After the Kids Are Launched: Managing Your Couple Relationship

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 ages 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 for decades, there may no longer be much to talk about with your mate. Shared interests may have existed at the beginning of your time together, but times have changed and so have you.

Over the years of child-rearing, 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:

• When the children are out of your home and on their own, you may realize that there’s nothing left in common between you and your partner. Did you stay together for the sake of the kids?
• If you were already feeling disconnected, and without the kids as the primary focus, the day to day distress or discomfort may have intensified. Is this true for you?
• 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 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 do, what is your purpose as you go forward?

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

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 as is:

• I’d like to continue as before without any shake-ups.
• I’d like to jazz it up, 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.

If you are in it for the long haul, but wish to find ways to enhance the connection to 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.

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.

Over decades, couple conversations become very practical: coordinating family plans, dividing up household tasks, planning vacations and events, and managing kids' academic and extra-curricular 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, a few ground rules ought to be set 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 non-defensive. Defensiveness might begin with the phrase, “yes, but . . .”.
• Criticism and name calling generally derails any possibility of a meaningful dialogue so agree to some ground rules in advance.

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 a recent article in the American Psychological Association 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.