Now it’s time for us…
How can we make the most of it?
You’ve dreamed of it for years. Your kids have left home now they’ve grown up and are finding their own lives in the world. Now it’s time for you and your spouse or partner to have more time with each other. But perhaps you look
across the table and think “If we’re not talking about the kids then what do we talk about?” or “Who is this stranger sitting opposite me and do I really want to spend time with them?” It’s a time of life that we have expectations of being a time of ease and freedom, yet it’s also a time of reassessment.
We now live longer with a higher quality of life than ever before. Many of our parents brought up kids, retired and died, and not much else. These days we have the time for a whole new life, when our parents or grandparents were preparing for the end of theirs. We expect more than they ever did so our relationships need to evolve as well. It’s a challenge when we’re looking for life to get easier, but life is always about change and challenge whether we’re taking our first stumbling steps as a toddler or the next steps as a complex adult.
The reality is that you begin a whole new relationship here and it’s time to reassess what is important to you and what you’re looking for from this time of life. It can also be a space where some of the relationship issues that have been swept under the carpet in the busyness of the family have room to surface. Often issues for women around the empty nest coinciding with menopause and perhaps a new sense of self clash with a man’s desire for peace and quiet and time to do the things he’s been putting off for years. This is not about your relationship now being the wrong one. It does mean that it’s an opportunity to look into the relationship you have more clearly and get the gifts out of what might seem to be getting in your way…
