Delaware Relationship Center

As a Delaware marriage counselor, I understand how tough it can be for couples after all their children grow up and leave home. For years, a large part of your identity was likely based on being a parent, and when your adult kids no longer need you on a daily basis, you’re left to reform your identity and revisit your relationship with your partner. This isn’t a bad thing, but some couples struggle to figure out their new relationship dynamic in the absence of their kids. Sound like you? See if this relationship advice helps.

How Couples Can Survive the Empty Nest: Tips from a Delaware Marriage Counselor

Stay curious about your partner. When your kids lived at home, you probably asked them how their day at school was or what they were planning on doing over the weekend. You should make an effort to be just as curious about your partner. You might think that you know everything there is to know about one another, but you may be surprised about the new things you can learn if you just keep asking questions.

Make time for dates. Setting aside time for dates may have been a challenge when you had young kids at home, but one of the benefits of having an empty nest is that you have more time to go out with your partner. Take this opportunity to reinvent your date night: go to new restaurants that you both want to try, take turns planning dates for one another, explore parts of your town or city that you haven’t spent much time in. Doing these types of activities together will help you get to know each other again.

Learn a new skill together. If you find yourself thinking about your kids a lot once they leave home, talk to your partner about learning a new skill together. You might try learning a language, taking up a sport, doing a craft project, or just about anything else the two of you can think of. Learning something together will give you more time to bond and also help keep you from missing your kids as much.

Help each other stay in touch with your kids. Remember that just because your kids are no longer living at home doesn’t mean you’ll never see or hear from them again. You and your partner can set up times when you can both call or Skype with your kids, or plan a trip to a child’s college campus for Parents’ Weekend.

Talk to a Delaware marriage counselor. If you and your partner are struggling with empty nest syndrome or wondering where your relationship is going after your children leave home, you should consider talking to a Delaware marriage counselor. Having an empty nest can be a tough transition, and you and your partner should feel like you have support as you transition to this new stage of your life.

A lot of people seek out the help of a Delaware relationship counselor because they are experiencing a conflict with their partner and just can’t understand their partner’s perspective. They’ll claim that marriage issues are coming up because they feel like their partner has changed or has started picking fights out of the blue. The true reason behind most of these marriage issues, though, is that we go into a relationship with ideas of who a person is, and it’s only later that we begin to see all that person’s complexities. This causes us to realize that they’re not always going to do what we expect or want all of the time, and this can be an unpleasant surprise.

However, these differences between expectation and reality don’t have to spell the end of a long-term relationship.  It’s possible to work through conflicts with your partner and better understand where they’re coming from by practicing the skill of mirroring.

What is Mirroring? Delaware Relationship Counselor Explains

Mirroring in the context of a relationship involves repeating what your partner has said so that you can better understand their true meaning. This absolutely does not mean doing a sarcastic imitation of your partner or throwing their words back at them in a hurtful way. In fact, if you don’t think you can neutrally repeat your partner’s words in the heat of the moment, you should wait to calm down before practicing mirroring. If you do feel ready to practice mirroring, here is what you can do:

Listen first. Pay close attention to what your partner is saying; don’t interrupt. This is one of the hardest things to learn, but a Delaware relationship counselor can help.

Restate. Tell your partner that you want to make sure you understand what they’re saying, and that repeating what they’ve just said back to them will help. Ask them if you got the restatement right.

Give your partner a chance to elaborate. If your partner says that you got what they said wrong, give them a chance to re-explain. If they say you got it right, gently ask if there’s more they’d like to add.

Share your perspective. Once your partner feels they’ve said all they need to say, go ahead and explain how you feel about the conflict. Try to be as clear as possible, and don’t just cast blame onto your partner.

Mirroring requires a lot of patience, and it can take time to get good at it. If you and your partner practice this skill, though, you’ll be better prepared to confront marriage issues as they come up. And if you’d like more advice on how to incorporate mirroring into your relationship, consider visiting a Delaware relationship counselor. I know that I would be glad to talk to you and your partner about this form of dialoguing.

As a Delaware marriage counselor, I’ve talked to clients who say that sometimes they feel incredibly close to their partner, but other times they just don’t understand where their partner is coming from. Relationship problems arise when we get into arguments and can’t empathize with the other person. Whenever the couples I counsel tell me this, I work with them on an Imago therapy practice called developing a conscious partnership.

If you’re not familiar with Imago therapy, you may not understand what a conscious partnership is. The founder of Imago therapy, Harville Hendrix, describes it as “a relationship that fosters maximum psychological and spiritual growth.” That means that each person is supporting their partner’s psychological well-being by working to understand their feelings and personal history.

What Does a Conscious Partnership Look Like? Delaware Marriage Counselor Explains

Couples who want a conscious partnership need to dialogue when they are having relationship problems rather than becoming combative or ignoring whatever’s been going wrong. This dialogue shouldn’t focus on what one partner perceives as the other’s faults, but should instead concentrate on how each partner feels. No one’s a mind-reader, so even if you think your partner should be able to intuit how you feel, they’ll never know exactly what’s going through your mind until you tell them.

Talking through relationship problems is important because most of the time, an argument isn’t just about what’s happening at the time – it’s also about past unresolved issues. By dialoguing with your partner, you can get to the real source of the problem faster and work together to resolve the issue.

Delaware Marriage Counselor: A Conscious Partnership Takes Time

Developing a conscious partnership takes practice, and that’s why you and your partner need to keep up an ongoing dialogue, even when you’re not in the middle of a heated conflict. By communicating honestly and openly, you’ll be better able to empathize with one another when relationship problems do arise, and you’ll be able to work together to overcome them rather than just fighting.

Of course, starting this kind of dialogue is not always easy; sometimes you just don’t know where to begin. If you’re feeling lost but want to work on developing a conscious partnership with your significant other, the two of you should try talking to a Delaware marriage counselor who has been trained in Imago therapy.