Just saw this thread and wanted to add my two cents. I'm not quite at the empty nest stage, but I'm getting close. My idea to counter "empty nest syndrome" is to leave the nest when my kids do! They have plans to go off on their own when they graduate--one is looking at UCLA and one is looking at NYU--yep, we will be a bicoastal family for a while! Of course, things could change in the next few years, but this is what will probably happen. We have made several moves during their childhood, and they always adjusted well to wherever we were. We tried to carefully time the moves--birth to preschool, then moving before starting elementary school, then again before middle school, and again before high school. I grew up making several moves, too, and I have relatives scattered all over the country. There really isn't one "hometown" for any of us, at least not anymore. I raised them to know that "family roots" connect us to each other wherever we live, no matter how far away from each other. There isn't one place to go where we feel our "roots" are permanently planted. I love making a new home and new life in new places, and I would be bored staying in one place for more than about 5 years. My kids seem to feel the same way. I don't think that a "lack of roots" is neccessarily bad--I think my family loves to spread it's wings and fly instead of feeling tied down by roots. Everyone has their own feelings about this, but I know my kids and I are all preparing to fly off in our own directions. We love each other deeply, but we all are seeking different things out of life, and these things are found in vastly different places. OK--I also will fess up that I am not officially single, but I really am emotionally single. Let's just say that we have "stayed together for the children", but we are both about ready to go our own directions as well. Since our dreams of the future are so vastly different (he wants to retire and fish on the gulf coast and I want to move to New York and concentrate on my career goals)--there just is no way that we are going to make it. He would hate the life I am dreaming of making for myself, and vice versa. Honestly, we have been emotionally divorced for years. We try to keep the arguments to a minimum, but we have had the same conversation for years--we are nothing alike, we don't share any of the same beliefs and goals, we married very young and have truly grown in two different directions through the years (dare I say that I have grown and changed much more than him). Anyway, we succeeded in creating what seems like a "happy family", but we both are just dying to one day do our own thing--he's just a redneck outdoors type and I am ready to change from a SAHM to an urban career woman. We met when I was only 15, so of course I am not the same person now!! Yet, he's not all that different. SOOO--back to the subject of moving--soon-to-be-ex wants to go back to HIS original hometown in Alabama, I plan to move to New York, my daughter plans to attend college in New York, and my son plans to attend college in Los Angeles. So in a few years I guess we will be leaving our current family home and ALL of us will be "leaving the nest." I will admit that being near my daughter will be nice if we end up in New York together, but I sure will miss my son if he goes to the west coast. He seems determined though, and by that time I should be ready to watch him fly away and be on his own. I left home at a young age and never went back, although I did get married and wasn't truly alone. But I know many people who did go out on the own after high school graduation--some went into the military, some went to live at universities far from home, and others just went out to live in their own apartment. As hard as it is to let go, we are only hurting them if we try to "stunt their growth" by keeping them home with us when they really should be out on their own. Heck, mine are just like me and dying to go out on their own--even though I know they love me very much and wil miss me, I know that this is the way things should be. Maybe some people just have more of an independent streak than others. My brother is also over 40 and seems much less independent than I am about things. I know a 27 year old that still lives at home, and an 18 year old that just joined the army. Guess each person must decide when they are ready to leave the nest. I am glad my kids seemed to have inherited my feelings about this--they can be seen stretching their wings out often just dying for the day they can fly away--they look just like I did at that age!! I love them more than life itself and I will shed many tears when they do leave, but I won't cry for long because that will be my sign to get my wings ready to fly away, too! We ALL will leave the nest together!!