# Mid Life Crisis



## Clinging (May 14, 2011)

How many on here think their spouses are having a mid life crisis - can you have it this late in life - I feel my husband has a lot of the typical signs - 54 - coloring hair, trying to look younger, lost weight (could also be doing that for OW), seems depressed not happy, financial problems at work (not major) just not things panning out the way he thought they would, blames me for him being unhappy etc, insecure, uncommunicative, running away and unable to deal with us.

Can a person have more than one mid life crisis? I think my husband had something very similiar about 7 years ago, he is almost showing the exact same tendancies, we seperated for 8 months before he came back. There was OW at that time, he didn't do counselling, just wanted his family back. Things were going really well for us for about the last 6 years and this past year he seems to have fallen back into the same slump.

My husband has major insecurity issues, selfish, somewhat narassicit, so I can actually understand why he is doing these things, doesn't make it easier on me but makes me more tolerant I guess. We have also been together for so long, I feel I shouldn't abandon him anymore than I would one of my children if they were going thru something like this. Does that make me a fool, probably but when he is back to normal, things are wonderful and I'm not sure I'm ready to give that up yet, I'm hoping that normalcy will come back to me but I hope soon.

Just looking for anyone with any insight to mid life crisis?

thanks


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## Jonie (May 21, 2011)

Hi Clinging,

I'm in a similar situation, almost identical really. My husband is 46... had an emotional affair with a coworker five years ago... it went on for almost a year. Both of them left the company for positions elsewhere after I found out. Now, five years later, she calls him at his office, leave a voice mail with some lame excuse used to get back in touch with him -- and sadly, he returned her call, and the texting and emailing started up. I found out again, and again its appear to stop. She is thirteen years younger than him, also married and has two young children, we have two children, but our are grown.

I'm sure in part, my husband is going through midlife crisis as he exhibits many of those typical behaviors, but, I'm certain part of his attraction to here is that she has a career, and that is a lot of what they talk about (their jobs). I was for the most part, a stay at home mother, while I have worked off an on, I think he finds me boring now. So her "obsession" with him which feeds his ego, coupled with her having a professional career and his ability to relate to her being a parent, having these things in common make for the perfect storm.

That being said, there is a Lot more to why people have affairs than midlife crisis. Midlife may just be the trigger. There are other things that are going on inside the mind of a person who cheats, that have nothing to do with their age or stage in life, or their spouse. 

I am a firm believer that "family of origin" issues (things we went through, saw, and/or heard as growing children) play a big part in how we behave and respond to life and life changes, as adults. Internal issues that the person cheating may not even be aware of, or ever considered as being a root cause for their acting out. For example, my father in law cheated on my husband's mother, and his grandfather did the same (though my husband never new his grandfather, he passed before he was born), but you see the pattern. My husband was significantly damaged by his father's cheating, which actually resulted in his mother finally committing suicide. My husband swore he was not and would never be like his father. And Lo and Behold! Well, you get the point. We tend to recreate our childhood issues in our marriage, to work those things out that went resolved as kids.... which in my case, midlife along with family history are both at work in my husband's head.

I'm not giving up either, Clinging. Right or wrong, its not for anyone else to judge. Every marriage is different, and its up to no one else but the two people in it, to decide who it will go. I have days when I feel like a total fool, utterly humiliated, and filled with anger, and ready to walk out. Ours is a 30 year relationship, so "walking out" is not as 'cut and dried', as it sounds. Especially when I know that I am not the only or even the primary reason he has done this. And I like you, come from a place that believes I could no more throw him to the curb, than I could one of my parents or children, if they were having a problem that affected or hurt me.

I wish his knowing and seeing how much I was hurt and how it affect our marriage and hur and affected our children (yes, the kids found out about it) by what he did, had been enough to make him not return her call, all the years later. But it wasn't. However, what I am doing differently this time, is not taking the bigger role in fixing it. He realizes that his childhood has a great influence on what he's doing and feeling, and I've made it clear, that only he can address those things, and has to want to work on those issues himself and/or in counseling. I've made it clear that I will not abandon him and will support his getting help. But if he chooses to not get some therapy, and this comes up in our marriage again, the marriage is over. Three strikes, and you're out. 

I like the saying, "Once you know better, you have to do better." ... otherwise, knowingly and willingly repeating the same mistake becomes nothing more than a purely selfish act at the expense of another.

So, you're not a fool. There is no right or wrong way to respond. There is only your way. You love your husband and can see that place inside of him that likely goes much deeper than his age or stage in life, and the behavior he's exhibiting.


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## Clinging (May 14, 2011)

Thank you for that. Is your husband still at home? Mine bailed on me which makes it worse. I want so much to reach out to him and tell him we can work this out but I feel he knows somewhere in that mind of his that he has hurt me and I have a feeling he thinks I deserve better than his treatment of me so he has left me to find my own path. What he doesn't realize or maybe he does that I want my path to be with him and our family.

Like you I did a lot of trying to fix him last time, I sent him all sorts of literature that tried to explain to him what he was going thru. Last time there was an OW, this time I can only assume, have no proof. His family has no history of cheating, he is the only one in his family that has this tendancy. I do beleive he lacked the attention he needed growing up, he came from a family of 8 kids - all born within a year of each other and he was the oldest so I'm sure his mother didn't have the time for him. On sunday she had prepared this photograph book of their family and the last picutre in the book was of all 7 kids but for some reason he wasn't in the picutre, I think that upset him. I don't think his mother even realized he wasn't in the picture.

Do I reach out to him and let him know that I am here for him or do I just go on with my life?

What do you think? I hate that he doesn't contact me, we haven't spoken for a week, last texts were Monday when he left.

I miss him.


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## confused55 (Apr 30, 2011)

My husband is 58 and we've been married for 30 years.

His midlife or whatever he is in was to go to erotic massages (with happy ending) when out of town for work. I saw an email with him setting up the meeting and an answer back to him.

This has put our otherwise good marriage in great turmoil. He and I are both going to individual counselling.

He says he'll never do it again and so on. I guess we'll see. I also am trying to be understanding......., along with angry.

My counsellor was saying men in their 50's and even 60's think they're getting to the end of their sexual time in life, and want to do something out of the ordinary that they may have fantasized about or is on their bucket list. She says this is very common. They start to feel not that attractive to women and any kind of attention they can get they'll use to their advantage (even if they have to pay for it).

The last day my husband went to the massage, he phoned me after he went and I couldn't figure out why he was so happy (almost manic) which is not usual for him. It must have given him an incredible high and sense of self-esteem. 

Well, I'll tell you, he is off the high since he was caught and threatened with divorce.

My counsellor has been telling me things about male sexuality that I never knew before. I thought women were complex, not near.


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## VLR (May 15, 2011)

Why does he blame you for his unhappiness?

Why didn't he go to counseling 8 years ago?


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## Clinging (May 14, 2011)

Both good questions. he thought he had himself figured out 8 years ago and he did for a long time but when things don't go right for him, he lacks good coping skills so runs away, blames and looks for outside stimulation to fix his problems.

He is a very confused and complicated man and he is hurting a lot of people with his current actions, me, his kids, his family, parents. I think he knows this and knows he messed up but he doesn't know how to fix things so he just runs away and hides.


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## VLR (May 15, 2011)

It is up to your husband whether he has one or more mid-life crises. If he does have another one how will you handle it differently?
Does he know what to expect from you? He likely expects you to react the same way next time as you did last time. How did that work for him?


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## magnoliagal (Mar 30, 2011)

confused55 said:


> My counsellor has been telling me things about male sexuality that I never knew before. I thought women were complex, not near.


Ok this peaked my interest and wondering what things your counselor said. My husband is 45 but no signs of a MLC yet. He jokes it's because he's not mid life yet.


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## ocngirl (May 21, 2011)

I think my husband is going through a Mid life Crisis but late. He is 61 this August, lost all his front teeth due to lack of insurance and acid reflux,and his hair is thining. We've been fighting homelessness for 9 months now and feels less of a man. Now, for the past few months he has joined alot of dating sights and starting to contacting some them. But he knows I love him no matter what and he loves me.


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## Jonie (May 21, 2011)

Yes, he's still at home. From the emails I found, things weren't going the same way as before. It was rather boring and she did most of the emailing talking about herself and her job. The problem is that he had any contact with her at all - period. So that's the issue that we need to unravel. I truly believe he regrets it, but I'm not going to just "let it go", either.

He did move out during their EA five years ago though and I was a nut case at first and wasn't taking good care of myself -- at all. I lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time. I had zero appetite and had to force myself to eat most days for the first six weeks or so. I was working in a mental hospital then, so that was a challenge. My education is in rehab and psychology. I was also hounding him to death about how horrible what he was doing was, and how much pain he was causing me and the kids - and I probably should have checked in as a patient where I worked. I can laugh about that now, but it was far from funny at the time. When I got past the shock, I realized that until the "fantasy" he was acting out with that girl wore off, there wasn't much I could do to persuade him to think about his actions, our marriage, or even the kids. In time, he started to wax and wane, and eventually moved back home and we started marriage counseling which was largely useless. We got more out of a select few books we both read, and a Gottman weekend workshop we attended. Neither were a panacea, but it gave us a starting point.

So in answer to whether or not you should reach out to him, I would do what your heart tells you. What I did, was make sure he knew that I was not abandoning our marriage over some married kid at his office, and wanted to work though it -- that I loved him and that love would not change or go awy overnight, just because he had gone off the deep end... (not my exact words) but the message was clear that I wanted to save our marriage. 

So, I began to take better care of myself and I reached out to him on a regular basis (in a sane and reasonable way, when I got over my episode of insanity) and went on with focusing on our son who was still at home at the time (and hating his father), and my job. 

The past two years have been tough for both of us individually and as a couple for various reasons, so I guess her calling him again out of the blue, caught him at a weak moment. Tension has been a bit high again between us since finding out about her "resurfacing", so we haven't really been able to talk maeningfully about it yet, without a lot of emotion getting in way.... but it will come.

Hang in there, and remember to take care of yourself first, and follow your heart on whether or not to contact him. I know my husband was ashamed of himself but not enough to immediately stop what he was doing back then, so he avoided having too much contact for the first month or so, with anyone in the family. His finding his way back home was a slow (and painful) process for all of us, but he did.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

I’m 62 and on around the fourth of my major life changes. I think many men go through periods of very big changes in their lives. For example I changed from an engineering career to a business career at around aged 35. That change from one life to another went very smoothly and successfully. Then I changed my business career to a semi retired career, another reasonable smooth change.

But some changes don’t go smoothly at all. At age 53 I was rather desperate to totally change our lifestyle. But my wife bless her was quite comfortable as she was and resisted the change. The inability to move forward in my life pushed me into a crisis and subsequent depression.

I reckon man goes through many changes in their lives. Some are smooth and some aren’t. Some of us, like me, even kind of let go of things we have because it’s the only way we can move forward.

Bob


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## needy1 (Jun 14, 2012)

Hi all,

Iam new to this site & would really like some advice on my situation..Iam sorry if Iam hijacking someone elses thread :scratchhead:

Basically Iam 30 & my husband is 34, we have been married for 10 years & have 2 beautiful kids.
Porn has always been a problem in our relationship, my husband has been addicted to it & whenever I find out, I tell him how much it upsets me & he stops it for abit before going back on it again...
A few years back we had a massive argument about how porn was affecting our relationship & he joined a forum & stopped looking at porn for over 3 years, I had to install blocking software on all our computers..
Then last year he was made redundant & started his own business & I had to take the blocking software off and added an accountability report one instead.
Also last year he had alot of issues with his mum and sisters, which made him very upset & stressed. And the pressure of the new business added to this, made him go back to porn, even though he knew I would get a report..
Also last year, I still do not know why I did this...I dont know if it was to get back at my husband or if I was just feeling lonely...I started chatting to random guys online, which my husband found out about & was nearly gonna leave me.. 
I did not get any benefit out of this chatting... I think I just did it out of boredom & wanting to feel like someone still liked me...
Anyway this added to all the stress he was having with his family & business has made my husband a very different & depressed person...
He has all the signs of going through a mid life crisis... he pushes me away, has mood swings, gets very depressed, wants to be alone all the time, says hurtful things, wants to lose weight & start looking good again(nothing wrong with this), does not want to interact with family etc etc ...

He hasnt spoken to me for nearly a week now & doesnt even look at me...he sleeps at the far edge of the bed, so we dont even brush against each other while sleeping..
He keeps asking me to leave him & that I will be better off without him...
He says he is happier when he doesnt speak to me..

I really dont wanna leave him, cos I do love & care for him..
And also I dont want my kids not to have their dad around...

But Iam sooo confused... I dont know if this will ever get better..
Will being patient, help us & our marriage in the long run..

I didnt realise that you could have a mid life crisis in your early 30s...

Please help me & I would appreciate any advise...

Thank you.


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