Fatherhood: Dealing with the Empty Nest Syndrome

My wife and I waited ten years for our first baby. We knew this time would come. We were lucky. When were first married we attended a seminar. The speaker stressed the fact that too many couples place their children at the center of their marriage. When the children leave, the couple finds they haven't been close for so long they hardly know one another. The speaker's recommendation was to treat the children as "satellites" to the couple, so, that when they left, they would have been close the whole time; there would be much less of an adjustment.

I know there is much less of an "empty nest syndrome", if, during the rearing of the children, there has been a regular routine of being together as a family; of spending regular "social" time together. My experience as a parent has been that my children come to visit my wife and me often; they say it is because they are "used to being with us".

Of course, my wife and I are alone much more than we have been for many years, so, what do we do?

My wife and I do things we have wanted to do for years. We travel and we socialize with the family members that were pretty boring for our kids. We take time to see our friends, and, we belong to a couple of groups such as a reading club and a bowling league. My wife and I golf. We can afford to go out to eat more now, and, yes, there is a lot more time and freedom for sex. Considering the tiny amount of privacy we had with our first two children, it is a minor miracle that we ever had a third child.

Things that I do by myself include volunteering at my church. I have more time to teach and help with the maintenance. I volunteer for a local soup kitchen. I am a member of a regular golfing foursome.

My wife and I are both avid sports fans. I have a list of books as tall as me that I want to read, and, I am in a doctoral program. I may or may not get to work in the field I am studying, but, I had always wanted to tackle this program and now I'm getting a chance to do it.

Probably the most exciting and surprising thing for me is I have discovered a fervent love for writing.