The Loneliness Nobody Talks About After Divorce and Empty Nest | Finding Yourself Again Through Solo Travel // 189

Loneliness can sneak in after divorce and an empty nest, not as a dramatic breakdown, but as a quiet feeling you carry while you still do your job, return calls, and tell everyone you’re okay. I’m Cheryl Esch, a travel coach and solo travel advocate, and I’m sharing what I wish more women said out loud: you can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone. When big life transitions pile up at once, grief does not always look like tears in public. Sometimes it looks like isolation, numbness, and the exhausting work of pretending you’re “strong.”

I talk about how my divorce collided with empty nest life, how depression can drain your motivation, and how winter and seasonal affective disorder can make everything heavier. We also get into the social side of healing: what happens when you finally get vulnerable and someone shuts you down, and why that moment can teach you to stay surface-level even when you desperately need support. If you’ve felt dismissed, too much, or hard to love during a transition, you’re not alone, and you’re not broken.

We close with practical ways to rebuild community and confidence, including women-to-women support, divorce support groups, church groups, and the surprising power of a small women’s travel group (think 12 or fewer). Solo travel does not have to mean being lonely. It can be a bridge back to yourself and to friendships that feel real. If this resonates, subscribe, share this with a friend who’s starting over, and leave a review. What kind of support would change everything for you right now?

Transcript

The Loneliness Nobody Names

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, sisters, can I be completely open and honest with you? After divorce and empty nest, there is a loneliness that nobody talks about. And there are things that you experience during this major life transition that again we are almost taught to, you know, buck up and be really strong and show that we're okay. Well, today I'm gonna talk about how you can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone during this major life transition. Welcome to Solo Travel Adventures. I'm Cheryl Ash, travel coach and solo advocate. I had a lot of grief after my divorce, and it coincided with my empty nest. So there was also the loss of my connection with my children at the same time. I was happy for them, and I never thought I would actually be bothered by the empty nest, but of course I never thought it would coincide or I would be getting divorced at the same time.

Depression, Isolation, And Winter

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So it was a bit of a shock, and I went into severe depression, to be honest. I was isolating myself, I was living alone in a new city, and it was winter time, it started to get to be winter time, and even more depressing because I do suffer from seasonal affective disorder, and so that on top of the fact that I just was sad and I would just lay on my couch, not want to do anything, and just being depressed. Aside from going to work, I really didn't do anything. But when I got around family, friends, talked to people on the phone, I had to pretend that I was okay and that I was being strong and that this was a good thing and I'm capable, I'm gonna rebuild a better life after this loss. Well, it really didn't happen like that, and I still struggled for quite some time with all of that loneliness and the grief that led to depression. And when you are depressed, it's hard to get motivated to really do anything. And that is something we as women almost try not to talk about because we want to be strong. We've been taught, especially if you're from the Gen X generation, uh, we hit, we got every we did everything. We were very capable to almost raise ourselves, but we were kind of raised to be tough. And so this has led into maybe if you're going through something like this, and maybe it's not divorce, but you're just suffering from a depression because you're isolated, or you are also going through some other major life transition that has changed your circumstances. And so you are having to just deal with all the emotions behind it, and we really often aren't allowed, so to speak.

When Vulnerability Gets Shut Down

SPEAKER_00 3:29

You know, when we start to share our deep, intimate thoughts and emotions with people, they don't want to hear it, they just want the surfacey, yeah, I'm good, okay, everything's great. But the minute we start to open up and share deeply how we're feeling, it's almost like people just shut you out. And I actually had that happen. I was going through a pretty difficult time, even just in early 2024, and I was sharing with my best friend that just some I don't get very raw with her, but I was getting very vulnerable and raw with her. And I was even crying over the phone. And as I started to do that, because that's not typically what I do with her, I allow her to talk mostly. She basically said she needed to get off the phone. And I was so hurt. So you can understand if you run into that where it might be hard to even want to open up because maybe the moment you've started to open up about really what's happening emotionally, really how truly how you're feeling, not the cookie-cutter, oh, I'm fine, answer, but really sharing what's deep in your heart. There's not very many friends or family members that really are, I'll say mature enough to handle that. And unfortunately, as you can guess, that person is no longer my friend because I got to a place where I wanted more genuine, deep friendships, not surfacey friendships, and I knew I needed something more. Because we can't be alone in this. We think we're alone, but we're surrounded by people, as I said earlier, and we often, because we haven't expressed these feelings and haven't been honest, not just with friends, but maybe not honest with ourselves about how we feel, then we feel alone. And we often carry this silently, but that's not what we're meant to do. Okay, we as women, okay, sisters, we like to band

Choosing Deeper Friendships And Support

SPEAKER_00 5:44

together. We like to be in camaraderie. And if maybe this is you and you are thinking, okay, I need to get away, or I really need to find new friends, but you are feeling alone, maybe a really small, and I say small group trip, like 12, no more than 12 people in your group, where it's all women and maybe even all solo travel women, this is gonna make you feel so loved. And you might even get the feeling of like the golden girls, where you are in this together, and that would just give you a glimpse, a little taste of what it could be like. And I know loneliness can really, it just pulls us down, and we are women that we like to connect, most of us. I mean, I'm an introvert and I still need friends, I still need to connect and communicate with people. Maybe not as often or as much as my extroverts out there, but we all need that. We as humans need that. So we have to remember that women and women to women are going to be more empathetic and sympathetic and hear us. They're gonna hear us because they've possibly been there. Whereas a man, maybe you are married and you you want to share this with your spouse, but maybe they don't quite understand what you're going through, that you have this grief or you're lonely because of maybe, again, your empty nest. Maybe it's not divorce, or maybe you're you are transitioning and not working a corporate job anymore. So you've lost your identity there. And so you're feeling a little lonely and lost.

Small Women’s Trips As A Reset

SPEAKER_00 7:30

A man may not quite understand that feeling. So I encourage you to find other women. You can go to some church groups. There may even be, if you are divorced, there are some divorce support groups out there, things like that to create community and support. And then consider when you are away from all this and you're pushed outside of your comfort zone, joining, like I said, a very small group, maybe 12 or less, women travelers, you're gonna find a community and connection that you need. So, sister travelers, get out there and have that adventure.