grieve and experience missing your children intensely.

And then you greet the possibilities that life has in store for you.  

You assess where you are, now that you’re in a definitely NEW CHAPTER of your lives.  

You work on all the areas that need work and embrace and build on your existing strengths. You enhance your relationship into what I call

Relationship 2.0  aka Exceptional.

If you’re on board, let’s go!

If you would like more information about how to create your Relationship 2.0, contact me!

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