Empty Nest Syndrome

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skiprat

skiprat

Passed Away Mar 22, 2022
In Memoriam
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
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7,812
Location
In a Skip in Wales
Hi all,
I don't know when University starts each year in the USA ( or anywhere else for that matter), but it has begun over the last two weeks here in the UK.
My two youngest have just been deposited at their respective Uni's. My daughter was two weeks ago and my son, this last weekend.

Now, I don't spend a lot of time at home anyway as I work away, but on Sunday my wife and I were sitting there at around 8pm and looking at each other, as if to say....'Now what...???'

I'm seriously glad I'm not my wife who will come home to an empty house each day...:eek:

I'd love to hear how you and your wives (and husbands) coped in the first few months

Were you like me, and paranoid about their welfare? Glad to see the back of them? ( not like me ) Just completely lost without them there?
 
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I am not an empty nester. When that happens I fear my wife will shrivel up and die. But, we have a lot of time until then. A friend of mine retired and became an empty nester all this year. According to him, if he and his wife did not get hobbies they were either getting divorced or one of them would go to jail for murder.

Seems like a tough thing. Good luck.
 
Being very close grandparents of 2 girls away at university, its no fun. We became even closer involved in their lives when their mom passed away 3 years ago.

Luckily, we still will see them at Holidays. One started back after Labor Day and the other, at Oregon State, starts on the 30th of this month.

Now, next year the older one wants to go to Manchester or Leeds to get her Masters. then, stay on in England to work.

Not fun, but thats life.
 
Not an empty nester myself, My Dad still worries a little about us kids. Just takes turns with which one to worry about. He always said that their job as parents was to get us ready to join the world.
 
Our 3 kids went off to college (last 2, two years ago). We looked around the house for a day or two, then said "What the hell lets go to the Grand Canyon!" Having a blast now camping, and going to festivals in our RV. We just need to sell the house and down size so our little flock quits trying to come back! They hate being grown-ups. :) Going to the Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico in two weeks! :D

Dan
 
It took my wife about two weeks to get over the "empty Nest". Now she's driving me nuts with the honey-do stuff. But here's what she and I both like. our power, water, and grocery bill have almost been cut in half. Now we can spend more money on toys for me. :)
 
skiprat said:
Hi all,
I don't know when University starts each year in the USA ( or anywhere else for that matter), but it has begun over the last two weeks here in the UK.
My two youngest have just been deposited at their respective Uni's. My daughter was two weeks ago and my son, this last weekend.

Now, I don't spend a lot of time at home anyway as I work away, but on Sunday my wife and I were sitting there at around 8pm and looking at each other, as if to say....'Now what...???'

I'm seriously glad I'm not my wife who will come home to an empty house each day...:eek:

I'd love to hear how you and your wives (and husbands) coped in the first few months

Were you like me, and paranoid about their welfare? Glad to see the back of them? ( not like me ) Just completely lost without them there?
Click to expand...

There is quite a wide variation in college starts but for most freshmen it's mid to late August. Athletes competing in fall sports will start a little earlier but freshmen might still go through registration at the same time.

The first one (we have 6) leaving was very hard. The 2nd a little bit easier because we'd learned the the world keeps on turning. The third was still easier, the 4th a piece of cake and the 5th & 6th cause for celebration.

None of them came back home to live for more than three months after they got their degree. And, we're thankful for that.

Do we worry about them - not in any real sense, we did our job well and they are responsible adults in charge of their own lives. We made sure they got the education they needed to get good jobs and that they had the skills to live without Mom and Dad looking over their shoulder.

One piece of advice - limit the outside the home things the you do with your spouse. My wife and I have almost nothing in common when it comes to what we enjoy doing so we each do what we like and do together those few things we both enjoy. Works great for us.
 
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I would find myself going to my daughters room and just sitting. It took about 2 months to sorta get use to her being gone. I`m sure the son still being home helped a great deal. Wasn`t quiet as bad when he went to college but still had an adjustment to make.
 
You'll get adjusted. We found that when they came home during Christmas break for 3 weeks we were ready for them to start back. We were really excited when our last one decided to stay in school over the summers. :smile:
 
I believe it was much tougher on my wife than it was on me. When our youngest of three got married right out of college, it was a bit different not having to worry about anyone being out at night and having them knock on our bedroom door when they got home. It took my wife about a year to get used to the empty nest, for me it was like being newlyweds with some money in our pockets.

Jim Smith
 
Hi Steven, Peter here we have been on our own for twenty years now its great however and I have said it before I detected a sour note when our last left not very subtle either I was singing, laughing relaxed but Wilma seemed edgy so to test the water so to speak I burst in to where she was sitting one morning and said what are you doing in a stern voice, she bristled a little then I said well I am going to the Mall do you want to come. With this over she visibly relaxed and I sat with her and assured her her time is her own and I wanted her to organise as she had done before I retired and I was no threat to her, had no special demands only her welfare. Peace reigned from then until now also she does not drive so I make sure to invite and ask each day her plans so I can combine with her our trips out. Worked for me. In the last few months I bought a 1999 Mercedes SUV and she loves that as I do.

I found over the years it is very peaceful these days on our 50th Anniversary ( 8 yrs ago) with only a short notice I invited Wilma to come with me to a town near by, on the way I called in to the Cathedral where we married and banged on the side door there were three couples practicing the organ etc and I was invited in collected Wilma sat her in a pew in the Chapel we married in presented her with a ring and addressed her one to one for 15 minutes (she cried softly for a couple of hours). In the month before I made pens in 3000 yr old Huon Pine Burl pens for the blokes in our family and Wilma made the woman a sewn box with a piece of her wedding dress a piece of my sleeveless pullover in the lid and embroydered the
base with the wedding date and location. Now we are all over with only one daughter, her daughter 10 yrs and son in law in Canberra we never fully get together at one time now 65 of us.

Adjustment time is needed happiness guaranteed.

Kind regards Peter.
 
I wish. Ours all moved out then they would move back in. At one time we had nine people in the house including us as the youngest was back from college a while, oldest was back from Utah for a teaching position here looking for a house with his wife and baby, next oldest split from his wife for good reason and brought his two daughters to stay with us. Now its just the girls and next oldest and us. I think we had all of 6 months to ourselves.
 
Some thought provoking replies!:biggrin: Thanks, and keep them coming please. I'm sure I'm not the only one benefiting from them.:wink:
Like I said, it will effect ( affect ? I never know which to use :confused:) my wife more than me, but I do know that they will always have a place to stay, no matter what.:biggrin:

Generally though, it seems that there are pro's and cons and the pro's are only realized once the cons are accepted. In other words, every cloud has a silver lining:biggrin:
 
I was talking with my Mother the other day and she told me how after all the kids were out of the house she and my Father sure hated the empty house and wished they still had us (two brothers and sister) in the house. I currently have four teenagers in the house with one graduating in the spring and going off to college. I told my Mother that I cant wait to experience that feeling.
 
skiprat said:
Some thought provoking replies!:biggrin: Thanks, and keep them coming please. I'm sure I'm not the only one benefiting from them.:wink:
Like I said, it will effect ( affect ? I never know which to use :confused:) my wife more than me, but I do know that they will always have a place to stay, no matter what.:biggrin:

Generally though, it seems that there are pro's and cons and the pro's are only realized once the cons are accepted. In other words, every cloud has a silver lining:biggrin:
Click to expand...

Effect & Affect. Think of Affect as the Arrow and Effect as the Target.
But please don't use "impact".
 
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Skip, I know what you mean.. Our kids left 15 and 13 years ago... still pretty quiet around her. A colleague shared the following comedy with me this morning. Pretty useful advice. Hope it helps:

################################
We had a power outage last week and my PC, TV and game console shut down immediately, it was raining so I couldn't golf so I talked to my wife for a few hours.

She seems like a nice person.:biggrin:
 
TomW said:
Skip, I know what you mean.. Our kids left 15 and 13 years ago... still pretty quiet around her. A colleague shared the following comedy with me this morning. Pretty useful advice. Hope it helps:

################################
We had a power outage last week and my PC, TV and game console shut down immediately, it was raining so I couldn't golf so I talked to my wife for a few hours.

She seems like a nice person.:biggrin:
Click to expand...
Well, it isn't quite that bad here... My wife and I have an hour swim at the local Boys and Girls Club together every day and a 20 - 30 minute walk with the dogs. We take all of our meals but breakfast together and we always have sit down at the table meals.

We will go shopping together about once a week and we go out for brunch or dinner a couple of times a week. We also go to church together Sunday morning and pretty much stay together most of Sunday.

Other than that she is a very busy person, always on the go. I think her car has spent perhaps 2 days where it never left the house in the last 5 years. On the other hand, I stay home most of the time, never one to go just for the sake of going so my truck at times might spend a week or 10 days never going out of the garage.

Works great for us, we are not in each other's way but we do keep in touch:smile:

The kids...my kids are pretty assertive about their life style and I am pretty assertive about what happens when people live in my house. Hence, they have never had a desire to come back home and we have always made it clear that we love them, we'll do anything we can for them if they need us, they can come visit anytime so long as they don't intend to stay longer than two weeks (one week for the ones who live within 5 hours or less). We talk to them frequently on the phone. Works great for us. We don't dump our troubles on them and they don't dump their troubles (or kids) on us.

We love the grand kids, but the generation gap between what they want and what we can provide is too wide. They're "hooked" on screens and we don't even carry cell phones.
 
Mine went off to college and never came back. They are both very independent. My son has two boys and is a PHD in microbiology at Yale. My daughter has 5 kids and that is a full time job right there. She was a math wiz, but she really had no ambition to be more than a wife and mother. Maybe when her youngest is out of school, she says she might go back for an advanced degree and teach calculus.
 
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Most of mine don't seem to want to leave the 27 year old left his fiancé and their apartment , appeared one day and hasn't left (he did buy me a 4 stroke weed whacker, but that was a few months ago) the 25 year old is working on some more college degrees, the 24 year old left for a job in Alabama (he is the favorite now), the 21 year old and his girlfriend alternate between my house and hers (and he keeps asking when "his" room in the basement will be completed). The 18 year old hates life, work, family, whatever was provided for dinner, his girlfriend, etc... (but won't leave), and the 9 and 7 year olds are not happy unless they are fighting. I will miss it when they leave. (I don't think they will ever leave)(bring on the grandkids!!!)
 
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