The Kids Are Launched. What Now?

Parenting never ends, but when your kids are on their own, it’s time to assess your current partner relationship or consider what’s important in a new relationship.

If you and your spouse have been together for decades and survived the coming-of-age of your children, that in itself is worth celebrating. But when the kids are no longer present day-to-day, you may feel as if you are living with a stranger. If most of your conversations revolved around the kids over the years, there may no longer be much to talk about with your mate. While shared interests may have existed at the beginning of your time together, times have changed and so have you.

During the child-rearing times, managing a home, maintaining a job, and social or community responsibilities, you probably had little time to nurture your relationship with your partner. Or you may have gone your separate ways. These are common occurrences and not necessarily fatal to a relationship. People drift apart over time. Young love doesn’t always age well. A vacuum may now exist—or not. But here you are.

It’s time to take the temperature of your current relationship. Cold? Warm? Hot? Too hot? It’s time to take stock of your feelings. Consider these: Trepidation? Excitement? Loneliness? Boredom? Disappointment? Confusion? Curious about a joint future? Pondering an exit strategy? Open to exploration? Something else?

Take time to sit with whatever feelings you’ve uncovered. Consider and contemplate, but don’t act on any of them. Hold your feelings in your awareness and take time to mull them over—for a month. Then ask yourself some hard questions:

• Did you stay together for the sake of your offspring? Once the kids are out of your home and on their own, you may realize that there’s nothing left in common between you and your partner.
• If you were already feeling disconnected, has the day-to-day distress or discomfort intensified now that the kids are no longer your primary focus?
• How can you shift gears from a child-centered to a partner-focused relationship?
• Do you blame your relationship for your unhappiness? It’s easy to do that because it’s right there, front and center now. Could your unhappiness have multiple sources?
• What’s left? Ask yourself whether you want to continue as a couple, and why.
• If you want to preserve the relationship, what is your purpose as you go forward?
• If you don’t, what then?

Once you’ve done your homework and considered these questions, you might not have answers, but you may be at a starting point for considering what comes next. And what does come next?

Maintaining: As a Couple

If you’re pretty sure you’d like to maintain your partner relationship, here are some ways to think about it going forward:

"Our relationship is fundamentally OK...":

• I’d like to continue as before without any shake-ups.
• I’d like to jazz it up and make some positive tweaks.

"Our relationship could be better...":

• We need to take the time to honestly sort out our existing issues.
• Let’s get some couple counseling to see any blind spots.

Enhancing: As a Couple

If you are in it for the long haul but wish to find ways to enhance the connection with your partner, consider these ideas:

• Seek out novel, fun, and different activities with your honey.
• Date again—with your mate. Do some research. Make the events special.
• Find new ways to add quality together time.
• Schedule intimacy and be creative with your physical affection but remember that later-in-life physicality can’t compete with young love.

Ending: As a Couple

If you are considering an end to your relationship, consider these ideas:

• Try to determine what’s left, and then decide if the relationship can be salvaged.
• Open up about your doubts. Listen to each other without criticism or judgment—nothing to lose at this point.
• Identify and tend to those issues that you’ve been ignoring. It’s never too late for honesty.
• Be patient. Transitions are difficult. If your relationship can’t be saved, end it with grace.

Making a decision about a long-term relationship is complicated. Whatever your thoughts or feelings at the moment, you have a partner to consider. Unless he or she sees things in exactly the same way as you, which is unlikely, the first step is to find a way to have meaningful dialogue—easier said than done. Seek professional help whether you are sure it’s over, or still on the fence. Divorce counseling is a helpful resource.

Relationships Essential Reads

When Sameness Betrays Fairness

Why Do We Hold on to Old Flames?

Finding a Way Forward

Over decades, couple conversations become very practical: coordinating family plans, dividing up household tasks, planning vacations and events, and managing kids’ academic and extracurricular activities. Because discussing problems is uncomfortable for many, disagreements sometimes resolve in non-productive ways. That is, someone gives in, someone apologizes, or you both agree to disagree. It’s extremely hard to have a candid conversation about the ways in which a relationship is not meeting someone’s needs. Avoidance is easy.

If you have the determination and stamina to bring your discomfort to your partner, you may find that he or she shares your feelings to some extent—which forms the basis for a discussion. But first, set a few ground rules to prevent blaming and judging from getting in the way of a productive first step:

• The initial conversation should be time-limited, no more than an hour, and in a quiet setting.
• Each partner needs to have a chance to speak without interruption.
• After you speak, your partner should repeat back, or paraphrase, their understanding of what they’ve heard to avoid misunderstanding.
• Both of you should aim to be nondefensive. Defensiveness might begin with the phrase, “Yes, but...”
• Criticism and name-calling generally derail any possibility of a meaningful dialogue, so agree to some ground rules in advance.

The Bottom Line

Many old relationships have problems because people do change over time. Most individuals make some effort to repair or enhance their floundering partnership—but some do decide to end it, and it’s not that uncommon among older adults. According to an article in the American Psychological Association publication Monitor on Psychology, “In 1990, 8.7% of all divorces in the United States occurred among adults fifty and older. By 2019, that percentage had grown to 36%.”

Wherever your relationship stands, you have more options for maintaining, enhancing, or even ending it than ever before. Cultural taboos have lessened. Counseling is less stigmatized. The years that follow the empty nest will likely be plentiful and ought to be fulfilling and meaningful. You owe it to yourself to fine-tune or move on from your primary relationship because even the best of these get a bit stale over the long haul.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.