my wife and I have recently attained the most coveted status of empty

nesters and it's something after thank you after 35 years of parenting we are

finally in the house by ourselves and not worried about when they're going to

come in through the bedroom door or through the front door it's kind of a

cool season I'm liking it and it's really exciting we have been working

slowly but steadily toward this day and if you're a younger couple thinking man

I can't wait well you have a good reason to have hope but now is the time to

start building the patterns so you have a strong marriage in the day when they

say goodbye we're not coming back I'm John Fuller along with Greg and Aaron

Smolley who lead the focus marriage team and you all are almost there you've

got what one child's still in the home and as a freshman at 50 she's not home

all the time but it's pretty common to have couples who wake up one day and

they're like wow where the kids who am I who are you I mean this is a shock to

some people isn't it but like you said very common as a matter of fact of the

last few years the emptiness divorce rate was probably around one in 10 but over

the last few years it's now one in four and the issue is that for so many

couples they lead parallel lives for so long in other words they live in the

same home they're parenting the same kids but yet you know hobbies and their

friendships and work and all this stuff is just done in parallel and in one

day they wake up feeling like we have been living alone together and it's

unfortunate but I tell you what an opportunity when when you realize yeah we

have been living parallel lives for a long time there's such a great

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