Questions in the Empty Nest, Part 1: Am I the Only One?

When your children leave home, it can be difficult on you as the parent. You might wonder if you're the only one feeling like you do. Barbara Rainey and Susan Yates say, "You're not alone!"

Welcome to the EverThineHome podcast, where we dive deep into the real-life transitions, challenges, and hopes that come with parenting and family life. In today’s episode, "Questions in the Empty Nest," host Michelle is joined by Barbara Rainey and her co-author, Susan Yates, as they open up about the emotional journey of stepping into the empty nest stage.

If your kids have flown the coop and your house feels suddenly quiet—and maybe your emotions are all over the place—this episode is for you. Barbara and Susan share personal stories about the loneliness, change, and even heartache that can accompany this life season. They discuss the universal question so many mothers face: “Am I the only one who feels this way?” Spoiler alert: you’re not.

You’ll hear honest reflections, practical advice for finding new friendships, and thoughtful encouragement to help you process this important transition. Whether your nest is just starting to empty or you’re deep into this season, Barbara, Susan, and Michelle are here to remind you that you are not alone—and to help you discover new purpose and connection along the way.

Let’s get started.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Picture this scene. You're a mom, but your
nest, it's empty. The birds have flown,
your emotions are haywire, and you wonder
if you're the only one. Susan Yates and Barbara
Rainey say no, you are not alone.

(00:20):
One of the main things that we found as we've talked to other women and
as we've been honest with each other is how lonely we are. The Empty
Nest is a season of great change. And one of the most important things
for navigating the season of the empty nest is friendships. And we've
learned a lot about how important it is for us as women to have some
good friends who can stand with us in the journey.

(00:44):
Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast from Ever Thine Home, where
we're dedicated to helping you experience God in your home.
Thanks for listening.
Every mom has some mixed emotions when she thinks about her child
or her children leaving home after decades

(01:06):
of caring for them. She knows the relationship is changing
and often she has lots of questions. In this four
episode series, Barbara Rainey and her co author Susan Yates
are going to examine four of the most common questions
Empty Nest moms are asking. These are questions they
unearthed in their research for their book titled Barbara and

(01:28):
Susan's guide to the empty nest, Discovering new purpose,
passion and your next great adventure. This
first episode is free for everyone. We hope it will encourage
you to join us for episodes 2, 3 and 4
after you sign up for Barbara's friends and family.
Let's listen. Here are Barbara and Susan speaking to

(01:51):
a gathering of women in Dallas.
Susan and I have discovered on this journey that all of us are asking the
same questions. And they boil down to four questions. And the
first one is, am I the only one who feels this way?
I remember thinking that and feeling that after my youngest left. And it's

(02:12):
a very common emotion for us in the Empty Nest. Most
Empty Nesters feel that they're the only one. One of the big
ones for us, for both of us, was loneliness because the house is empty
and it's quiet and we're not used to that. Well, one of the things that
we have found in talking to many women is that this season is very
complex and it's really diverse. It's just plain

(02:34):
messy. And you know, when we were mothers of young children, we went
through many of the similar challenges, learning to share
back talk, potty training, but it had sort of a beginning and an
ending. And then as we hit the teen years, we went through similar
challenge. But you get to the empty nest and it's just
messier it hits us at different times. It hit both Barbara

(02:55):
and me at different times. I remember when it hit me. I have a vivid
picture. Our kids all married young. They graduated from
college in a period of seven years, and most of them got married right
after college. So I never had
a chance to really adjust to the empty nest. Because
as our third child was graduating from high school to go off

(03:18):
to the university, our first child was getting married within a week
period of time. And so I was
overwhelmed. So it wasn't for me until our
last daughter, one of the twins, got married. Our twins got married within
six weeks of each other. So that was a crazy summer. And they're girls.
And they're girls. Yeah. And I remember the

(03:40):
day after Libby's wedding, she was the last to marry,
going up to the girls room that they'd grown up in that they'd shared their
whole life. And Susie and her husband, who'd been married for six weeks,
were packing up the u haulet to empty everything else that was left in the
room. And as I stood in the room, I looked around
at the walls and there were lines where the pictures had hung.

(04:02):
You know, there were pieces of little scraps of paper,
but otherwise the room was bare.
And as that truck pulled out of the driveway
with my last child off to
her new life, I just sort of dissolved into tears and
crumpled on the floor. And as I look at these bare walls,

(04:24):
I noticed the closet door was ajar. And
on the floor of the closet, I saw a rumpled old blue
prom dress. It seemed out of place.
It was all alone. It was not
needed anymore. It in a way was out of style.
And as I looked at that prom dress, I thought, that's just how

(04:47):
I feel. I'm not needed anymore.
I'm a little out of style. And I remember just sobbing and.
And so for me, that was a real oh me, this
really is the empty nest. As all of my children were finally
married. Well, all of us will experience
different things as we hit the empty nest. And as Barbara and Dennis

(05:09):
experienced the beginnings of the empty nest, they experienced it with some real
heartache. Yeah, we did. As we began the
empty nest season, we were in a season of suffering as parents.
One of our daughters, when she hit her senior year, things really began to
unravel in some pretty serious life altering ways. And we'd sort of
been dealing with some of her issues through high school and we were doing everything

(05:33):
that we could think of to help her. And it seemed
like at times things were working, but we found Ourselves in a
really difficult season as that year progressed, dealing with
an eating disorder, and she began to experiment with alcohol and drugs.
And our lives as a family just began to spiral. And.
And it really affected us and our marriage. And here we are

(05:55):
entering. We're approaching the empty nest. We weren't there yet, but this was the way
we entered our empty nest. And so we spent her
senior year watching other families do proms and
graduation ceremonies and all these wonderful senior activities. And we
were wondering where our daughter was, where was she spending the night?
And it was such a time of heartache and loss for

(06:18):
us, when it should be a joyous, wonderful season of life.
So we were in a very vulnerable place in our marriage and in our family
because of this great suffering that we were experiencing.
We went through that season, and there were two things that were very important
for us. One was a small group of friends, and it was just really a
couple of couples who stood with us and prayed for us

(06:41):
even when we didn't know if they were praying. There were many times that we
didn't even see them, but they had committed to pray for us
through this difficult time in our lives. And the second thing that
really got me through that season of life was God's word.
I remember I had the verse James 1, verses
2 through 8 written out on a card, and I taped that card to

(07:04):
my steering wheel, and it must have been there for two or three months. And
when I would get in my car and something dramatic had happened or
something was really weighing on my heart for my daughter,
I remember driving down the street, saying that out loud over and over again,
because there was nothing else that I could hang onto. Nothing
else seemed stable in my life except God's word.

(07:26):
So those two things really, really got us through. So
we've learned that the empty nest is a season of great change. And one of
the most important things for navigating the season of the
empty nest is friendships. And we've learned a lot about friendships in
the last few years as we've worked on this and how important it is it
is for us as women to have some good friends who can stand with

(07:47):
us in the journey. One of the main things that
we found as we've talked to other women and as we've been honest with each
other, is how lonely we are. You know, for many of us, when we were
mothers of young children, we were desperate to be with another mother
of young children just so we could complete a sentence, because we felt like our
brain had fried. And so we sought out other women,

(08:09):
and we went to women's groups and Montreal groups and had play dates.
But then what happens often is as you hit those teen years, you find that
you put your girlfriend relationships on hold a little bit
because you want to savor those years with your teenagers. And so you're
at their ball games on the weekend and you're doing things with your teenagers,
and then they leave, and all of a sudden you realize you're out

(08:32):
of practice with how to go to a deeper level with
girlfriends. And the first thing that hits us in the face is, we're
lonely. And does anyone else feel like I do?
Well, in our book, we talk quite a bit about this, and we also give
several keys to how to begin to reconnect with
other girlfriends. I'm going to give you three of them, and the first one

(08:54):
is simply, pray God, make me a good friend
to others. Ask God to lead you to one
or two other women who would become soul
sisters, who would be of encouragement to you.
And then secondly, take the first step. Actually
write down a list of three to five women that you would

(09:16):
like to get to know at a deeper level. Call them up,
ask them to go for a walk or meet you at Starbucks for coffee.
Be persistent. Think up good questions.
I found it helpful to think of questions in two categories, and we've also
shared these categories with our children because it enables us to become good
conversationalists. One is schedules. Everyone has a schedule.

(09:39):
What's a typical week like for you? How are you spending your time?
And then relationships. Who have been some people in your life who've had a
great influence on you? Tell me about your family. What's your
extended family like? Who has been a person who
you look to as a model, who you'd like to be like in
this season of life. So take the first step.

(10:03):
A third key is to simply be persistent. So
you didn't really click with that girl you went for a walk with or you
had a hard time sort of conversing at Starbucks. Simply call
up another one. Keep going. Keep taking
the initiative, and God in time will bring
to you a good girlfriend. But it's scary,

(10:25):
isn't it? It's scary to take that first step.
So our first question is really to give us each a little bit of relief.
Our first question is, am I the only one who feels this way?
And the answer is most definitely no.
Again, that's Susan Yates along with Barbara Ramey.

(10:48):
To hear their comments on the other three questions, you need to
subscribe to Barbara's friends and family. To do
that, go to barbaramy.substack.com or
everthinehome. The subscription cost is only
$5 a month, or you can sign up for a whole year and get
two months free.

(11:10):
I'm Samantha, and I hope to see you in the next episode of the
Barbara Rainey
Podcast.