Empty Nest Syndrome

You are welcome Ginette - it will settle down and you will be able to look at life more positively. Give it time - and make some resolutions as to what you are going to do to build your life up again.

Hi my lovely supporters Mishap and Janerowena, where I am is impossible to find those activities, but once I get back to work hopefully I'll be in a better frame of mind and won't be as low I can slowly look for evening activities as all the ones I've looked into are during the day. Thank you for all the support. Im so grateful.

The motto seems to be - get your OWN life. Be independent of your adult children.

It's everything coming all at once then.

DD leaving home
Not sure about your relationship
An operation
It's January
Possibly hormones pulling you down too.

It's not surprising you feel low.

I have another week before DS goes back. I am interested to see how I will feel this time. I now have choir, WI, book club, knitting club and I help out at the school, on top of my part-time work as admin on a forum elsewhere. I don't think I had noticed how many evenings a week DBH was out while DS was at home, because I had him for company and never minded wrangling with him over homework and doing his music practice. Now we are both out several evenings a week and DS is left to clear the dishes as we whizz out the door to whatever we are up to.

I asked the other women tonight what they did outside of work. There was swimming, archery, zumba, yoga, tai chi, most are in book clubs, a couple have parish council duties, several help out at local schools in the evenings that run courses, one plays piano for a jazz band, one is a singer in a dance band (considering having plastic surgery, a very pretty 60 year old) and I was not really surprised after being on here at the breadth of what they had chosen to do.

Yes mishap thank you for your support much appreciated, I'm just sad that I allowed myself this defeatist attitude, I used to be so vibrant and went through life mostly happy, never been so low.

Being back at work will help you I am sure, and help to stop you brooding on the gap in your life. You will I am sure find ways of filling that gap - but it does need a conscious decision on your part to do that.

Hahahaahahahah Tegan no unfortunately I'm a couch potato due to poor health I just had an operation. I go back to work next Thursday so hopefully I will get back into the swing of things. Thanks mishap too x

My last child going to university coincided with DH going to work away from home so I really had an empty house. My solution was to go out for drinks with friends, meet a sister for lunch once a week and to continue playing badminton. I was never lonely and because I got out and met people I had something to talk about when DH returned home.

Ginette; do you like exercise of any kind? Because that would lift you mentally [she says having put off going to the gym yet again ].

What doesn't help is that January is the most depressing month of the year even if you're not feeling fed up about anything.

Ginette - getting older is about losses of one sort or another and we have to adapt to these and see the positives that lie beneath - we also gain in wisdom and a certain sense of "sod it - I will do what I want." You need to cultivate this and see this as an opportunity, which it genuinely is.

When our children leave home they are making the statement that they are now adults - and your relationship with them becomes very different. It takes time for that new relationship to settle down, but that new relationship becomes very precious and just as enjoyable as what went before.

I know from another thread that you need to sort out your relationship with your OH now too - that is so common when the final child leaves. The goalposts and the ground beneath your feet have shifted and it is a time to re-evaluate how you are both going to use this new and exciting phase of your life.

There will be positives, and you will get through this phase - just hang on in there.

Is there anyone there willing to talk about ENS I need someone anyone please

Don't be daft!

DD&Co have a very complicated life that can't really be disturbed for the next couple of years, until she has completed her law degree. 2 jobs, 2 small children with a complicated care network, plus her tutorials,. SiL works for a company that designs racing car seats. He is saving up to start his own company, but that will be some years down the line. He can work anywhere he likes then. However, I'm not holding my breath, they have made a life there and have loads of friends, a good social life (when they can fit it in) and really good support network. Plus all of his family, who are lovely. I think if they had come up here sooner, it would have been fine, but why should they want to leave it just for us? The only reason would be a better house for the same money. Theirs is tiny, I can see it becoming a problem. Even so...

Loved living in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, but oh the long, long winters... I'm not sorry to see the back of them.

janerowena Why can't they afford to leave? Is it the job situation?

We lived in Leeds for a few years in the 70s. We loved it there - it was a real eye-opener. My mother had prejudiced me against the North - she was brought up in St Helens during the 20s and 30s - and assumed anything North of Watford Gap was factory chimneys and blackened back-to-backs. Well, there were/are back-to-backs in some areas, but we also found wonderful countryside, interesting towns and cities and lovely friendly people. We had to move back to London for DH's job and tried to return when he applied for a lectureship, but he didn't get it - so we stayed, and though we moved to a leafier suburb in the early 80s, which is on the Kent/Surrey border, we still love returning to visit Yorkshire when we can. And now of course it would be harder to move out - we aren't brilliant at making new friends, I have some close friends locally I would miss terribly, we love the countryside and visiting places of interest not too far away from us, and last but not least, a lot of family in and around London.
And now I've hi-jacked your thread and waffled on about nothing, I'll get me coat and see meself out - not for the first time....

suebailey1 Hugs to you and . That must be so hard. I'm not surprised you're teary - I would be, too. It must hurt a lot. Are you able to tell her that you miss talking to her and miss the closeness you used to have?
And/or would you be able to go and stay for a few days? Not sure how far opp North your daughter's moved - our DD1 is in Norwich which isn't a million miles away, but we still don't see her very much and I do miss her loads. It's harder when there is a partner/OH involved though -( our DD1 is single now but loves living in Norwich.) Fingers crossed for you that you can find ways of lessening the pain.

I don't know how long ago that was, but the novelty may wear off. DD would love to leave SiL's family and her DF behind, but they can't afford to now. Would you like to live up there? I did for a while, I loved it although my roots and most of my family are back down here.

Bad bad case of ENS this at the moment, Daughter has moved up north with her northener husband (he who knows no other life but sport on TV and computer games) and his largish northern family have taken her over. She's changed so much and hardly calls now - I'm very teary much of the time and only get relief when clobbering golf balls into the distance

He's nineteen. Very intelligent, but has a dreadful short-term memory. Vey slightly aspergic but not that an adult would notice, it was evident to other young teens a few years ago, he found them childish. Now he fits right in. He wouldn't tell us where he was going this past week, the first week was spent with the Cambridge OTC., then he went off grid and got all mysterious. He was being driven around London and Yorkshire all by himself with a lieutenant, being head-hunted to join Army intelligence! He said he didn't fancy it, it sounded too much like a desk job. He could never be a spy, he would forget keys, wallet, phone, passport, false name, and he knows that himself, so he reckons that army intelligence aren't intelligent! Still - fascinating, as you know, to realise what a child who I was sure would never be able to live independently, can get up to.

He came home with a crate of nice beer from a barrack somewhere in the north, he fixed their sound system for them. His father is most impressed.

janerowena Like you, I had a child with problems - maybe that does make ENS worse. Hadn't thought of that. A large amount of time during DD2's childhood and adolescence was spent worrying about whether she would ever be able to be independent, as her health probs were pretty severe. And we nearly lost her to suicide attempts in her late teens/early twenties. Thankfully she's come through it all and more, but it sure has left its mark!

How lovely to be able to forage together with DS. How old is he?

I used to go on mumsnet fairly regularly, because of ENS, and found that quite a few of the other sufferers who were on the thread as long as I was also had children with slight problems. Anorexia, ADHD, physical disabilities, dyslexics. We think that most of our apparently stronger and longer-lasting ENS suffering is caused by worry about how our slightly different children will cope as adults. Mine is due back today, he has been travelling around for the past two weeks, and I am really looking forward to seeing him. Not looking forward to the extra work and shopping bill, though! I think I need to concentrate on the negatives more, but I too loved being a mother.

I also miss the company. DBH is out from very early until quite late, then is so tired that I often only see him for an hour a day during term-time. During holidays he is always out singing somewhere or competing (athlete) or chasing butterflies. DS is very good company and is happy to see films with me and do things that DBH doesn't always want to. I really miss that. Going off to the woods elderberry and blackberry picking, that sort of thing. We went to the woods to pick elderflowers to make champagne the last time he was here, he was looking around and seeing it with fresh eyes, as if he might never see it again. I know he's doing it, because I look at him the same way.

Although my two daughters are well into their forties and left home over thirty years ago, I am still waiting for the nest to feel empty.

One GS has lived with us for the past 9 years, other GC visit regularly, I see one daughter (who lives nearbyt) a lot and the other (who lives in Manchester) visits and e-mails.

I've got quite a nice balance now. Time to myself in the week and plenty of company at the weekend.

I get to know all the family news (a bit like a soap opera sometimes) as soon as it happens.

janerowena - there's a lot to be said for arranged marriages

Only just seen this thread and yes, I definitely have ENS! Though like Kiora I wouldn't actually want them back. I am happy for them that they have lives outside and have moved away. It's what they both wanted and what we wanted for them. But I do miss them terribly. We see DD2 more often because of DGD, but after each meeting I feel anxious and sad, wondering when we will see them again (and I try to keep that to myself!). We don't see DD1 that often as she lives in Norwich and we're in Saf Lunnun, but every time she comes down or we go to stay with her, it's always a wrench to say goodbye.
I loved being a mother. We always will be mothers but it's the loss of important role which is difficult to bear, even though the void is filled with other things. It still feels as if I'm filling time, but then I struggle with depression and anxiety so I'm not sure which came first.
The house feels very empty without them in it, and while I used to yearn for my own time and company at times when they were smaller, now I hate being by myself for too long! There's no pleasing some people, is there?

Well, you get torn, don't you. You want them to have as normal a life as possible, and he loves his Uni life far more than he did his school life. I keep on hoping that a nice bossy well-organised girl will come along, but he doesn't even notice the signs when a girl likes him. He is a very high-functioning aspergic, with a great sense of humour. But he cannot tell whether people like him, has an appalling short-term memory (so would never remember their birthday) and can be rather blunt and too truthful on occasion which is fortunately tempered by good manners! He says that he doesn't think that he wants a girlfriend until he can afford to take her out properly. There's a girl on his course that I think he likes. When I see her pop up on facebook I practically have to sit on my hands to stop myself sending her a message asking her out on his behalf! I hadn't really thought about the sharing of the worry aspect, I think you have a point there.

It'd be far far worse if he was stuck at home and couldn't go to uni. Although that doesn't actually make it any easier [it should; but it doesn't ].