I am sure this will sound really stupid, we have a happy marriage, having four children (well adults really) my sons left home around ten years ago. My daughter Leanne is moving in with her boyfriend around June, and my youngest Georgia goes away to uni in Sept. Of course I want them to be happy, but to be honest I am dreading being just the two of us!! How pathetic am I!!! Hopefully my older girl wont be going to far from us, as they intend to rent for the time being. Georgia is planning on taking up her offer of Kingston on Thames, which again, isnt far from us. Am I being really paranoid? My husband wants to get the house done up, and would eventually like to move out of London. I am not so sure. Both my sons are in London, one only a mile and a half away! I have even seriously thought of going to see my gp due to feeling so sad. I am busy, I work with little ones so definitely dont have time to be bored, although eventually I know I will have to stop due to health problems. I see my sister a couple of times a week, my parents are dead, as are my husband's. Am I going crazy? When I tell them they just smile and shake their heads Maybe being ill with a sickness bug for the past three days hasnt helped, as I have been home all weekend and today, maybe I worry, is this going to be it now???

yeap they have to grow up you know .

inderpencance .

I have just the one child my nearset famlie is 45 miles away .
My child now lives 250 miles away in Wales .But he is offton on the phone .
And i am going down to see him next week first time seen his home in Wales as he has been there about 6/7 weeks now .

i have noone livin close and rearley see anyone .I make a point of seeing folk once a year .

you get quite used to it .
Chris

hello barbara
I was very sad at the thought of my daughter (only child) leaving home but somehow managed to cry so much before she left that by the time she did leave I was all out of tears. As Lyn says there is a sense that if they are able to fly away then you have done your job well and I comforted myself with this fact. I made a word document with all her favourite recipes in and one of her housewarming gifts was a big box of cleaning stuff, washing powder etc because I was sure a student would balk at the idea of spending money on such things. Of course I still miss the cuddles and kisses every day but thank heaven for skype. when I see that little face it lights me up and when it is sad there is still an important role you can play. However, she left home before I was diagnosed and my experience of RA is that it puts you on an emotional rollercoaster and we sometimes feel as though we are over-reacting to the teeniest of things. It is a big deal when children leave home, but it is the start of a new life too. When you feel up to it, and feeling sad is very draining, perhaps you could get together with neighbours or hubby and get involved with something new. This winter I got some neighbours together and we have had supper and scrabble evenings. Being a group of four women there was a lot of chatter before, during and after the scrabble but all agreed (one widowed, one divorced, one separated, one rheumatoidy) that it had really added something to our lives.
.....eve xx

Hi Lynn

You will like Oxford brookes my son went there for 3 years .( and still at uni for 3 more yrs doing PHD )will be 7 yrs ( just done his masters )

apart from parking ha ha use park and ride but never go if there is an event at the unis as car parks full and no one comes out .

we could park at the halls on a weekend ,Depending what halls


Oxford more expencive then london .

christine

hi Barbara,

firstly it's something we all feel. my Daughter was 29 a fortnight ago and left home a few years ago now.

when she was going to set up home with her then boyfriend i really wondered how me and my Hubby would be, as she is the centre of our world. we made the decision not to have any more pets i.e. dogs after we lost our last one as we didn't want to be tied down. so i thought we'd be rattling round our house and wondering what to do next.

believe me once a Mum always a Mum, she always phoned me and she was never far from my thoughts.

she then split from said Boyfriend and took 6 months off work to go travelling in her new found freedom. she went to Australia with 3 other Girlfriends. when she got back she decided she would find it difficult to move back home, which i could understand as she had run her own house. so she rented rooms for a couple of years from friends.

she managed to get the deposit together to buy a little flat, and just before she moved in she met her now Partner and it wasn't long before they were sharing the flat. now 3 years down the line they have bought a little house and moved in on 18th March. and in all of this she has never lost touch with me, and always phones me to keep me updated and to see how we are.

she lives about 14 miles from me and i love going to see her, we went for her birthday on 22nd March and because they had just moved in they decided to have a BBQ even though it was dark as they are so excited to have their first garden. ( they do have outside lights !! )

and as for me and Hubby well we soon got into our new way of life, we have filled her room and made it a tele room for Hubby and all his DVD's etc.

i had plenty of tears right from when she left home, to her travelling and then all her ups and downs, but we are closer now than before she left home.

i am off for a little break with Hubby next week, that's why we decided no more pets.

it was soooo lovely to see her settled and happy in her new house i felt all her excitment for her.

truly Barbara you will shed tears, feel sad and lonely without your Children but i think you slowly move on without realising it. and as long as you're kids are happy then i think you will be.

hope telling you the above gives you comfort.

Suzanne x

Hi Barbara,

No, you are definitely not pathetic!! There are less than two years between our two sons, so they both went off to uni in very quick succession, and at first I was just at a loss, especially when the older one went to do his year in France. It is a big change, and our house seemed so very quiet, but you do get used to it, and as others have said, there is always the telephone.

Our two came home reasonably often, and of course Nick & I found ourselves with no-one to please but ourselves, which was rather nice. The boys never really came back home - the older one lives about 10 mins further up the valley to us, so we see him a lot. The younger one is married with his own family now and lives in York, about 80 miles from us.

It`s nice to see them doing well, living their own lives, and we are all very close as a family.

It will be OK, so try not to worry,

Kathleen C x