Relationships

Ask the expert: How to not kill your partner when your kids leave home

In our new exclusive online series, we team up with relationship counsellors, Relate, to bring readers the expert answers to their relationship queries.

My oldest child is just about to move out of home, and I’m slightly worried that my relationship with my husband isn’t what it used to be. How do we make sure we don’t kill each other in the first few weeks after she leaves? And how do we not get bored with one another?

Relate’s Steven Dromgool says:

“Brilliant Question. Empty Nesting is a very real psychological shift that triggers a series of significant changes and readjustment in the relationship. Couples raising children experience loving behaviour by their partner towards the child, to some extent as if it was directed to them.

If you change the nappies then I get to sleep, I experience that as love. If you drop our daughter at piano practice, I get to read my book or finish dinner and I experience that as love. Unfortunately, the busyness that comes with children can mean that couples neglect their own intimate connection, and rely too heavily on this second-degree connection of shared commitment and shared love for your children. So it’s pretty common that people feel pretty scared about the vast expense of time available as a newly ‘liberated ‘couple. Along with the grief that can comes from losing that daily access to your kids and your role in relation to them.

However, planned properly this can be a really awesome time of life. Many couples are more financially secure, still reasonably healthy and in more flexible spaces in their career. This is an opportunity to experience some of those dreams that were postponed while you were raising a family.

This is the time to make love in the afternoons, enjoy romantic dinners and walks on the beach, go on exotic holidays – it can be like a second honeymoon. However, your partner is different now, and you are different and so there will be a rediscovery of who they are and who you are because you may not know. You may be so used to being mum or dads that it’s hard to imagine yourself as a dancer, a lover, an adventurer.

A useful exercise if your partner is willing is to make a list of ten things you would like to do with your new-found freedom. Then sit with your partner take five minutes each on each item and explain why it’s on your list, whilst your partner listens to try and understand your passion. It’s important not to critique or judge you partners dream. You never want to be in the kind of relationship when you win, but you crush your partners dream. If you have an item in common, make a shared list and try those things first. Finally consider if there are ways that you could support your partner to fulfill some of their dreams. You spent years as your kids retaught you how to play, as you taught them how to be adults. Practice the lessons they taught – scandalize the new adults with your liberated childishness.

I wish you many years of excitement, dreams and happiness.”

Relate’s Steven

If you’d like to submit a question to Relate for this series, email us on [email protected]. Your details can be kept anonymous.

Relate Counselling is a specialist relationship counselling service, passionate about helping Kiwi’s build fantastic relationships. We offer couples and individuals relationship therapy and coaching, plus training in Integrated Relationship Therapy for professionals. Find free resources including the Relationship Health Questionnaire on their site here.

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