When your children left home did you find it difficult to just be you and your husband?

[smallydolly]

My children are only young but for some reason I've been thinking about how the future may look if they ever got married/left home. I can't imagine it being just us all the time. We've gone through some tough time lately and I think that's what making me wonder if it will be reallly awkward- will we have anything in common?

How did it pan out for you?

God yes MorrisZapp amiable workmates nails it for me i think.

We're not even that amiable (me really, as I get pissed off at DH & DS not tidying up after themselves).

Can't/don't want to leave as standard of living would be rubbish but I fantasise about converting the garage & living in it separately from them!

This will be me soon and a word of warning, three of my friends are divorcing and with two it’s just when the children are leaving home. People forget how to be a couple or and I think in the case of the third friend, she panicked and just wanted children so married an amiable chap, well paid nice bloke but a bit dull, she was never truly in love with him. I know one other friend who freely admits this. So what was your relationship like before children, ponder that.

Apart from domestic stuff what do you have in common? DH and I like hiking, cycling, board games, doing crosswords together, have done some ballroom dancing and been on quiz teams together. Remember why you got together. DH and I will no longer be going out clubbing like we did in our twenties but we have hobbies in common. He was off work this week so we did a proper hike in the Peaks and then a 3 hour and 2 hour jaunt along canals and riverbanks.

Ours are 23 and 25 this year and still living at home. It’s bloody expensive out there. But I don’t imagine having any problems when they do leave home, we had 14 years of marriage before they came along.

Before DD left home, my late DH and I went on a couple of biggish holidays together on our own, often went on days out together and some music festivals - we were late 50s/v.early 60s. We had a good deal in common as well as separate interests that I think would have stood us in good stead, but then it was so throughout our marriage.

I remember one of DH's friends, when told about the things we did together said "How romantic", and I don't think he was taking the piss.

Don't wait until your children leave home to have quality time with your partner.

I think it's so important for parents to carve out time for themselves and their relationship - even if it's just cooking dinner together at home or playing board games when the little ones are in bed.

If you don't nurture and prioritise yourself as a couple sometimes then it won't be a happy marriage for long.

No, our youngest is 16 and while that means DH and I can have more time together we are arguing much more about the DCs than ever.

He can't wait until they are fully left home so we can holiday along and spend time together, hates having their friends and boyfriends around. Having been in the same page throughout their childhood I didn't expect issues to start now.

He feels to me that he just wants them gone now and I want the opposite.

So sorry, @Oneblindmouse.

I will miss the chaos of my 4. And their company because they are such fun. I will not miss the expense, the food, the endless mess.
They are older teens now and DH and I make sure we go out a lot together. This weekend we went for a long walk, then a gallery, a meal and the pub. We both have separate hobbies and see friends.

It's definitely an adjustment and I really struggled for the first couple of years. I missed the noise, chaos, company, laughs etc. All of a sudden I had all this time on my hands and wasn't sure what to do with it all. Now though I love it. The kids are still back and forth but I've found new interests and DH and I have rediscovered who we are both separately and together.
It was hard to begin with and did take time but now we love it being just the two of us.

I think some people do realise how much they've grown apart once their children leave home.

Does your husband get any help for his depression?

DH and I lived together for 11 years before DD came along. She is now 16 and often doesn't want to go out because she is revising or having plans with friends.

We like being able to do things on our own again, walks, dinner if she is away for meal times, we discovered lots of 2 people board games.

Just yesterday we said we should think about a short holiday when DD is away at uni, just the two of us.

Our last to leave went 11 years ago and it's been fantastic.
We can do what we want, when we want in the house, just the same as we did pre kids.
Including having a shag on the sofa in the middle of a wet Sunday afternoon if we feel like it.

I often wonder this too. We've got two boys, one has half fled the nest as he's 20 and at Uni, when home he generally is either working or with his GF/out with mates.

DS2 is 15, less likely to go to Uni, but I expect won't hang around much past 20/21

DH and I have been together a long time, we get on well and enjoy time just the two of us (we like weekends away), but I do worry that we're quite different. DH is quite serious, a bit of a negative Nellie type. I'm much more laid back and fun loving ( although we are both similarly introverted). I bounce off the children, have devoted a lot of time to them and we have a great relationship - DS1 drives me bonkers at times, but I also miss him a lot when he's at Uni as he's like my best friend.

So yes, I do wonder what life will be like, post children. Hoping we'll find our feet and enjoy it!

I’m in the “not sure I’ll want to stay married” camp. I think it’s the years of picking up after a household of children and OH, resentment and just wanting to please myself for a while. His habits infuriate me just now (why can’t men sneeze and blow their nose at a reasonable volume?!). He doesn’t tidy up properly, the laundry always smells weird when he does it. But oh don’t dare mention it as then the weaponisation of “well I just won’t do it then” is used. Things are dead in the bedroom because I don’t want to have sex in a room where his stinky clothes are all over the floor, bedside table covered in dust and mess and his side of the bed always reeks. He always has a blocked nose due to allergies so claims he can’t smell it. We were together a decade before kids and having been married a decade now. It’s complicated why we got married but it feels 50/50 to me whether it will last post kids.

I'm so sorry,that must be so,so hard x

Ds left for 4 years and is now back but it's only part time as he spends a lot of time at his gf's.

It's different, he was so ready to fly the nest. It's quieter when he's not here but when he's back his gf often comes too which is lovely. He's away for a couple of weeks and then back for a few days.

I feel for the posters saying it's boring, can't you get out and do stuff or is it highlighting marriage difficulties, I think I that's really common and why a lot of people split up once the kids have left.

Don't overthink too much and try to enjoy the present.

Our kids are in their 30s now with kids/lives of their own. After busy working/family lives it was strange to retire and be together so much.

We had to ‘relearn’ being together. We have separate interests and friends but lots in common too. I think it’s important to have things to share over dinner just as we used to when we were at work.

We do mundane stuff like the grocery shopping together and discuss the news; we’ve also rebonded over the grandchildren.

Honestly I’d say we have a better relationship now than we did in our 30s/40s/50s when work and family got in the way. We have the time for each other now.

I just hope I die first because life without him feels unthinkable.

As children get older, they start being more independent, ie will have sleepovers (we found that a good excuse for a night out or some 'us' time over a nice meal, watching film etc), be out with their friends in the evening and even going away for holidays with friends families. It starts slowly and you adjust as you go along.

As they get into late teenage years, they start getting more independent and even having ideas about how things should work in the house, so you can get tot the stage that, although, you love them, you're ready to let them go.

As they start getting more independent, yes you will spend more time alone with DH, but that's why it's important to keep in contact with friends and have hobbies. This week, I'll have done two exercise classes, DH has been on long walks and bike rides, I'm meeting a friend for coffee tomorrow and as it happens meeting up with two different couples on Friday and Saturday who we've got to know. It gives you different company, something to plan/look forward to and gets you out. DH is now retired, I work full-time. Although, we're in the house, we're not constantly together as we both have things we need to do, enjoy doing independently.

I felt a very deep sadness when our DDs left for university. Being their Mum was one of the best parts of my life, we got along so well and they are genuinely lovely young women. I really wasn't prepared for the sense of loss because I was never the Earth Mother type and always worked and had lots of friends etc.

But the first few nights after our DDs left, I didn't change the bedding and slept in their beds just to still feel close to them. Yes, it's weird, I know.

But what helped me through was having lots of quiet, easy time with DH and purely focusing on each other. Nothing dramatic, just going out for lunch or watching a film together, going to bed early (ahem...). We were together for 11 years before having our DDs and so we easily slipped back into coupledom. We enjoyed the occasional snog in the kitchen or deciding to head off for the weekend at tea time on a Friday.

Our DDs still come home a lot, and we still often holiday with them. They are a joy to be around. But my relationship with DH is equally happy. There's nothing better than going out for lunch together, then watching a film and finally going to bed early with this gorgeous man who still loves me. I'm incredibly lucky.

This is us. The house is empty when DS goes out, and re energises when he comes home. I don't know if we'll stay together when DS leaves home, we have little in common and don't have much 'rekindling' potential as we never were great on conversation.

Having said that, we have a house we like and we happily live our lives alongside each other, if not doing much together. Who knows, I'll just do that classic making it too comfortable for DS to leave I think! He can stay here forever if he wants.

@PriceMeByTheYard
Your post is lovely and pretty much how me and DH operate when we're DC-free.

We have a few friends whose marriages have broken down around the 18 year mark when DCs start to leave.
We're just a couple of years off this so I feel lucky that we (currently!) really enjoy each other's company.

We've been OK. Only had one child, a son. We acclimatised to him being away when he went off to University, but he came home for the Xmas and Easter break and then again for the long Summer break, so we didn't really "feel" that he'd left. We also kept daily contact by Facetime during term time. Because he kept coming home, we didn't feel like we had an "empty" house. Once he graduated, he went straight to moving to a new city for his first proper job, so that was more of a wrench, but we still have regular facetime chats and he still comes back over for Xmas and Easter breaks and quite a few odd weekends too, so again, our house "feels" as if he's still with us. I think we've done OK because it's been more of a gradual move away over five years, rather than a "here one minute, gone the next" scenario.

I think we'll be OK. If you'd asked me 7 or 8 years ago (DCs starting secondary school age, me in peri) I'd have said I was worried about it, DH didn't really have any local friends, just his work and his fairly solitary hobbies. But my hormones have settled down so I don't get irritated with all sorts of everything like I used to, he has taken up hobbies that have brought him local friends, I have always kept myself busy outside work but now I have started other activities and volunteering completely separate from the DCs as opposed to being on their club committees etc and that is so refreshing. We go out together sometimes, separately too. I worry more about retiring than the DCs leaving, I cannot imagine not working, OTOH I am always adding things to my to do list for when the time comes, there are so many clubs and volunteering opportunities where we live so I am sure I will keep busy.