Nov. 21, 2025
59. Empty Nest Emotions That Challenge Midlife Women
Ever wonder why the empty nest hits so much harder than anyone prepared you for? One minute you're cheering your kids on, feeling proud and excited for their new life chapters… and the next, you’re staring at their empty bedrooms wondering how your heart can feel full and broken at the same time. In this heartfelt episode of Mind Your Midlife, I get real about the emotional roller coaster women over 40 and 50 experience when their kids grow up and move out. Whether your adult kids live across...
Ever wonder why the empty nest hits so much harder than anyone prepared you for? One minute you're cheering your kids on, feeling proud and excited for their new life chapters… and the next, you’re staring at their empty bedrooms wondering how your heart can feel full and broken at the same time.
In this heartfelt episode of Mind Your Midlife, I get real about the emotional roller coaster women over 40 and 50 experience when their kids grow up and move out. Whether your adult kids live across the country, down the street, or boomeranged back home for a while, the empty nest season brings a complex mix of joy, sadness, pride, grief, and yes—self-doubt.
Using my own story, real client experiences, and practical mindset shifts, we’ll walk through what’s normal, what’s healthy, and what actually helps you move through this transition with confidence, connection, and compassion for yourself.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:
✔ Why midlife women experience BOTH joy and grief when their kids leave
✔ How your own experience of leaving home shapes how you see your kids’ choices
✔ The real reason comparison makes the empty nest feel harder (and how to stop doing it)
✔ A simple way to love your kids in THEIR love language—not yours
🎯 OMG Moment: Your kids living their own lives isn’t a rejection—it’s proof you raised confident humans who know how to fly.
Take Action
This week, reflect on this question: How does my child love to be loved?
Use their “love language” as your guide—whether that’s words, phone calls, small gifts, quality time, or simply a long hug when you’re together. Just one small shift can completely change how connected you feel in this new chapter.
Check out the book Moms Never Stop Momming as well!
Why This Episode Matters
Midlife women are carrying all the things—menopause, aging parents, career pivots, relationship shifts, and now the empty nest. This episode helps you understand your emotions, release the guilt, stop comparing your family to others, and honor the woman you are becoming in this new phase.
Your identity isn’t disappearing.
It’s evolving.
And you deserve to feel supported, grounded, and proud of the life you’ve created—and the children you raised to thrive on their own.
Text me to ask a question - I'll answer on the podcast!
Find out more information about The Paper Cleanse and/or sign up by Nov. 23rd at www.cherylpfischer.com/thepapercleanse.
🌸 Liked this episode? Share it with fellow Gen X women navigating hormone balance, an empty nest, and/or self-confidence!
🫶 Love this show? Leave a review to help more women over 50 find us.
💡Want support through menopause, mindset shifts, or midlife transitions?
- Join the collective by subscribing on Patreon or grab the bonus episodes!
- Book a free Mindset Coaching / Intro Call: cherylpfischer.com/coaching
Let’s talk midlife body positivity, self-talk, and redefining aging for women — without the “midlife crisis” narrative. Every week I'm adding new success strategies for midlife women.
Connect with Cheryl, Midlife Coach: Instagram | LinkedIn | Website
01:40 - Opening Quotes On Letting Go
02:15 - Welcome And Show Purpose
02:51 - Host’s Empty Nest Story
05:21 - College Goodbyes And COVID Twist
09:07 - From College To Work And Marriage
12:27 - Pride And Grief In Tension
15:28 - After Graduation: Who Comes Home
18:57 - Far Away Kids, Big Feelings
21:57 - Independence Isn’t Rejection
24:40 - Comparison Traps And Jealousy
27:49 - Your Past Shapes Your Lens
30:47 - Loving Adult Kids Well
33:32 - Embracing Change And Adventure
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Sometimes loving our kids means letting them go when all we want to do is hold on tighter.
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That's from moms of bigs.
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And here's another one for you.
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We all need moms who are on the other side of whatever season we're in.
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Moms who can say, hey, I was there too, and it was hard, and I didn't know how we were going to make it to the other side, but we did, and you will too.
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You will get to the other side.
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But for now, you should know that you're not alone.
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I'm here for you.
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That's from Never Empty Nest.
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Let's talk about it.
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Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time.
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Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body.
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Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.
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This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast.
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Empty next.
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I have to confess to you that I have been putting off this episode because this is an emotional subject for me, and that makes it hard to talk about on a podcast.
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But I am practicing my confidence, assertiveness, whatever you want to call it, and let's go for it.
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I'm speaking.
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So my story, just so that you know who I am and why I'm talking about this, is not that I'm an expert on empty nest.
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I am a coach.
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I have coached with people about feelings related to this.
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And probably more importantly, I am an empty nest mom.
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Now, I love the concept of never empty nest.
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Kids always are coming back and coming and going.
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And of course, oh my goodness, moms, you would always welcome your kids back into the nest.
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So is it really empty?
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I guess is a question.
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But it's a term.
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We know what it means.
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And for me, I have two kids.
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One is grown and married and a parent, and the other is grown and they're both out of college.
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They're both living their best lives, working.
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They do not live near me.
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One of them did for a little while, which was such a great joy.
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But right now they both live up and down the East Coast, but not near me.
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So my path through this empty nest phase, or maybe we should call it the transition from teen years to empty nest, was filled with a lot of different adjustments.
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And you'll hear your story in this, I'm sure.
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So having two kids, it was an adjustment when the older one went away to college.
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And at the same time, our younger one was still at home.
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So I think maybe she felt like there was sometimes too much attention on her as the only one at home.
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But, you know, we made it through that adjustment.
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Then when the younger one went to college was an interesting time.
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And I'm going to get into all sorts of ways that we can go through this and some tips for you.
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But I will just say when our younger one went away to college, we had had her at home some extra time because it was during COVID.
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And you know, I'm certainly not thankful for COVID, but I am thankful for some things that happened.
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And one of them was that we got to have our kids at home for more than we would have otherwise.
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And so it was a big adjustment when she went away to college.
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And my husband and I actually took a trip right after we moved her in.
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And that was really a good segue for us to just kind of take a deep breath and reconnect at that point.
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Then the next transition was when the first one graduated from college and started working, and then was living nearby for a while and got married.
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So then that's a whole new dynamic, right?
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And we love her, and so that's great.
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But the change in dynamic is something to figure out for everybody in the family.
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And then over the next couple of years, then the older one was moving a bit farther away because of work, and the younger one graduated from college and now is working, and it feels like, oh my goodness, they're both settled, and that's it.
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They're really gone now.
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I don't know if that resonates with anyone.
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College felt like a time when I was so excited for them.
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They both got into the absolute number one colleges that they wanted to get into, and they weren't local, and that was okay because it was their number one choice.
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I was so excited for them.
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And it still felt a bit like, well, they're coming back, right?
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It's temporary.
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And then when they get a job and when they buy a house or rent an apartment or whatever they're doing, now it felt like a whole new shock at that point.
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And it's been a little while since that happened for the younger one.
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So I'm I'm moving through the shock.
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And things will continue to change, right?
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Relationships will change.
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I'll have grandkids, and those things will change, and then everybody continues to grow up, including me.
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I get more seasoned as we do.
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You know, I don't like to say the O word.
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We get more seasoned.
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So there's always going to be change.
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And it does feel like there's really been a lot of it over the last few years.
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So I tell you that because maybe it will resonate with you as well.
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We're in this same boat together.
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And for me, I'm also puzzling through how to be a mom to adults.
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And when my kids were younger, I confess I never bought into the idea that my child was my best friend.
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I don't think that the parenting relationship when our kids are younger makes sense that we're like best friends.
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We're the parent, they're the child.
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And I was not, neither my husband nor I were overly strict at all.
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I don't think my kids would disagree with that.
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And at the same time, we're the parents.
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That's not a best friend relationship.
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And now they're adults.
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So now we can create a friend relationship, but to navigate between those is tricky.
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When do they want me to help them in sort of a parental way from a parental angle?
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When do they want me to just be there as a friend?
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And they're learning how to communicate that as well.
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So we're sort of two or three or four blind people trying to figure our way through a dark room or something like that.
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Added to that, and you know this because we're the sandwich generation, gradually we're losing my mom at the same time.
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And so she had figured it out.
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She had figured out how to be my friendslash parent.
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And I loved that relationship, but I don't have her to talk about anymore.
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To talk with, I think is what I meant to say there.
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So this is a tough one.
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And I hope that what I'm going to share with you today helps you.
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My goal is really that we all feel like we have other people to lean on.
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This is not something that we're going through in isolation, and it's not something that you have to try to deal with on your own.
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And it's not only you that has ever struggled.
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And I think because we are pack animals, if you will, we're community people, knowing that other people in the community have dealt with the same things that we have, and knowing that our thoughts and our feelings are okay is really powerful for comfort and for being able to kind of calm our nervous system and think through how to move forward.
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So that's my goal for you with this episode.
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All right, let's dive into it.
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There are a couple of ways to look at empty nest.
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I'm doing air quotes with my fingers.
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On the one hand, you are excited for your kids, right?
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You are cheering them on.
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You are probably amazed at what they are becoming.
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I should say who they are becoming.
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You're you're cheering them on to follow their dreams.
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You are impressed with what they're doing and the decisions they're making.
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You absolutely want them going to the school that they want to go to or living in the place that they want to leave, live.
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Gosh, that was an interesting Freudian slip.
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And so you're in their corner.
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It's exciting.
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It's exciting when your kids actually become adult members of society, and you can go, I had a part in helping them to do that.
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And then the other way that you're probably also thinking about it and feeling about it is that you're sad.
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It's a part of this process is grief.
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You are sad because you're grieving the relationship, the relationship you had that was day-to-day presence in the same home.
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You miss them.
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Maybe you ask yourself, well, why did they want to go so far?
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Why didn't they want to go to the school down the road?
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What did I do that made them want to go that far?
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Is it my fault?
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Why are they leaving?
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Did I chase them out?
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And whether or not there are issues like that where you worry about what you've said or done that might have impacted their need to leave, you're just sad that they're not around every day.
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And that's okay.
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So that mix of excited, happy, proud, and sad grieving is a tricky one.
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And of course, we know as parents, isn't that true of so many aspects of life?
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I think we get a little bit of that when they start driving on their own and we wave them out of the driveway.
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We even get a little bit of that when they start going to school and we put them on the bus or drop them off at school.
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We're excited for them, and it's hard to say, okay, see you later, in whatever form that takes.
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So there's always going to be that mix.
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And what I at the very least want you to be able to do is recognize those emotions and know that it's normal and it's actually good.
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Allow yourself to go through, it's really kind of a grieving process when they leave home.
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That's okay.
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It's okay to feel that loss or that sadness, and at the same time be excited and proud.
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Completely normal.
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And I think, I mean, maybe that just describes motherhood in general.
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So they've left home, they're following their dreams, maybe they went to school or they went to the military or whatever they did.
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If they did go to school, any type of school that's, you know, got a defined period of time, then there's a whole new round of this after they graduate from that school.
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Because what happens then?
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Well, some of them come back home.
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And if they come back home, they might be happy about it, or they might be not so happy about it.
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If they come back home, maybe they're living in the same area, but they have their own apartment, they've got a job, or whatever they're doing.
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Or maybe they come literally back into your home and they're back in their old bedroom and they're looking for a job or trying to figure out what to do next.
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Or maybe they didn't come back home at all.
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Maybe now they live far away.
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And that could be in the same area where they went to school, like one of mine does, or it could be in a different place entirely.
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And maybe it was because that's where they got a job, which is a little easier for us to explain to ourselves because well, they got a job there, so of course they have to go.
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Or maybe there's just somewhere that they always wanted to live.
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And they say, you know what, I always wanted to go there.
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I'm going, I'm doing it, I'm figuring it out.
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Typically, what I find is that you are going to flip-flop between sort of two ends of the spectrum on how we feel about what our kids are doing after they've had their temporary school-related away from home period.
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And what I want to make sure we understand, first of all, is how these feelings come up and that they're okay, but second of all, that this is not a comparison thing with other people.
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And you'll hear what I mean as we talk it through.
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So let's say that one or more of your kids have come home after school, after college.
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There's a few different ways we can look at it.
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And on the one end of the spectrum, maybe you are thinking, okay, are they just taking advantage?
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Should I charge them rent?
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Are they ever gonna leave?
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Or they just wanna hang in my basement forever.
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I'm thinking of the movie failure to launch.
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Um it's a funny movie.
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I can't remember who's in it, but funny movie.
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Maybe you kind of joke, will they ever leave?
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Most of the time, if you're feeling lately on that end of the spectrum, I think you really secretly love having them.
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Of course you do.
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Of course we do.
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I would give anything, any day, any time to have my kids at home with me.
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And you want them to be out in the world doing something productive.
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So maybe you're kind of not feeling super positive at the moment about them being at home.
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You're kind of wanting them to launch.
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I promise you that on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are looking at you and wishing that their kids had come home or that their kids lived nearby.
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Or maybe you're at a phase right now where you are truly thrilled that your kids came home or that they live nearby.
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And as I said, I had a piece of that.
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One of mine lived near home in an apartment, but near home for a year, and I loved it.
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I loved it.
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I was so happy.
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We saw them about once a week to have dinner or get together or do activities.
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I loved it.
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Loved it.
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And so I guess that was maybe my favorite scenario, if I'm thinking through my own personal situation, to be nearby and also know that they were, they were kind of living their best life, had their own apartment, doing their thing, had a job.
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So if your child is looking for a job, they're struggling, they're trying to figure it out, they're living at home, that can be hard because you wonder, are they going to, you wonder in a worrying way, are they gonna be okay?
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Are they gonna be able to get a job?
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Should I help them?
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I'm not sure what to do.
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But maybe you also wonder, are they gonna, are they gonna, you know, get their get up and go and figure it out?
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And at the same time, if your kids are far away, you might envy the people whose kids are at home.
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Now, what if your kids have gotten a great job or gone on a great adventure and they live far away?
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There's kind of two ends of the spectrum on how we tend to feel about this, too.
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On the one hand, you may feel so proud and excited for them, kind of like I mentioned at the beginning.
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They're following their dreams, they're making big decisions, they got a job in the field they wanted, or they went to the place they had always wanted to go.
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That is inspiring.
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It is always inspiring, and you are so excited for them, and maybe you're kind of bragging to your friends and family about them.
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That's amazing.
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And at the very same time, it is completely normal to be so sad about them being far away.
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And this is where I think the emptiness kind of terminology comes from because we feel a loss.
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The house is empty.
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My husband and I are still here, but the house is empty of kids.
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Why did they go so far?
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Why did they need to go so far?
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Were they trying to get away from me?
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Did I drive them away?
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You might be asking yourself things like this.
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Do they know they can always come home?
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I, if you had a good, positive, generally healthy family relationship, they probably do know they can always come home.
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And I would encourage you to say it.
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I try to remember to say this to our kids at least every now and then.
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We always want to see you.
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You are always welcome, come anytime.
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Always welcome, come anytime.
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But the question of did I drive them away, this is interesting because when I graduated from college, see if you resonate with this at all, I would have done anything to be out on my own.
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I absolutely 100% was not willing to go back and live at home.
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I have always been very independent to my detriment to in certain cases.
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And so there's no way that I was going back home.
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I did live back at home for the summer between college and grad school, because I went right to grad school after college, and that was it.
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And once I had a grad school apartment, I stayed and I ended up staying in that same place forever, basically, because then I got a job and then I met my husband, etc., etc.
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etc.
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But I would have done anything.
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I would have done anything to figure out how to be out on my own.
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Is that a diss against my parents?
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Well, not really.
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I didn't like them still trying to parent me necessarily.
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I wanted my independence, if I'm being honest.
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There was a little bit maybe that I was like, nope, no parents.
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But it wasn't against them personally.
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I wanted to be independent.
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I wanted to have my own place.
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I wanted to have a job.
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I wanted to do my own thing.
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And that's good.
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So if your kids are super independent and they are wanting to have a job and have their own place and be in the place they really want to be, that's good.
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And sometimes, like I mentioned before, we get we get jealous, really, is the emotion of people whose kids come back home.
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And we worry, why do my kids not come back home?
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Why did their kids come back home?
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Are they a better parent?
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Do their kids love them more than my kids love me?
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And even saying that out loud, I'm thinking, well, that's so silly.
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