They can’t relate: Some married couples struggle after the kids leave home for good

Tuesday, May 1, 2001 | 8:18 a.m.

It's the day all parents must face, the one in which their youngest child leaves home and the husband and wife are alone at last.

Some parents look forward to having an empty nest, the term popularly applied to a household in which the children are gone. Most accept the transition in life and easily adapt to their new living arrangements.

But for a few, the change is a rude awakening.

"There's a rise in the divorce rate right around the time couples are confronting an empty nest," Gerald Weeks, chairman of the Counseling Department at UNLV, said during a recent interview.

Statistics support Weeks' claim.

Ten years ago census figures revealed the overall divorce rate had gone down 1.4 percent from the previous census, but the rate for those married 30 years or more had gone up 16 percent, according to a recently published book, "Fighting for Your Empty Nest Marriage" (Wiley & Sons; $25).

Authors of the book drew a correlation between the rise in divorce rate for older couples and the period around the time their nest empties.

"For some, it creates a good deal of marital stress," said Weeks, who has specialized in family counseling for 25 years.

The stress is caused not only because the couple love their children and feel depressed over the loss when they leave, but also because the children are the reason the parents stay together.

"Basically, they are biding their time until the children leave home," Weeks said.

For years the children may have been a buffer between the husband and wife.

"They try to tone the conflicts down as long as the children are in the house," Weeks said, "but they may have irreconcilable differences conflicts that justcan't be resolved."

He said parents in those situations must decide between the worse of two evils: divorce and deal with traumatized children; or remain together and deal with the problems created by parental conflict.

"The answer is not clear," Weeks said. "Researchers come down on both sides."

Las Vegas family counselor John Brailsford, whose 1997 doctoral dissertation studied the empty nest syndrome, said the transition "presents a great opportunity, and also a great challenge. It is an opportunity to find each other again, to start fresh. Some struggle with it, but most come through it."

Brailsford said couples who seem to have the most difficulty are those who have become identified as "parents" more than as a couple or as individuals.

"In essence, they may lose a sense of identity along the way and so when the children are gone, there goes a big sense of identity," he said. "It leaves a void that needs to be filled."

Brailsford noted that any major transition in life can affect a marriage, but the empty nest is unusual because it is the culmination of 20 years (more or less) of a shared experience.

"Not that it's over -- you'll always be a parent," he said. "But the relationship changes. The children are no longer your primary responsibility and when that occurs, both as individuals and as a couple, it's an identity shift."

Brailsford said the shift can accentuate the strong or weak points of a marriage.

"You wake up one morning and wonder who that person is sitting across from you at the breakfast table," said Mark Odell, an assistant professor teaching the subject of marriage relationships at UNLV. "You think, 'the person looks sort of familiar.' "

Odell said the empty nest syndrome -- anxiety over children leaving -- often begins a long time before the last child actually leaves.

"The young child may get into the teen years and family conflicts increase," he said. "Often that is masking some of the anxiety that the adults feel when they anticipate, 'Gee, it's just going to be us.'

"If the couple haven't made their relationship the priority, they may not have developed the skills necessary to cope."

Coping

"While parenting teenagers, many times spouses are emotionally drained and exhausted," Claudia Arp said. "The marriage is put on the back burner, but all of a sudden you look around and the children are gone.

"It may have been stressful when the (children) were there, but at least they were buffers. You can always talk about the children. But when the buffer is gone, it is a time of insecurity. Communication patterns practiced in the first half of the marriage don't work now."

Arp was one of a team of five writers who authored the book "Fighting for Your Empty Nest Marriage."

"When the children leave you are left to ramble around the empty house," she said. "The noise is gone. You look at the other person and you don't know that other person, or you don't like them and you realize, 'Hey, people are living longer now. I could live another 30 or 40 years. Is this the person I want to go through the rest of my life with?' "

Arp said there are many ways to deal with the empty nest issues.

"You should resist making immediate changes," she said. "Some spouses disappointed with a marriage bolt out as soon as the last kid leaves.

"Give yourselves time to get to know each other again. You have to reinvent your relationship."

Arp said the couple should be flexible and be "willing to try some new things. Develop a sense of humor. Don't take yourself so seriously. Slow down and get some rest. You won't be able to refocus on your marriage until your life is in focus."

The danger in not refocusing, Arp said, is that the parent may smother the adult child.

"Release the adult children, but reconnect with them on the adult level," she said.

Arp listed a number of challenges for empty nesters. Among them: renewing romance, making the marriage fun, forgiving the spouse for past transgressions and rebuilding the friendship between the couple.

"The greatest indication of a successful marriage is the level of the couple's friendship," she said.

Odell advised couples to make sure the marriage relationship is the centerpiece of the family, even before children are born.

"With the first child it's difficult to maintain focus," he said. "But by the second the couple should have re-established the primacy of their relationship. The kids should be loved and welcomed, but they are still not the centerpiece of the family. Prioritize the marriage."

Weeks said marriage counseling is one way set the priority.

"A growth-oriented aspect of couples counseling is to create a greater degree of intimacy in the relationship," he said.

Weeks said one thing spouses need to learn is how to fight fair.

"It's not a skill people learn in school or from parents," he said. "You have to learn how to resolve conflict constructively to avoid the worst outcome."

Most counselors agree that couples should anticipate the inevitability of an empty nest and to talk about it before it happens.

"Parents need to support each other, to discuss how they are going to make adjustments," Weeks said.

A success story

One Las Vegas couple, both 62, made the transition with relative ease.

The husband and wife, who asked not to be identified, followed most of the advice counselors give about how to successfully go through the empty nest experience with the marriage intact -- but they did so instinctively.

They kept their lines of communication open with each other. They became involved in hobbies they could share, focusing on their relationship rather than the children.

"We always knew it was coming," the wife said. "Our goal was for them to be able to take care of themselves. We were happy when they left -- we had a couple of hobbies, one of them riding a tandem bicycle."

She is a school nurse, who will retire next year. Her husband retired from the Metro Police Department in 1991. Their two daughters, ages 34 and 38, have been out of the house permanently 11 and seven years, respectively. One lives in New Mexico, the other in Arizona.

"We are able to travel to see them," the wife, a registered nurse, said. "We can be involved in their lives. I talk to them on the phone twice a week.

"We still feel like we're part of their lives. If we weren't, we still have our hobbies and things, but it but would make a real void in our lives.

She said an empty nest might create stress at home.

"But we've got so many (interests) it hasn't been a problem," she said. "We tried to prepare for it."

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