Tag Archives: Aging Parents

Help for Empty Nesters

While some couples look at the “empty nest” as a second honeymoon, it will end and couples will face the challenges of reinventing their marriage for the second half. For many, this can be a hard time on their marriage. Why?

First, most couples at this point are exhausted and their marriage may be on the back burner. You may be emotionally drained and feel disconnected from your spouse. Second, all those things you’ve been postponing are just waiting for you, thus the tendency is to “get busy” and avoid facing the challenges of this new stage of marriage.

We decided to research this stage of marriage, put together our own national survey, and began what has become a 20-year journey to help us and other empty nest couples reinvent their marriages.

Empty Nest First Aid Tips

• Slow down and get some rest! Take a nap. Go to bed at 8 p.m. Sleep around the clock. You’ll never be able to refocus on your marriage until your life comes back into focus.

• Celebrate! You made it through the active parenting years. Although it is not at all uncommon to become aware of some sense of loss and regret at this time of life, you can counter any of those sentiments by promoting a strong sense of celebration for where you have come and of excitement about your future. Go out to dinner. Have some fun. Have a great date.

• Acknowledge that this is a time of transition. Say to each other, “Things are changing right now and that’s okay.” Change can bring out insecurities that are festering below the surface. Just acknowledging that things are changing can help with the transition. Transitional times can be stressful but they also give you the opportunity to redefine your relationship and to find new fulfillment, intimacy and closeness.

• Resist making immediate decisions about your future until you have some perspective. Realize that things are changing and that you can change with them – but you need to take it slowly. Unfortunately, some spouses who are disappointed with their marriage bolt right out of the relationship as soon as the last kid leaves home. This is a time when the divorce rate soars. Give yourself time to get to know each other again and to revitalize your relationship. Don’t accept new responsibilities for at least three months.

• Plan an empty nest getaway. Go off together. Talk about what is great about your relationship and the areas that needed work. Make a commitment to work on the weak areas and reinvent your marriage.

Empty Nest Challenges

Once you’ve made it through the initial transition into the empty nest, you need to surmount the long term challenges of the second half of your marriage. In our Second Half of Marriage program we look at eight challenges of the empty nest years including the following:

• Let go of the past and forgive one another. Let go of past marital disappointments, missed expectations, and unrealized dreams. You need to forgive each other and choose to make the best of the rest. You may even want to make a list of things you will never do or will never do again. But then make a list of things you want to do in the future.

• Create a partner-focused marriage. In the past you may have focused on your kids and your job. Now is your opportunity to focus on your marriage. You can build a closer more personal relationship in the second half of life. In the first half of marriage we tend to live our lives in response to circumstances such as parenting and career demands. In the second half of marriage you aren’t as controlled by your circumstances and have the freedom to reinvest in your relationship.

• A gender role shift often takes place at this time of life. Men become more nurturing. Women, who generally have been more responsible for the kids, now become more expansive and may choose to go back to school, get a real estate license, or start a new career. It can seem like you are moving in opposite directions, but on a continuum you are actually moving closer to the center. Realizing this can help you capitalize on it and refocus on each other.

• Energize your love life. Many people assume that as people grow older they lose interest in sex. Research shows otherwise. Our surveys suggest that sexual satisfaction increases rather than decreases with the number of years married. Your love life in the empty nest can be better than in the parenting years. Look for ways to romance your mate. Think of your love life as a stroll, not a sprint. Enjoy the slower pace. If medical issues arise, be willing to talk to your doctor. Often help is available.

• Adjust to changing roles with adult children and aging parents. Just as you need to release your children, you need to reconnect with them on an adult level. At the same time your parents are aging and perhaps beginning to experience health problems. Whatever your situation, the relationship with your adults kids and parents affects your marriage. The key is to keep your marriage relationship the anchor relationship. You can handle stress much better when you know one other person understands how you feel. You can’t go back and change your family history, but you can change the future. You can forge better relationships with those loved ones on both sides of the generational seesaw.

• Connect with other empty nest couples and encourage them in their marriages. Consider starting your own empty nest group or becoming mentors for a younger couple. Volunteer to start a marriage program in your parish or community. For a wealth of great programs see www.smartmarriages.com.

The empty nest years of your marriage can be a time of incredible fulfillment, no matter what challenges you previously faced. You can reinvent your relationship, renew your friendship, and create a vision for the rest of your marriage.

This article is adapted by the authors from their books “The Second Half of Marriage” and “10 Great Dates for Empty Nesters.” It originally appeared in Family Perspectives Journal (Summer 2010), a publication of the National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers. Used with permission.

Caring for Children While You Care for Aging Parents

If you’re a member of the “sandwich generation,” taking care of your aging parent as well as your children, it’s hard to shake the feeling that if you focus on one generation you’re losing sight of the needs of the other.

It can help to remember that your taking care of your parent is good for your children, too. How so?

You’re right that your kids also make a sacrifice because you can’t be around as much as the they would like you to be and, most likely, they have to do more–become more responsible–because you can’t be there. (Maybe they have to make their own lunch to take to school. Or you can’t be a chaperone at some school event even though you were able to do that a year or so ago.)

Yes, in some ways a child is being deprived of what a parent might be able to give if he or she didn’t have caregiving obligations to an older family member (or to a spouse who is ill or to a child with special needs). From another perspective, Mom or Dad is giving something to that child or those children that he or she otherwise couldn’t give. We mean a front-row view of love in action without any possibility of mistaking the unchangeable fact that true love demands service and sacrifice.

Still . . . it can be a lot to put on little shoulders. All they may see at first glance is that Mom or Dad isn’t there (or is there but is exhausted from caregiving and holding down a job) and they miss not just what that parent does for them (nice meals, rides to practice and so on) but also that person himself or herself. They miss time spent together. With that in mind, here are a few suggestions if you’re taking care of an aging parent and your children:

  • Talk about caregiving at a time when neither you nor your child are tired and emotions are not running high.
  • Do something special with each child, one-on one.
  • Explain what it’s like to be a care-receiver, how it can be hard to accept help. Talk about why you’re taking care of Grandpa or Grandma and explain, in an age-appropriate way, what his or her condition is.
  • Work at establishing a link between your children and your parent. Let them have some time together.
  • Remember children can, in small ways, help with caregiving, too.
  • Teach what respectful care means and explain the difference between “dignity” and “dignified.” Yes, at times, a situation may be less than “dignified” but a person must be treated with dignity.
  • Remember to thank the child for making sacrifices and for helping you help your mother or father.

Article courtesy of www.youragingparent.com

Resources for Caregivers:

  • Nourish for Caregivers – a faith-based program designed to meet the practical, emotional and spiritual needs of family caregivers.

The Sandwich Generation

The “sandwich generation” is a good description. There’s pressure from both sides and sometimes it gets messy in the middle. That’s what it can feel like if you’re taking care of your children as well as your aging parent.

Add in a spouse and a job and it’s no wonder it often seems a twenty-four-hour day and seven-day week just aren’t enough for all you have to do.

Then, too, from the time all of us were little we were taught there is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish a task. Maybe your parent took care of Grandma or Grandpa. Your spouse took care of your mother- or father-in-law. Your friends or co-workers seem to be able to handle their situations. But you . . . .

When you realize you can’t do all the things you’re supposed to do–all the things other people have done or are doing–you feel inadequate and even guilty.

You think you’re letting everyone down. If you just worked a little harder, slept a little less, sacrificed a little more. . .

If you find yourself in that situation, or feel yourself sinking into it, these suggestions might help:

  • Remember there is no single right way to do this. Trying to exactly mimic what another person has done probably isn’t going to work. Each case is unique because the personalities and problems in each case are unique.
  • If you don’t take care of yourself–take time to eat, sleep, catch your breath and pray–you will burn out quickly and be of little use to anyone, including yourself. The situation in which you find yourself is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Yes, someday it will end but that may be a long, long time from now. In the meantime, if you do not pace yourself, sometimes even pamper yourself, you won’t be able to keep going. That’s not because you’re weak, it’s because you’re human.
  • The big picture can look and feel overwhelming. Sometimes it helps to break it down into the many tiny pieces that make up the whole. What you have to do for your parent, your children, your spouse, your job and yourself. The lists may be long but somehow no single item is overpowering.
  • Prioritize your tasks. Making those lists helps. Obviously, getting Mom to her doctor’s appointment is more important than vacuuming her apartment.
  • Give away some of the low-priority duties. Someone else can be hired to do the apartment cleaning. Someone else–the bakery department at the local grocery store–can supply the brownies you’re supposed to send to the next Cub Scout den meeting.
  • Get support for yourself. Groups for caregivers and organizations that focus on your parent’s particular illness or condition can help you deal with what you are facing. Doctors, social workers and the Area Agency on Aging can give you local contacts.
  • Write it down: dates and schedules and all that information from doctors, therapists, pharmacists, teachers, coaches, your boss, your spouse, your kids . . . . There’s no way a person can remember all the things you need to remember.

It may seem the day is completely packed but if you jot down your own “to do” list, you may discover there’s half an hour free here or there. A little oasis like that gives you something to look forward to. It’s a short break to partially recharge your batteries before you have to go, go, go again.

Article courtesy of www.youragingparent.com

Resources for Caregivers:

  • Nourish for Caregivers – a faith-based program designed to meet the practical, emotional and spiritual needs of family caregivers.

When You’re Married to the Caregiver

If you’re the husband or wife of an adult child who is taking care of an aging parent, it can seem that no matter what you say or do, it’s the wrong thing.

Suddenly you may find yourself an outsider as the immediate family circle closes ranks.

You may feel tremendously frustrated about your powerlessness. You cannot make everything all right; you cannot stop the pain your spouse is feeling.

Here are a few suggestions to consider that may make this time easier:

  • Remember that the relationship you have with your in-laws is not the same as the one your husband or wife has. This is simply human nature. No matter how close you may have become to your mother- or father-in-law, your experience is not the same as your spouse’s. While you may feel the two of you are doing more than enough to help, your spouse may not feel that way at all.
  • Understand that every immediate family has its own little quirks–good or bad. Maybe Dad has always had a short fuse. Maybe Mom has never been able to relax if there was one speck of dust on one stick of furniture. Maybe family members never talk to one another, they yell. Maybe they never yell . . . or talk. Whatever those characteristics, they may be intensified under the present, stressful circumstances.
  • Don’t take it personally if you are suddenly outside the loop. Perhaps no one really wants to hear your opinion because this is a “family” matter. At the same time, you may very well be affected by the decisions being made by your spouse and the other siblings. It’s not uncommon that several sons will decide what’s best for Mom or Dad but it is the daughters-in-law who end up providing almost all the care. Then, too, the opposite may occur. Your spouse’s siblings are no help and so it is up to your spouse and you to do everything.
  • Know that sometimes you will become the target for your spouse’s emotions, including anger, fear, sadness, frustration and guilt. Again, try not to take it personally. Most likely it’s not really meant for you but for something else: the disease or medical problem that is taking the life of your spouse’s parent, the pain and, ultimately, death.
  • Remember that while it may seem this situation has been going on forever and it will never end, it is temporary. It will end.

In the meantime, you may feel somewhat neglected, but remember, your spouse is being pulled in many different directions: aging parent, you, the children, the job. This is a time when he or she especially needs your help and your understanding.

A spouse also needs to hear, “You’re doing a good job helping your parent but you can’t do everything.” It’s hard to hear that. It has to be said gently over and over again.

It can seem pretty obvious to you that your spouse has assumed a new role as caregiver to an aging parent. What you need to remember is that during this time, you, too, have a new, special and vital role as well: Taking care of the caregiver, supporting the caregiver, consoling the caregiver and loving the caregiver.

Article courtesy of www.youragingparent.com

Resources for Caregivers:

  • Nourish for Caregivers – a faith-based program designed to meet the practical, emotional and spiritual needs of family caregivers.