Mid-life Quest
Question: My husband, he’s 41, is beginning to act differently, more distant. I’m afraid it’s that so-called mid-life crisis and he’s thinking about divorce. It’s happened to several of our friends. What’s going on? Female 38
You’re anticipating an ending but it may really be a beginning. But be prepared! Both endings and beginnings bring turmoil and change, both contain grief and fear.
Men and women both may need a mid-life course correction. By our forties or early fifties, we have accomplished the tasks of career, intimacy and children, programmed into us since childhood. Only now are internal shifts possible that look to heal past hurts and build a more satisfying future.
The dangers are real as your marriage enters this readjustment time. Men are often not well equipped to handle mid-life feelings. They get confused between internal and external changes. Many are led to divorce as a substitute for facing their own feelings.
The ‘so-called’ mid-life crisis is really a crisis, but a quiet and deep crisis of belief and of grief. Men believe, as they were taught, that they should achieve steadily and continually. They are never told that sometimes, to get ahead, one has to fall down, go back. An emotional rebirth requires that some patterns die. A scary idea
So, as career and family are accomplished and pressures diminish, men are surprised by emerging old feelings. Robert Bly describes them as grief from an old father wound. Many men grew up with a father who was physically or emotionally absent or with a father who overpowered them. Either way, to survive, they submerged their rage and grief.
When these feelings try to reemerge in search of healing, men experience terror, which stems partly from the power of the feelings, partly from because the rage and fear lacks legitimacy, and partly because they know no one who handled this crisis successfully.
Your concerns are real. The key question is how can you and your husband deal with these changes. That is what will save your marriage.
Three approaches are necessary. First, talk about this together and find some road maps, from books, from observing older family members or mentors. Second, deal with your own mid-life readjustments. They are just as real as his and require your attention. Third, make a place inside your marriage for feelings to be experienced and shared. Remember, you will be investing time. Years, not days, for this type of change.
Road maps are necessary to let you both know that the journey can be made successfully. Most of the maps we have today draw heavily on mythological models. Try Robert Bly’s Iron John for him and Clarissa Pinkola-Estes’ Women Who Run With Wolves for you. Couples groups are useful in this situation.
We all have wounds. As you both discover your wound and take off old protective armor, you become vulnerable to re-experience that pain. This journey takes a great deal of trust, in you and in each other. Trust yourself to know that you are a big person now and old feelings cannot destroy you any more. Trust each other to understand that, even though you may feel a similar hurt, he or she is your adult partner and is not intending you harm.
Your marriage can be strengthened by this journey. It takes courage to share with your partner the personal gift of your old wounded feelings.
Gerry Owen is a Marriage, Family Therapist in private practice in Santa Monica with his partner and wife, Linda.
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