What Is 'Empty Nest Syndrome'?
Women’s trauma and attachment psychotherapist Annie Wright, LMFT, tells MyLifetime that even though there’s no formal diagnosis for empty nest syndrome, it’s “the underlying experience that a role which organized 20 or 30 years of your daily life has ended, and you are now supposed to feel free rather than unmoored.” Wright adds that this is “something almost every mother I work with encounters in some form.”
Coming home to silence or passing by your kid’s empty bedroom can feel jarring—if not completely depressing. Wright suggests feelings like persistent sadness, worry about your child, trouble sleeping or a sudden loss of purpose can be common characteristics of the transition.
That said, these feelings “can also surface grief, identity questions and relational patterns that were previously masked by the demands of active parenting,” Wright says.
It doesn’t have to mean that something’s wrong. Maybe you loved that active parenting, and now you’re dealing with the loss of a structure that you organized your life around for years. “That deserves to be named,” Wright says. “Not medicalized, not minimized and not rushed through.”
Licensed psychologist Linda Baggett, PhD, says these feelings turn problematic when they interfere with your responsibilities. “While most parents intensely miss their children when they move out of the house, empty nest syndrome includes grief to the point it is negatively impacting functioning or day-to-day life,” Dr. Baggett tells MyLifetime. In that case, she says, you might want to seek out a therapist to help you navigate this new phase.
How to Work Through Empty Nest Syndrome
Navigating what to do with your newfound free time is common, but simply filling your calendar “is a trap," Wright says. It bypasses the developmental work, which can help you figure out what you need to find fulfillment and purpose in the upcoming years. "For many of the women I work with, active parenting was carrying a great deal—identity, purpose, structure,” she says. So it helps to understand what that role meant for you in order to determine what, exactly, you want your next steps to look like.
The two psychotherapists help outline what those next steps can be:
First, Take a Break
Before you dive into volunteering at a local museum or becoming an expert scrapbooker (finally, time to organize all those years of photos!), first take some time to think about what the role of “parent” has been carrying for you that you need to carry differently.
"Notice what surfaces when the calendar is not doing the work of self-definition for you,” says Wright. “New pursuits—creative, professional, physical, relational—will land better when they are chosen from that place, rather than reached for as a way to outrun the discomfort of the pause."
This can help you move forward rather than trying to run away from the discomfort, which could potentially force you to work through this transition twice, she says.
Give Yourself Anchors
Wright recommends building small, daily anchors that are just for you, be it an early-morning walk, a standing coffee date with a friend or time in the evenings carved out for crafting. “The nervous system does well with predictability, and after decades of orienting around a child's rhythm, it needs new signals for what a day is,” she explains.
Don’t have any hobbies outside of wrangling kids into a car? It happens—but it also means “you may not even know what you like,” Dr. Baggett says.
She recommends experimenting with different activities, seeing what your friends are doing and returning to any activities you enjoyed in the past. It also helps to be patient. “Sometimes interests develop over time,” she says, adding, “if you learn you hate something, well, that's useful data too.”
No matter the outcome, a major point is that this is time you’re investing in getting to know yourself.
Rekindle Relationships with Loved Ones
Raising kids can act as a shared project for a marriage, and when that ends, “whatever the marriage has been underneath becomes visible,” Wright says.
Some couples have a strong second chapter, especially if they’d made moves to communicate and co-parent equally over the years. “However, if the parenting was not equally split—and especially if one parent was much more invested in their children and had less friendship or activity outside of parenting, they may experience this transition in vastly different ways and have difficulty relating to the other,” Dr. Baggett says.
That doesn’t mean you’re doomed—it’s just helpful to note. If you can talk through your differences or patterns, with or without the support of a couples therapist, then it can do a lot to set you up for a happier, healthier relationship.
Plot Your Next Chapter
If your kid hasn’t yet flown the coop, take this time to start thinking about what you want to do. Maybe even start those newer habits now, like walking the dog and meeting a friend for coffee, so that they still have some association with your parenting self. “The sooner you can start, the better,” Dr. Baggett says. ”It can also help to practice giving your teen or young adult children more and more independence so you can both adjust to them being out on their own.”
If you are in a partnership, it’s also a good idea to take stock of it now, too, especially if you’ve been together and coparented for a long time. “Ask your partner questions you have not asked in a decade,” Wright advises. “What are you looking forward to? What are you afraid of? What do you want the next 20 years to feel like?”
They sound like simple questions, she says, but they can help lead you to the next steps. Plus, by doing these things proactively, you’ll have laid the groundwork for when the time comes. That’s not just good for you—they show your child that you, too, have cool new eras of life to explore. That makes just about any relationship more interesting.
