BERKELEY--Marriages get better after the children grow up and move out, according to a UC Berkeley study that analyzed the marital satisfaction of more than 100 women over 18 years.

The study by three professors from UC Berkeley's department of psychology and Institute of Personality & Social Research questioned the women at the average ages of 43 in 1981, 52 in 1989 and 61 in 1998 and found that marriages grew increasingly better after the kids packed up and left.

"We found that marital satisfaction increased as the women transitioned to an empty nest," said Sara Gorchoff, one of the authors of the study and a doctoral candidate in the psychology department. "It was not that they spent more time with their partners but that they were better enjoying the time they spent with their partners."

Though the women in the study were not named, several other Bay Area mothers shared similar views.

Terry Toczynski, a 55-year-old mother of three, said she noticed an improvement in her marriage when her three children went off to school. They were gone for about a year before one of them temporarily moved back recently.

"In the time they weren't there, we didn't have to focus 100 percent on raising children, and it was definitely better for us," the Berkeley woman said. "We were a couple again, two individuals who chose to live together and be with each other.

The 123 women in the study were born between 1937 and 1939 and were first questioned for a study on creativity while they were seniors at Mills College in Oakland. Since then, they have participated in numerous studies, including one on the effect of the women's movement.

The first survey was done when most of the women still had children at home, the second when some of them still had kids at home, and the third when most kids were gone. All were in middle age during the first survey. Some got married, some raised kids, some were divorced, some remarried and some were in domestic partnerships.

Not everyone agrees. Barbara Lockwood, a 58-year-old Brookdale (Santa Cruz County) woman whose sons left home in 1998, said her marriage has remained pretty much the same.

Lockwood started the Empty Nest Travel Club for parents whose kids had moved out, because her husband doesn't like to travel and she wanted to see the world. (Source: San Francisco Chronicle)

Story Date: September 2, 2010