Couples Counseling: the Empty Nest Years
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The document outlines the joys and challenges that empty nest couples face, highlighting eight key issues such as conflict resolution, communication, and maintaining romance. It emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, effective communication, and adjusting to new roles, while providing strategies for building stronger relationships during this transitional phase. Overall, it aims to help couples navigate their empty nest years productively and positively.
Couples Counseling: the Empty Nest Years
- 1. Empty Nest Couples: the Joys and Challenges Holly L. Scott, MBA, MS, LPC North Dallas Counseling, PLLC www.HollyScottPLLC.com
- 2. Top Issues in Empty Nest Years • Conflict resolution • Money • Communication • Aging Parents • Sex • Retirement Planning • Health • Children • Fun • Grandchildren • Recreation • Careers • Friends • Household • Religion responsibilities • Fun and Leisure
- 3. Eight Challenges of Empty Nesters Based on the work of Dave and Claudia Arp, founders of Marriage Alive International and authors of numerous books on marriage including 10 Great Dates for Empty Nesters.
- 4. Eight challenges of the Empty Nest #1 Let Go of Past Marital Disappointments Long term marriages crumble because of LITTLE issues that have built up over the years NOT one major crisis.
- 5. #1 Let Go of Past Marital Disappointments As a Couple, Make a List of: • things you will never do again • things you will never do at all • things that will never change Talk through the things on this list
- 6. #1 Let Go of Past Marital Disappointments Be Willing to Forgive • Spouse • Parents • Children Importance of Forgiveness in Second Half of Marriage
- 7. #1 Let Go of Past Marital Disappointments Individually, make a List of Grievances • Which are easy to let go and forgive? • Which do you need to talk through? • Are there situations where you need help?
- 8. #1 Let Go of Past Marital Disappointments Specific Steps to Help You Forgive • Decide to forgive • Ceremoniously let go • Change your responses
- 9. #1 Let Go of Past Marital Disappointments As a Couple, Make a List of Things We will do in the Second Half of Marriage • Accept each other as a package deal • Renew our commitment to each other
- 10. #2 Create a Marriage that is Partner Focused “When our kids left, we were strangers.” -Couple married 25 years
- 11. #2 Create a Marriage that is Partner Focused • It takes work • It does not happen automatically • Embrace new roles & changing attitudes • Make decisions based on the best interest of the couple
- 12. #2 Create a Marriage that is Partner Focused Avoid Becoming an Activity-Focused Marriage • Do not immediately fill up your time with other activities • Resist making Immediate Changes Avoid continuing a Child-focused Marriage
- 13. #2 Create a Marriage that is Partner Focused “Commitment can keep a couple together, but commitment based on constraint alone makes for a pretty miserable marriage…Marriages don’t have to slide into a state of committed misery, but to avoid it spouses have to nurture dedication for a lifetime.” -Scott Stanley, PhD
- 14. #3 Maintain an Effective Communication System Actual quotes from church bulletins • Don’t let worry kill you, let the church help. • Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community. • This afternoon there will be a meeting at the south and north ends of our church, children will be baptized at both ends. COMMUNICATION IS DIFFICULT!!
- 15. #3 Maintain an Effective Communication System • Pick out the married couple at a restaurant • John Gottman, 35 years of research on over 3000 couples. 5 positive for every negative
- 16. #3 Maintain an Effective Communication System Dangerous Communication Styles From John Gottman, PhD • Escalation • Invalidation • Withdrawal and Avoidance • Negative Interpretations
- 17. #3 Maintain an Effective Communication System Ways to Learn more Effective Communication • Learn to Listen • Be aware of nonverbal messages Communication is 55% nonverbal, 38% tone of voice, and 7% verbal
- 18. #3 Maintain an Effective Communication System Ways to Learn more Effective Communication • Communicate Feelings • “I” Statements • Complete the communication cycle • Agree to no attacking or defending • Regular “couple communication” time
- 19. #4 Use Anger & Conflict in a Creative Way to Build your Relationship “One of the best aspects of our marriage is learning to disagree, stand our ground, and still be friends and lovers.” -husband married for thirty years “In every marriage the two dynamic forces are love, which seeks to draw the couple together, and anger, which tend to drive them apart.” -Dr. David Mace, marriage researcher
- 20. #4 Use Anger & Conflict in a Creative Way to Build your Relationship Understanding Anger Anger develops from Fear and Frustration Teenager home late Late for work, stuck in traffic
- 21. #4 Use Anger & Conflict in a Creative Way to Build your Relationship First deal with your own anger • What am I really angry about? • What is the problem and whose problem is it? • How can I learn to express my anger in a way that will not leave me feeling helpless and powerless?
- 22. #4 Use Anger & Conflict in a Creative Way to Build your Relationship Talk about anger with your partner, acknowledge your anger as soon as you are aware of it Never attack your spouse State problem, List possible solutions, Choose one and try it
- 23. #4 Use Anger & Conflict in a Creative Way to Build your Relationship Most Marital Conflicts are Resolved by 1. A gift of love to the one who needs it the most 2. A gift of individuality 3. Compromise – Each person gives a little 4. Agree to disagree- No simple solution How do you resolve conflicts in your relationship?
- 24. #5 Build a Deeper Friendship with your Spouse Typically, men & women have different friendship styles. Men value doing things together, while women value talking together. Develop shared activities and regular times to talk.
- 25. #5 Build a Deeper Friendship with your Spouse • Take care of yourself • Build new relationships & reconnect with friends • Stretch your boundaries • Continue to learn and grow
- 26. #5 Build a Deeper Friendship with your Spouse Make a list of Ten Fun Dates Schedule Date Night Make Dating a #1 Priority
- 27. #6 Renew Romance & Restore a Pleasurable Sexual Relationship “In a good marriage, sex and love are inseparable. Sex serves a very serious function in maintaining both the quality and the stability of the relationship, replenishing emotional reserves, and strengthening the marital bond.” Judith Wallerstein, The Good Marriage
- 28. #6 Renew Romance & Restore a Pleasurable Sexual Relationship Ideas for Rekindling Romance • Be Affectionate • Be a Listener • Be Adventuresome • Be Playful • Exercise
- 29. #6 Renew Romance & Restore a Pleasurable Sexual Relationship Ideas to kick-start your sexual relationship • Hug for 20 seconds each day • Flirt with each other • Kiss for ten seconds (count the seconds!) • Shoulder rubs • Romantic movies at home
- 30. #7 Adjust to Changing Roles with Adult Children & Aging Parents The emotional drain of trying to be everything to everybody is affecting my relationship with my husband. There is no energy left at the end of the day for me or to invest in our marriage. -wife married for twenty-eight years
- 31. #7 Adjust to Changing Roles with Adult Children & Aging Parents Deal with false guilt, you can’t be all things to all people Don’t feel responsible for what you can’t control Ask for advice from friends Use community resources
- 32. #7 Adjust to Changing Roles with Adult Children & Aging Parents • Keep your marriage as the anchor relationship • Include your partner in how you are feeling • Work together to solve problems • Don’t let Adult Children or Aging Parents pull your relationship apart.
- 33. #8 Evaluate where you are on your Spiritual Pilgrimage “The greatest stress in our marriage is that we are at different places spiritually.”
- 34. #8 Evaluate where you are on your Spiritual Pilgrimage Dealing with Spiritual Differences • Don’t force or coerce your spouse to be attend something they won’t enjoy. • Remain open-minded • You do not have to settle theological or denominational disputes
- 35. Make your Empty Nest Years the Best Years!
Editor's Notes
- #6: Never have a daughter/son Never be a family of 5 againPhysical changes
- #11: Gail Sheehy, Passages, a massive shift takes place across gender lines as we grow older. What is observable emprically is that women begin to be more focused, more interested in tasks and accomplishments than in nurturing, whereas men start to show greater interest in nurturing and being nurtured…Women become more independent and assertive, men more expressive and emotionally responsive. These changes in mid to later life are developmental, not circumstantial, and they occur in predictable sequences across disparate cultures.
- #12: Gail Sheehy, Passages, a massive shift takes place across gender lines as we grow older. What is observable emprically is that women begin to be more focused, more interested in tasks and accomplishments than in nurturing, whereas men start to show greater interest in nurturing and being nurtured…Women become more independent and assertive, men more expressive and emotionally responsive. These changes in mid to later life are developmental, not circumstantial, and they occur in predictable sequences across disparate cultures.
- #17: Avoider suppresses anger