Adele Parks MBE, the bestselling author of Playing Away, has opened up about her experience with empty nest syndrome – not only how different it was compared to what she expected, but how unexpectedly "liberating" it felt. Speaking to Ateh Jewel on this week's episode of HELLO!'s Second Act podcast, during the publication week of her 25th novel, Our Beautiful Mess, Adele explained that though an empty nest had its difficulties, elements of it were "really liberating" for her and her second husband, Jim, whom she started dating when her son, Conrad, was only very young.
She told Ateh: "It wasn't easy but there were things that were really liberating because of it. Jim and I had never been a couple on our own." Adele also joked about the logistical difficulties of being a parent at the beginning of her relationship with him: "We had never had that honeymoon, no walking around the house naked, no time. The very first proper date that we were trying to go on, I had to cancel because I couldn't get a babysitter. And he said, 'Should I come round?' I said, 'Oh, okay, would you pick up nappies?'"
The empty nest was "liberating" for Adele
For Adele and Jim, their children leaving the nest allowed them to start enjoying things that they felt that they'd previously missed out on: "We got to go on holidays together. We got to start dating. He got to start doing his projects, and I got to start seeing my friends, so there have been lots of liberating things."
Outside of her relationship with her husband, the 55-year-old also explained that Conrad moving away from his childhood home didn't mean that their relationship became any less strong, despite Adele having to become more accustomed to her son's independence. She said: "Also, I really love coming to visit him in London. We see each other about once a week. There were some teething problems when he first got into his flat and I arrived and started cleaning. He said, 'Stop'."
Adele didn't always find the empty nest easy
However, it wasn't that simple – for Adele, certain aspects of her son leaving home impacted her in a different way than she expected. The bestselling author told Ateh: "I was completely convinced I wasn't going to have a problem with an empty nest. It's not going to bother me if he's not living in the house, because I can just ring him up for a chat."
Adele then compared her role to her husband's, explaining: "My husband's relationship was very much doing the sports, doing the teaching. So I said, 'You are physically going to have a gap in you all the time'."
Soon enough, the mother-of-one realised that she was not immune to the feeling: "I was wrong and I knew I was wrong, because we then immediately took in two Ukrainian women in their early 20s, and then when they left, we got two new kittens."
Adele's second act allowed her to enjoy new parts of her life
For Adele, the second allowed her the chance to find new friendships. "I do know that you can marry, divorce and marry again successfully," she began, "I think it stands to reason you can have friendships that come and go and find new friendships that may be very successful.
"And somehow in the 50s, there seems to be this bunch of women who haven't had time before and now have time because maybe they feel more confident in the work," she continued. "They're not scrambling up that ladder the way they have been. They've reached the pinnacle, and there's time to have a coffee."
In fact, her son leaving home truly gave her the time and space for these meaningful friendships: "I've got a career that I absolutely love, and now I've got space for my friendships. I can name a handful of women that I am just having the best time with, and learning so much from, and being so grateful that they're coming into my life."
At 48, Adele started enjoying her success
Moreover, Adele began to enjoy her success in a way she hadn't felt able to previously: "I was always saving, always squirrelling money away, worrying about the future because I felt Jim had done this amazing thing of giving up [his job].
"I think other people would have enjoyed it more," she said. "They would have taken a moment to go, 'Didn't you do well? Look at you hitting number one, look at you selling in 30 countries, doing TED Talks'." However, around when she turned 48, she realised that everything had "panned out", coming to a major realisation: "I don't need to live in a perpetual state of panic. I can spend the money".
She joked about her pragmatic habits prior to her revelation: "Up until 48, and there's no word of a lie, I never, ever shopped except on a sale rack. I think I didn't really accept that it had gone well for many, many, many years, even when I was hitting the top ten year after year, after year."
In many ways, Adele found the pressure of being the family's breadwinner difficult, especially as her husband had stopped work to take care of his stepson. "I spent a lot of time thinking, 'He has done such a great thing for me, I feel I really have to deliver this'," she said. "And actually, since we've talked about it, he said, 'All you have to do is be happy'."
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