Dr. Blume's Article of the Month

Honey, The Nest Is Empty!
by Dr. Ginger Blume, Ph.D.

Imagine this scene:  "You wake up one morning and find yourself lying in bed, next to a virtual stranger. Your stomach tightens, you don't know what to do or say, so you pretend everything is normal and you slowly get out of bed." No, this is not a scene from an "R" rated movie! It is unfortunately, a typical scene from the life of a couple in the grips of an "empty nest syndrome."

By the time children grow up and leave home, many couples are left with the sudden realization that they've drifted apart and hardly know each other any more. Having focused on raising children for eighteen or more years, many couples have sorely neglected or ignored their personal relationship. In fact, many couples have become strangers. Even if love survives the early and middle years of marriage, couples may still feel lost, wondering what to do with the sudden boon of "alone time."

Like many parents, you may have said on numerous occasions that children grow up before you know it. Yet, you're still likely to react with surprise, confusion, and feelings of loss when your last child actually leaves the family nest. If you and your spouse had a habit of "living for the children," you both probably ignored pursuing personal hobbies or cultivating shared couple's interests. Perhaps, you were too busy or exhausted after chauffeuring children to soccer games, gymnastic practices, boy scout meetings, and so forth each week. Nights spent at school PTA meeting or assisting your children with their homework assignments also exhausted many couple's desire to carve out time for themselves. Slowly, a couple's sense of closeness becomes eroded. Not because love is lost, but more often, because love has been neglected.

The later stage of marriage provides an opportunity for couples to develop or rediscover a new sense of purpose to replace their prior focus on children. For some couples, this can be an over-whelming task. The prospect of living in a home without children can trigger a deep depression and a sense of major loss for some parents. In contrast, for other couples, this represents a time of golden opportunities. It is a time to dust off formerly warehoused hobbies, such as painting, writing, gardening, and pursuing them with a passion.

Let's consider a variety of losses associated with the empty nest. These losses are significant and must be recognized so that a couple can learn to deal with their feelings. These losses extend beyond the mere discovery that their home has a number of empty bedrooms. Older couples may begin to experience a growing awareness they are personally edging closer to the end of their life.

The further a couple moves away from the cycle of life associated with births, the more apparent is their approach toward the end of life, or death. This conscious awareness triggers a sense of mortality which can feel monumental.

Some losses associated with the empty nest are specific to women. There is the physical and psychological loss associated with the termination of childbearing years. Some women's sense of identity becomes unraveled when the nest becomes empty, especially when child rearing had been their primary source of identity. Both of the couple may suffer the psychological loss of no longer feeling urgently needed by their adult children. Again, if parents can find other ways to feel useful and needed in their lives, they can more readily adapt to this life cycle change. Other potential empty nest losses are connected to the realities of physical aging. Physical decline threatens people's illusions of on-going independence and self-sufficiency, as well as their illusion of immortality. The empty nest also pre-dates an awareness of the eventual loss of one's spouse. The title of gramma or grampa can similarly shock a parent into a new view of themselves as "old." 

As you can see, the potential losses associated with the empty nest are immense and significant. But, so too, are the potential gains. Obviously, new personal goals and roles need to be created during this stage of life. Like the glass that is half full or half empty, a person's perception of the empty nest stage of family development will largely determine how they adjust. People's reaction to the departure of that last or only child from home is very much colored by their mental perception, as well as by their sense of preparation for the changes that will occur, the quality of their couple's relationship, their financial ability to provide for themselves, and their health. If parents perceive the empty nest as providing room for new endeavors, then they will revel in their new found freedom. If they view it as the end of a meaningful family life, then they'll become despondent and actually age more quickly than necessary. The couple's ability to cope and enjoy this new stage is very dependent upon their collective attitude.

Let's consider the upside of this stage of family life. Once children have left home for good, parents will have an opportunity to create a never-ending second honeymoon. They'll have time to become intimately re-acquainted and can focus on pleasing each other in ways they use to do before their first child was born. Both of the couple will have inevitably changed over the years and will have a lot of personal catching up to do.

Opportunities to enrich the couple's relationship are simple and numerous. For instance, couples can resist calling their adult children on the telephone when they're feeling lonely. Instead, they should become curious about how their spouse feels about various topics and strike up a conversation. This is a time to gain a new appreciation for your spouse. Couples can spend time recalling enjoyable things they use to do together before they had children and then begin repeating those positive behaviors and activities in the "here and now." Couples can consider this phase of family life as a well deserved opportunity for renewing their friendship and love for each other.