After sixty-five years of marriage, my grandpa still calls my grandma “honey,” “sweetie,” “baby,” and “sugar.” I asked him for the secret to keeping love alive so long. He said, “I forgot her name ten years ago, and I’m afraid to ask.”
“People always say, ‘The best is yet to come,’ but it’s not. Good things will come. But your best years — your most fun years — are behind you.”
I searched my friend’s face for any hint that she was joking, but she wasn’t. Several years older than me, she had watched Robbie and me raise our children and she knew we were getting ready to send our youngest to college. She also knew I was feeling a bit melancholy about the transition, and I was surprised by her blunt assessment of the empty nest years.
That was then. This is now. And even though part of me acknowledges that my friend was right — I dearly miss the years when our nest was full, and even the subsequent “revolving door” season when our adult children pinballed in and out of our home — it’s not an exaggeration to say that Robbie and I have settled into a new kind of “best.”
- Not only is it a joy to discover a new normal with our kids (one where our main job isn’t about teaching and correcting as much as it is about coming alongside them with love, prayer, and support), but we’ve found fresh delight in exploring life with each other.
(And not just because we can get a half-priced dinner without advance reservations at 5:30 p.m., which Robbie regards as a competitive win.)
We’re enjoying this season of best because, for the first time in three decades, we are truly alone. Which means we have the time and the bandwidth to notice each other — to see and be seen. Which is kind of scary. And exhilarating. And not unlike when we were dating and would stay up half the night sharing our thoughts and dreams. Now we don’t stay up half the night (not with those 5:30 dinners), but we do talk about “us” and the things our hearts hold, much more than we did when our calendars and conversations were crowded with kids.
Our friend Jim Burns understands this unexpected enjoyment. “Who would have thought that the most intimate times in a marriage aren’t necessarily in the first few years but in the empty nest?” he writes. “In the second half, when you work at staying in love, the spark can continue, glow even brighter, and bring a warmth of intimacy that can happen only when you are willing to devote the time, energy, and attention not to settle for a mediocre relationship. You can be more united and experience more of an authentic one- ness than you ever imagined.”1
Jim is right — the spark can glow brighter, and second- half love can be incredibly rich and satisfying. But it may not seem that way right at first...
Even Exciting New Things Can Be Hard
Richard couldn’t wait to get home after he and his wife dropped off their third son, their youngest, at college. Natalie had shed a few tears as she hugged him goodbye, but all in all, Richard thought, the move had gone smoothly. And on the drive home, when he hinted that they might want to try a skinny dip in the pool since they had the house all to themselves, Natalie gave him a sideways smile and reached for his hand.
They pulled into the driveway just after sunset. Natalie went upstairs to change while Richard grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge. Wrapping a towel around his now-naked waist, he went out to the pool and turned the lights low.
Ten minutes later, he was still waiting.
“Nat?” Richard called as he went back indoors. Hearing no reply, he climbed the steps and heard a muffled sob coming from his son’s room. There was his wife, splayed out on the bed facedown.
“I couldn’t walk past his room,” she wailed. “It’s all just so... empty!”
Many parents can relate to Natalie’s and Richard’s experience: She feels like her purpose and identity have suddenly evaporated when the kids leave; he is excited to think he might get his girlfriend back. That’s a generalization, of course; Robbie would tell you that he missed — and still misses — the noisy dinner table, the high school sidelines, even the “no man left behind” Sunday morning scramble as he tried to get the whole crew to church. And we both wondered what the future would look like for our marriage. Would we enjoy being together, just the two of us? Like, all the time?
It’s not just a quiet house full of vacant bedrooms and empty chairs that can give rise to a mixed bag of emotions. We may struggle with regret as we look back on our parenting years; impatience, quick tempers, and unkind words can loom large in our memories. Or we may find ourselves unexpectedly lonely as our peers — the parents we sat with at ball games and worked with on committees at school — start to travel, go back to work, or spend more time with their grandkids. And if one or both of us are winding down a career, we may experience a whole new sense of upheaval as schedules and finances change.
“I married him for better or for worse,” my friend Lucy laughed when her husband retired, “but not for lunch!”
Christian authors and pastors like to point to Isaiah 43:19 as an anchor for hope during times of transition.
See, I am doing a new thing! this verse proclaims. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
That’s a great verse — one you might put on a coffee mug or an empty nester T-shirt — but honestly? Even the most exciting “new thing” can be hard.
Author Susan Yates likens the empty nest years to Jell-O — “hard to grab hold of and constantly changing shape.”2 Part of the problem is that there is no “one size fits all” formula for navigating this season. There is, however, a handful of things we can do (and some things we should avoid) if we want love to flourish and grow as we adjust to our changing circumstances and roles.
Let’s hit the don’ts first:
Don’t expect your spouse or your job to fill the void left by your kids. It can be easy, especially for women, to feel emotionally bereft when the children leave, and we may look to our husbands for things like appreciation, affirmation, and understanding. For men, the temptation may be to pour themselves into their jobs. Instead of rushing to fill the hole with people or projects, talk with each other and be honest about how you’re feeling. Figure out the next steps together.
Don’t be quick to find fault. With more time to focus on one another, issues once masked by the cacophony of family living may surface. Some of these concerns may call for deeper conversations (like when one of you realizes that, with the kids gone, the other doesn’t say much), and some will be ridiculously small (like the woman who told us she’d never realized “how loudly my husband chews” until they were alone at the table). Either way, big or small, every emerging question or concern will demand grace and a readiness, as Ephesians 4:2 puts it, to
bear with one another in love.
Don’t think that your relationship no longer matters to your kids. Just as your children watched how you treated one another when they were at home, they’re observing — and learning from — how you invest in each other now. And with “gray divorce” on the rise (couples older than fifty who split up), the relational fallout is real — particularly for men, who are more likely (especially if they remarry) to find themselves alienated from their children. “Gray divorce can leave men cut off from crucial social support when they are most frail, and most in need of medical care, hospital visitors, and final reassurance of family love.”3
As for what we should do, the list includes endless possibilities for enhancing communication, rekindling romance, and making the most of your new alone time together. Here are a few:
Do have fun. While this sounds simple or self-evident, just because you have more time once the children are launched doesn’t mean you’ll automatically have more fun. Make a list of ten things you’d like to do and then start doing them. Our friends Susan and Johnny went snowmobiling for the first time when they hit their seventies. Lynn and Ralph launched an annual couples getaway with a handful of newly minted empty nesters. Tim and Annabelle use the extra minutes they have in the morning to read the Bible out loud together — something they had never done when the children were home and mornings were a blur. Having fun doesn’t always mean laughing out loud; anything that adds joy to your marriage can count in this column.
Do pray about your purpose. In addition to having more time, you have more wisdom and a better perspective than you had when you were younger.
- You have talents and experience to share and maybe more money to use. Make the most of the opportunities these resources afford by being intentional about where you invest them.
Revisit some of the questions you likely considered earlier in your marriage — things like your strengths, abilities, and interests — and then be alert to the people or new ventures God brings your way.
Do make your marriage a priority. You’re never too old to keep stoking the fires of intimacy — romantically, emotionally, and spiritually. At one marriage conference Robbie and I helped facilitate, we met Gail and Gil, a couple who’d been married more than fifty years. “We keep dating each other,” Gil said, “and we figure we’re never too old to learn something new. Plus, when we made our vows on our wedding day, we weren’t saying them just to each other; we were making a promise to God — and I’m not messing with that!”
All of these things — having fun, finding purpose, and prioritizing your spouse — are not unique to the empty nest years. But concentrating on them in a season when you’re already in a transition of sorts can breathe fresh life into your relationship, whether your marriage needs a reboot or you just want to keep a good thing burning bright.
Robbie and I love going to weddings and adding our hearty “We will!” when the officiant asks who will support the new couple. We also love weddings for a more personal reason. Each time a new bride and groom say their vows, Robbie takes my hand in his and we silently follow along. To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.
Our older marriage conference friend was right. Wedding vows are promises worth keeping, to your spouse and to God, from the newlywed years to the empty nest years to forever.
Remember
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree... They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green. — Psalm 92:12, 14
- Jim Burns, Finding Joy in the Empty Nest: Discover Purpose and Passion in the Next Phase of Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022), 75.
- Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates, Barbara and Susan’s Guide to the Empty Nest: Discovering New Purpose, Passion, and Your Next Great Adventure (Little Rock, AR: FamilyLife, 2008), 9.
- Kay Hymowitz, “The Aftermath of Gray Divorce for Men, Women, and Their Adult Children,” Institute for Family Studies, October 25, 2021, https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-aftermath-of-gray-divorce-for-men-women -and-their-adult-children.
Excerpted with permission from Praying the Scriptures for Your Marriage by Jodie Berndt, copyright Jodie Berndt.
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Your Turn
If you’re in the empty nest years or going to enter them soon, God has good in store for you! The upcoming years can be some of your best and most fun. Ask the Lord to help you follow Him with your spouse into a joyful and happy future together! ~ Devotionals Daily