Watch the video above and talk about it with a group or mentor. Learn more.
The empty nest years can be some of your best as a couple if you have the right mindset.
Key Points:
- The divorce rate actually increases at this stage of life so it’s crucial that you work at your marriage as you move out of the active parenting years.
- Tips for your marriage:
- Look at this time as an opportunity to re-connect, more like it was in your dating years.
- Choose to love your spouse, even though your years of life together may have exposed deep rooted frustrations. Choose to focus on the qualities you love in your spouse and be patient with the ones that you don’t.
- Court each other and discover new things about your spouse.
- Tips for how you should adjust in your parenting:
- Work together as you parent your adult kids. Maximize each of your strengths as parents and minimize the weaknesses and trust the perspective of your spouse.
- Remember to celebrate your kids’ adulthood and don’t prevent them from experiencing the independence your raised them to desire. Allow them room to learn from their mistakes.
- Continue to pray for your adult kids and trust God’s leading in their lives while also being patient. God’s timing may be different than yours.
Quote This:
Proverbs 22:6 Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.
Talk About It
- What is your initial reaction to this topic? What jumped out at you?
- What are some of the stereotypical expectations you hear from people about what the empty nest years should be like?
- What have you noticed about the empty nest couple’s in your life? How are they thriving? How are they struggling? To what do you attribute their success or failure?
- Describe your mindset going into this season of life. What excites you? What scares you?
- On a scale from 1-10, how connected do you feel to your spouse right now? Explain.
- How could re-focusing on your marriage more like the dating years help your relationship?
- How have you been guilty of focusing on the negative, frustrating traits in your spouse? How has that affected your relationship? How could choosing to focus on the positives help your marriage?
- On a scale from 1-10, how much are you and your spouse on the same page as it pertains to the kids? Explain.
- Read Proverbs 22:6. How can you play to each of your strengths as parents and minimize each of your weaknesses?
- Read Philippians 4:6-7. Identify all that this passage tells us to do. How will it help your marriage to pray more as a couple over your kids?
- Is there a step you need to take based on today’s topic?
