Marriage after the kids leave

Peter and I have been together in June for 17 years. For the first 2 years before we got married we ran 2 homes. For the next 12 years we raised 5 children and lived on 3 continents, the last child leaving home in January 2014. We are still responsible for a 17 year old, but he's been in boarding school in the UK since August 2013.

We are in our 3rd year of being child free on a daily basis apart from the holidays, but this September sees us free of school fees and responsibilities for anyone else other than ourselves and the cat and dog.

So what are we going do?

Sadly over the years, we've heard many friends and acquaintances say once the kids leave home, their marriage will probably be over as they're only together for the sake of the kids. If we'd ever said 'for the sake of the kids' we never would've had the experiences we've had as a family and the been able to take up the opportunities we've worked so hard for over the years.

Of course there have been times, especially over the past 3 years, where only having one another for company has been hard work and with family and friends so far away, it's just been the 2 of us against the world and often the 2 of us against one another when things have gone wrong.

There is little if no interference from the outside world in our marriage, we've made our own life choices and while this has freed us to make the decisions we have made, on reflection it could've gone so horribly wrong, but it hasn't and it stands us on firm ground now for our future without kids.

When we first got together, raising 5 kids between us from our previous marriages, we often wondered if we should 'for the sake of the kids' do things differently, but decided, one day they'll leave home and it'll just be the 2 of us, so we should do what is best for us for the future. The doesn't mean to say we didn't give the children a second thought, it meant we did what was right for us as a family unit, be it in the UK or abroad and we sorted out the problems as and when they arose, rather than worrying about the 'what if's?' and never doing anything.

We are the best of friends, through choice and because we have to be. We've dropped everything to fly back to the other side of the world, spent months apart, either with Peter's work or with a crisis back in the home land.

We've made huge sacrifices for one another, job satisfaction, career opportunities and the financial implications of paying school fees and travel costs for the kids to visit us. But we don't regret any of it, we may on reflection wish we'd done things differently, chosen better with accommodation, for access to work or safety and security.

We know many couples who live almost separate lives due to the demands of families and work, live on different continents and make alternate trips every month or so to see one another, but that's not something we feel would work for us.

I will be in the UK for a large proportion of time this year. March and April and flying back late June on a one way ticket, to support and guide the teen through his last few weeks in school and help him prepare for a life time of work ahead of him. We currently have no idea when and where he will be living after school finishes, as we are all waiting for news of his apprenticeship. Peter will be joining me in the UK in April and again in September for a few weeks, I may look into getting a temporary job now I am no longer working in Dubai, to bare some of the financial costs of running 2 homes, but I will be returning to Dubai on a permanent basis by October at the latest.

So what then? that's most of this year taken up. 17 years has flown by. Peter turns 60 this year, so a maximum 5 years left of work out here in Dubai, but we could leave early, maybe move to another country, maybe take early retirement. There's likely to be problems and issues with this 'what will I do for the next 5 years, not working, on my own all day every day?' There is no sign of grandchildren on the horizon, like so many other expats I know of are waiting for, their chance to move back to the homeland to watch and help the next generation grow up, while their husbands remains living overseas. We're the type of people and our kids have said the same, that they hope when their kids come along we're still living abroad so they can come for cheap beach holidays or even send the kids out to us for a fortnight during the holidays, rather than having us on their doorstep 'interfering' :-)

If you still have kids at home, you may feel that being child free is such a long way off and that you have no idea what you'll do when that times comes. Don't get me wrong it wasn't easy dealing with the kids leaving home and 'empty nest syndrome' but with time, things change and it just becomes the norm, in the same way life changes for everyone after having kids, you look back, you reflect, you wonder if you could've done it differently, you'll even wish for those days back again, even if right now you're moaning about sleepless nights or raising teenagers.

Peter and I on the surface of things don't have much in common, different TV shows, I don't like watching movies, we have different tastes in food and we both have our own ideas of what makes a good day/night out. We are each our own people, but we do like spending time together, just sitting in the garden, exploring places when we finally decide where that place will be, going out to eat, picking restaurants where we know we'll both find something we'd like to eat on the menu. We go for long walks in the desert with the dog, we both like to travel, although often on our own rather than together. We can go a whole weekend without leaving the house, we're comfortable just being around one another, we don't need things to do to occupy our time.

We accommodate each others needs, it all sounds a bit boring, but when we are apart, even during the day when Peter is at work there are plenty of phone calls between us and messages. Some of my female friends say they'd feel stifled if their husbands called them several times a day, they'd feel like they were being checked up on, but for us, it is the norm.

It works for us, our relationship, we'll not worry about what we're going to do, this time next year, next week, something will crop up and add to our adventures. It probably won't be an easy ride as we really don't know what is ahead of us, but together we're working towards our future, day by day.

Becoming adults

A couple of years a go I wrote about our adult children that stayed in the UK when we moved to South Africa with the 2 youngest children.

Not a lot has changed in their lives to be honest, well nothing major or life changing anyway, they're still happy, there have been trips here, we visit there.

Now our youngest 2 children have left home. Child 4 of 5 was with us until he was almost 20, he is now 21 and has been in the army based near Belfast for just over the past year. Peter hasn't seen him since September 2015, I saw him briefly in July when he drove over from Northern Ireland to London  for a few days. We'll next see him this Christmas when he is reunited with #BobTheDog after his last visit here in June 2015.

So far he's travelled to The Falklands and next year sees him visit Kenya, USA and Belize. He then has his first over seas posting, the middle of next year. Something as parents we are not pleased about, especially when he said where he was going.

The youngest is till in school, he will be 18 in April 2017. He's in the middle of writing his application for his CISCO apprenticeship, which is is well on track for.

He visits us 3 times a year, we visit the UK once a year, we talk randomly on Facebook, I send post cards and am constantly topping up his school account.

His friend died last month, he informed us he was to be a pall bearer at the funeral, we were understandably upset for him and his friends and for the fact that we couldn't be there to support him. We were also upset that his boarding school didn't feel the need to tell us this information. We knew his friend had died, we knew when the funeral was to be held, but we didn't know our son's role in it, in fact we realised we knew very little about our son's life in school from anyone else other than him.

We found out this week, our son has joined a cycling club. Those of you who know him will be in shock to hear this, our son does NOT do sport, not even watching it on the telly. Our son is a prefect. Our son works as a TA a few hours a week supporting younger students on the CISCO project.

We've seen our youngest develop and mature over the past year, he is a pleasure to spend time with, Peter and him will talk for hours about 'nothing' leaving me feeling excluded from time to time. They want to go places together, share a netflix account, talk gadgets, technology and generally take the mick out of mum, in a harmless way. We go shopping together for clothes for school, suit measurements, shoe shopping, he is reasonable with what he wants and has a budget in mind which we agree to before we go out to shop. We have coffee and cake together at the local starbucks. he is fun to with. They all are.

Our youngest son though has a second family, his school, his friends, other adults who guide him into adulthood. He spends his exeat weekends with a friend and his parents, he has other aspects of his life that we are not privy to, we don't even know these people, let alone never met them.

I received an email from the head master at his school on Monday night after the funeral. My son and I chatted on Facebook after the event, he couldn't face a phone call, he was too emotional.

This sums my son up and I am very proud of him, proud of his next steps and adventures. We're proud of them all.

'I was so proud of Alex today, he carried John's coffin in and out of the Abbey today. He walked tall and you would have been so proud of him. The piper played, a fitting service for such a lovely kind gentle student. John will be missed by all, a service of celebration of his life.

Well done Alex.'

We've missed out quite a lot as our children have turned into adults, gained their independence, although we don't think we could have given them a better start in life, we know we aren't ready to stop parenting them yet. They don't need discipline, organising, lifts to be given, they need to know we are there to provide them with guidance as they move into the next stage in their lives, that we are there to help them out when times get difficult, with what we can, whether it's helping write a CV, giving them advice when asked for on relationships, career paths, finances.

I don't know if we're getting it right or not, I worry about the difficult times they may face, they are not close in location to one another or to us, but they do have other family members who can step in, pick them up from train stations, airports, help them physically move.

I worry that we may interfere, that our guidance may be unwanted, I worry that they may accuse us in the future of being selfish by living abroad, that we were never there for them, that we missed events that were important to them, that they needed or wanted us there for.

But I guess I'd probably be worrying about all the above if we lived round the corner, that we were interfering regardless.

I suppose I will never know if we got it right or not until the day comes when they tell us.

All I know right now is we have a healthy and happy relationship with them all as adults, just as it is. We're 'friends' on all social media channels, they reply to messages, they remember our birthdays, they randomly contact us for no particular reason other than to say hi, they come to ask for help, advice and guidance, each in their own way and time scale. they choose to spend their own money on coming to visit us for their holidays, whether it's been to South Africa, Dubai or when we're in the UK.

But more importantly they pick up the slack when we're not around to help one another, whether it's because we can't be there or whether it's because we've asked them to.

We are very proud of our children, their achievements and their successes and I'm sure as the years go by, there will be issues raised, but we'll just have to deal with them when they come along.

For now and the immediate future, we'll carry on enjoying our distant relationship with our children and hope it stays the same when we do move back to the UK and be more actively involved in each others lives.

Where have our children gone?

This is our favourite picture of all 5 of our children. 4 boys and 1 girl.

It was taken in 2002 on the last family holiday all 7 of us went on.

It is 1 of a handful of pictures where we have all of the 5 children together.

Left to right

Alex, 1999, after 2 and a half years living with us in South Africa, it was decided he would return to boarding school in the UK, waiting GCSE results then 2 years of A levels ahead and on schedule for an apprenticeship with CISCO

Jamie, 1992, currently living in Leeds after leaving home age 18 for an apprenticeship in Hotel Management in Reading, also living in Cheltenham for 18 months.

Andrew, 1989, left home 2007 to join the army and was stationed in Germany for 4 years, the last 3 years he's been back living in the Forest of Dean.

Daniel, 1995, completed his high school education in South Africa, left home 2014 spent a year applying for and sorting papers and is in the army in Yorkshire. he passes out in September and is being stationed in Belfast.

Stephanie, 1988, left home a few months after this picture was taken and went into residential school in Bristol, had a short spell in care in Tewkesbury before moving to her adult placement in Gloucestershire in 2009.

So that's where our children are, but what actually happened to them?

We've been looking back at old family photos this week and it feels like yesterday, today. We can remember how it actually feels to be the parents of 4 boys and 1 disabled daughter. We don't just remember the fun, the tantrums, the stress, we can feel them, breathe them.

In our minds we can travel back in time to our house in Malvern, the first home we had where all 7 of us lived together.

We recall the weekends of getting the children to their football matches, their grandparents, the long drives to Bristol to collect and return our daughter every Friday and Sunday night. Calling in at granny's working out the rota for whose turn it was to sit next to their sister and have their hair pulled, stopping at Michael Wood services on the way home for yet another toilet stop. Carrying changing bags, fitting a wheelchair and a pushchair in the boot, Gluten free food for the youngest and 2 sets of nappies for the eldest and the youngest, then finding somewhere to change them whilst looking after the other 3 kids.

The holidays, the fights, the achievements, first day at school, prom, last day of school, exams, girlfriends, part time jobs, trying to get everyone together for dinner most evenings, maybe cooking twice, cooking different meals.

The washing, the ironing, the cleaning, homework.......I'm breaking out in hives as I type this, how did we actually manage?

Hubby worked away 3 days a week, I had a full time job, the closest family were 40 miles away, we spent a fortune on after school care, bus fares, football kit, replacement PE kit every term for at least one child. They went to 4 different primary schools, 6 different high schools.

And now we have 4 adult children and one remaining teenager. I'm 44, hubby 57, no one tells me anymore I look old enough to have 5 kids, or that I must have started young, people see us as single adults, without a care in the world, who have raised their children and live a dream life in Dubai.

They don't see the transition we went through from parents of 5 kids to no parental responsibility within 7 years, they drip fed themselves out of our lives and then they were gone.

Yes we are still their parents, but what we see now is 5 well adjusted adults who occasionally stand before us, when we visit the UK or they visit us in Dubai. They meet and visit us with their girlfriends in tow, they finance themselves, have good jobs, their own homes. (apart from the 16 yo)

Hubby managed to get 4 of the 5 together on his last trip to the UK, to date I'd only managed to get 3 together at any one given time.

Next month we'll both be back in the UK to visit all 7 kids, we're hoping we can get a chance to recreate the photo, not necessarily on the beach in France, but at their grandparents or in a cafe.

They really don't keep in touch with one another, they are all so very different, but when they meet up it's none stop chatter about life as children, with us, their parents at home, the holidays, football matches, the fights (but they don't dwell on those)

But today they stand before us as adults and we can't help but wonder where those 5 little children went, because they no longer feel like ours.

@MummyBarrow asked in a blog post what do we call our kids as they are no longer teens? Well there's a word now for Tweens and Threenagers, so I'd like to suggest we call them Kidults.

My 'ME' time #MySundayPhoto

I wake up every morning and go downstairs and everything is just where I left it, cushions straight on the sofa, washing up done, laundry up to date, fridge and cupboards full and I hate it.

Why? because I spent 21 years as a full time mummy, firstly to my 3 boys for 7 years then I inherited 2 step children. All I wanted was 'ME' time, 5 minutes peace and quiet every now and then, in August last year I went from being a SAHM to a SAH and for the past 11 months I've had nothing but 'ME' time and I haven't enjoyed it.

My 15 year old arrives next Sunday for 5 weeks, followed by a visit from the 22 year old and his girlfriends for 2 weeks. My next available 'ME' time will be September 17th so for the time being I'm enjoying the calm before the storm and making the most of it.

Empty nest syndrome. One week on.

Last Friday night, hubby and I drove home from OR Tambo airport in silence, apart from the occasional sob from me.

We sat in the garden and waited for the BA0034 to fly overhead so we could wave goodbye to the boys as the 14yo returned to school and the 18yo left home to make an application to join the Royal Marines both in the UK.

Saturday I was reduced to tears when my hairdresser asked when the boys leave, again when the neighbour asked if they got off all right and again when I entered their rooms on Sunday.

We were out Monday for the day and as we approached Centurion I automatically reached for my phone to call home to see if the kids wanted to meet us at the local restaurant for dinner, then remembered they weren't here any more.

Tuesday I was distracted with another airport run, this time to see MIL off after her 6 week visit and Wednesday i was in tears again, but this time with frustration as I cleaned and sorted the boys rooms, washed walls that I'd only painted in August when the 14yo left, removed chewing gum from the side of beds and desks and retrieved ALL the missing items.

Thursday I went swimming for the first time since the 18yo left school in November, then I visited 2 of the places I volunteer at. Friday (today) I had physio and a belated Christmas party in a township and this evening I sat and mused over the past week.

We've got 5 kids and all 5 have now left home, every time my emotions have kicked in and I've sobbed for hours and days even.

We're used to the children not being here, to being on our own and at the moment it feels like they're on holiday. I keep reminding myself I'll be in the UK in March/April and it really isn't that long till I see them all again.

But in the meantime I'm focusing on the benefits of them not being here, especially the 18yo.

I went to the cupboard to fetch a clean glass

Discovered there was still coke in the fridge

Ice cream still in the freezer

And I haven't had a full tank of fuel since the 18yo passed his test last February

Watch out, Empty nest syndrome about to kick in here

This post was written as an article a few months ago. Today is the day my last child boards a plane for the UK and leaves home,

'I got in my car the other day, drove half way to my destination and something made me stop and turn round. I could actually see out the rear view mirror without an array of boxes and I remembered my son had taken my car to the gym the night before and emptied everything into the garage. My car has and still is full of boxes since mid October with Santa Shoebox gifts and donations for various facilities. I was bloody annoyed that I had to re load my car and when I made my 1^st stop at the post box I discovered the key wasn't where I’d left it.

A few weeks ago I need to use the super glue, I opened the drawer, removed it, used it and put it back and then broke down in tears. Why? Well I'm suffering with empty nest syndrome a little.

My 14yo moved back to the UK in August after 2 and a half years with us in South Africa, his education was suffering and we made a decision to move him back into boarding school. We received his first school report and he’s achieving at and above the expected level. So happy for him that he’s doing so well, considering his last report from the school here ‘he’s not making an effort, could do better and his hand writing, reading and spelling is atrocious’ well we did try telling the school, backed up with Ed psych reports that he’s dyslexic and dysgraphic.

So what do I do to fill the gap, volunteer work and plenty of it. I just have to keep going. It’s Santa shoebox season and for the past few weeks I've been grateful the youngest child isn’t here. The 18yo is self sufficient, studying hard for his exams, leaving a mess everywhere; dominating the telly, taking my car and making me book with him when I want to use it. He leaves on January the 10^th 2014 the same day the 14yo returns after his Christmas visit, Santa shoebox season will be over. It’ll be the middle of summer and too hot to muster up any enthusiasm to do anything.

I’m trying to be brave at the moment. I wasn’t when the first 2 boys left home; I was a wreck when the 14yo left so I assume the airport trip with the 18yo in January will be difficult also.

To be honest I’m ready for the 18yo to leave home now. He’s ready also. I’d like to use my car when I want, get a drink of coke out the fridge without going to the shops to buy more. Have money in purse, the freedom to go to the gym when I want, the remote control. The day to myself. But all day every day I’m not ready for.

So at the moment I’m enjoying the time I have left with him, his exams are over, I’m not moaning about my car or the coke or even the empty milk bottle. I’m looking forward to my 14yo coming out to visit again in August rather than worrying about what I'm going to do when they return to the UK.

 It’s hubby I feel sorry for though, he doesn't know how I’ll react to having an empty nest, but he’s made it quite clear, there will be no more kids.'

I'm afraid I've not enjoyed the last few weeks, I've been on count down to them leaving. I've focused on the 'what will I do with myself' rather than the time I've got left. Yes there will still be holidays, them here and us to the UK, but life as a full time mum has finished for me today. Nearly 22 years of being at someone else's beck and call, 22 years of complaining about the mess, lack of ME time, 22 years of school uniforms and pack lunches.
I've a busy few weeks ahead of me now, deliberately planned by hubby to try and ease the pain, fill the gap. I have bedrooms to clean, stuff to store and take to charity shops, a trip to Durban and Dubai to take a break, take my mind off things. But I know what I was like when the 14yo left in August, when the others left home, also aged 18, and I'm fully aware it's going to be tough.