How to rekindle and strengthen your relationship<\/p>\n
“If you\u2019ve drifted apart, don\u2019t pressure yourselves to suddenly become wildly romantic. Start by doing things together and becoming curious about each other again.”<\/p>\n
Talk about it ASAP. Don\u2019t assume you both have the same picture of what the empty nest will look like. Similarly to how couples don\u2019t always align on their aspirations for retirement, one of you may be imagining travel and adventure, while the other is imagining more time at home. It\u2019s better to discover those differences and set realistic expectations for one another well before you\u2019re fighting about them.Don\u2019t wait until the kids leave to pay attention to the marriage. If communication has become mostly about schedules, bills and children, start rebuilding the connection before the house is empty. This can be tough to do when you\u2019re strapped for time, but creating new routines such as dinners out once a week, regular walks together, seeing friends, taking a class or planning trips can begin to give this stage its own rhythm. Talk with your partner and come up with a list of activities that could increase your feelings of closeness and connection.Give yourselves some time. Major transitions are often messy at first. Feeling lonely, irritable or disconnected doesn\u2019t necessarily tell you what the next 10 years of your marriage will look like. Try not to draw sweeping conclusions about the relationship while both of you are still adjusting.Don\u2019t expect to become joined at the hip. You don\u2019t need to have all the same interests or spend every free hour together. A good marriage or partnership can include shared activities along with separate friends and hobbies. In fact, it\u2019s healthy to have social connections and interests outside of your partner; they help each person maintain a sense of identity and bring fresh energy back into the relationship.Don\u2019t make your adult children responsible for your happiness. It\u2019s understandable to miss them, but leaning on them to fill the emotional space they left behind can make it harder for everyone to move forward. Your relationship with them may need to change as they build lives of their own, just as you and your partner need to build a satisfying life in this next stage.Start with friendship. If you\u2019ve drifted apart, don\u2019t pressure yourselves to suddenly become wildly romantic. Start by doing things together and becoming curious about each other again. The romantic feelings may have to be rekindled with time, action and patience.Get help if the same fights keep going nowhere and the distance keeps growing. If every conversation ends in blame, withdrawal or contempt, couples therapy can be useful before resentment becomes the main way you relate to each other.<\/p>\n
Joshua Coleman, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in California\u2019s Bay Area, keynote speaker, author and senior fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. His newest book is Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties & How to Heal the Conflict. His Substack is Family Troubles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents may also underestimate how much grief they\u2019ll experience when the children leave. After all, you\u2019re saying goodbye…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12974,59194,23778,156,6440,18791,9872,26098,424,130,120330,111,139,69,9061,5502,38957,306607,520,544,131,38068,1961,3765,3764,30645,1955,4276,102,1959,6438],"class_list":["post-623541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-change","tag-dynamics","tag-empty","tag-entertainment","tag-ever","tag-fighting","tag-finally","tag-heres","tag-life","tag-more","tag-nesters","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-often","tag-partner","tag-recommends","tag-reconnecting","tag-relationship","tag-some","tag-than","tag-therapist","tag-this","tag-tips","tag-transition","tag-unexpected","tag-ways","tag-why","tag-with","tag-your","tag-youre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}