Hoosjim's back... and maybe his WW, too (?)

[hoosjim]

Both of your kids are out at university, right? So, how are you both coping with the empty nest syndrome? It seems you are having a good transition there.

It's funny with "Empty Nest Syndrome". The specter of both our boys heading off to college (Yes, they are both still enrolled) was initially one of the Big Bad Events that was scaring my W and contributing to her WW-ness. She discussed this at length in some of our counselling sessions. She saw that coming up and kept thinking "Well, after that, it will just be me and him here by ourselves... EEEK!" And, for my part, I have to admit I wasn't sure how i was going to handle it. She, obviously, initially handled it by succumbing to the GGW lifestyle and going wayward... losing weight/working out, buying and wearing new, revealing clothes, going out and staying out late with single friends, eventually starting her A with OM, etc etc. Funny thing is, as soon as we had passed through our crisis phase and started reconciling (almost exactly at the end of my younger son's senior year in HS), "empty nest" became a Godsend. It came along at JUST the right time to support our reconciliation efforts and give us many, many opportunities to get out and have fun on our own. Having our boys home had been probably somewhat more "tying down" than the average family, as our younger son has a serious case of Tourette's Syndrome --think high-functioning autism or aspergers, creating some issues and requiring us to be somewhat more engaged on the margin than the average parent-- and both played varsity sports, which consumed alot of our time (especially football). Don't get me wrong, we both love our kids and love spending time with them and going to their games and being involved, etc, but once we started reconciling we couldn't wait to get out, go out, have fun on our own, travel and get a hotel room and have it be JUST US in the room! So much so that we jumped the gun by a month or so and took a trip for a week leaving them both home during that Summer. Of course, there was a big party in our absence and they both got in major hot water and lessons were learned, but it was worth it. In sum, we have PLENTY to do. Lots of outdoor opportunities near us, we both like live music and like to frequent the local (And not so local) establishments... it's great! And since both boys are within a couple of hours drive, we still see just enough of them that we don't get to missing them too bad.

So, I guess, in a nutshell, "empty nest" and the specter thereof was both "bad" and "good" for us... served as a trigger for my W's WWism (some would prolly say MLC) but, ultimately, came along at the perfect time to turbocharge our reconciliation.