# mid-life crisis, but...



## justmetoo (May 1, 2012)

Everyone knows what a male mid-life crisis looks like. The eyes start to wander, the thoughts start to wander, the desire to "be young" again starts up and then there is the new sports car that is calling your name.

And for the most part there is a similar set of issues when a female comes into a mid-life crisis. The desire to look attractive. The desire to be wanted. The planning for the changes in the household as the children are getting past the age of needing you, are growing up and are leaving the house. The unknown of what you do next, and the desire to "find yourself".

Now, as a guy I had done very well in not going through the male mid-life crisis. About 10 years ago I had a "health incident" that changed me from a 12 hour a day worker in technology (and management) to a stay at home dad. I still worked, but it was all from my home office. I took over much of the child rearing as well as the homemaker tasks. It was good for me, and very good for the kids who had missed my involvement as I had worked my way up the corporate ladder. 

About a year ago I started working out and getting myself in shape. Not because I had body image issues, but because being 25 pounds overweight was in my endo's opinion, "going to kill you". Rather than stop at 25 pounds (in Feb of this year) I have kept up the workouts and adjusted my goals. I am now down over 30 and the goal is to get back to a weight not far off what I had in my first years in college. 

About a week ago I shaved off the beard I had grown to hide the chinese phonebook (chin, chin, chin!) and noticed that the weight loss and workouts had allowed me to actually see a jawline (something that wasn't in my wedding photo's of 21 years ago). 

After shaving the beard, and seeing my face again after over 4 years, I decided that I need to get new clothes as well (my 38 waist had shrunk to a 34, and I was looking at going to a 32 soon). So I went shopping and purchased new clothes (OH NO! I now look like Don Johnson as Crocket from Miami Vice). 

Then a last night, my teenage daughter and I were discussing the changes I was going through and she asked me if I was going through a mid-life crisis. I explained the standard mid-life crisis of a man and explained that I wasn't looking for a fast car, or even for a new relationship with another woman. So, then she asked if women go through a mid-life crisis at menopause and I explained that that was a body change process, and that a mid-life crisis usually has to do with psychological changes rather than physical changes.

At that point I had a revelation of sorts. It appears that I am going through a mid-life crisis, but not one associated with males, but female. 

As I have reviewed my actions to date, I can see that almost all the actions I have taken would fall into the process of a "female" mid-life crisis. I am not depressed, not looking for an extra-martial relationship, no less in love with my wife, but appear to be searching for a "next identity" as the house prepares to go empty nest. It's not about "being a man" or "proving I still have it", but about preparing for the changes that will take place as the children become adults.

This whole thing struck me as an odd occurrence, and I have not, after searching on-line for a number of days, been able to see any reference information that supports my over-educated opinion (psych minor in college) that this gender-bias mid-life crisis has been looked at or considered in terms of those males that have come home (for whatever reason) and accepted the homemaker role as theirs and now are seeing that role coming to an end and are attempting to deal with it. Is this a new norm for men who have taken on the role of a traditional "mom"? 

I don't know if this is, but I have found the process (disconnected and looking at it analytically) to be interesting. I am fortunate to have a fairly good relationship with my wyfe, and being analytical we have been able to discuss it, what I am going through, my desire to explore my new opportunities, etc. But there seems to be so little information out there on this phenomena that I am unsure if this is something that we will see and have to deal with more as gender defined roles change in society.

The reason I am putting this out here is to determine if I am just a one-off unique specimen, an anomaly, or if others have seen this gender-reversed mid-life crisis issue, and if we have to come up with a new way of thinking about mid-life crisis' not from gender bias, but from a transactional perspective.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

What I'm about to write is from my personal experience only.

My estranged husband started out much the same way as you describe. For him that was Stage 1 in the process. Once he got the weight off and and had spiffy new clothes, something unforeseen occurred. The young women began to hit on him. That was like throwing fuel on a fire. Hence, Stage 2 began. The young women new exactly how to tell him "how great thou art". That's where the stereotypical MLC came to life. Wild parties, alcohol, concerts, trips, motorcycles, etc.--anything an 18 year old would enjoy.

Hopefully you will stay at Stage 1.


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## justmetoo (May 1, 2012)

Interesting. I married somewhat late in life (32) and I loathed the dating scene. 

With a number of divorced friends (mostly women, come on, I'm the homemaker, we discuss cooking, the men they are dating, heck I even participate in the sessions when they are discussing makeup tips) I am well aware of today's meat market and the thought of that being where I would be headed actually depresses me. I didn't like dating when I was younger (until I was ready to even consider settling down I dated with the TLC/TLS [tender loving care / treat like crap] methodology to ensure that no relationship would last long enough to become permanent), there is nothing appealing in dating today. If anything it's even more depressing.

In discussion with my wyfe we covered what appealed to me back in the early 80's, which seems to be the time period I am regressing to (at least that's what my style in clothing suggests). At the time the best relationship I had happened to be one where there was no sexual intimacy at all (the woman was gay and we went to theater and dinner together, as well as I helped her as her barback when she called). She was more of what you would call a "girl friend" verse a girlfriend. 

I find it interesting that today I have maintained that sort of relationship with the girls I mentioned above. The totally asexual relationships, where I have no desire for any level of physical intimacy with the women in any way shape or form (and this has nothing to do with their attractiveness levels as they are all very attractive) seems to fit a need I have always had for a non-sexual intimate relationship.

Since my wyfe and I do talk a great deal (what would you expect with my over-analytic and over-educated mind) I found her comment on what I am going through very insightful. She stated that her only concern would be if I were to find men attractive (I don't in any way). She pointed out that the role that I have taken on (like a fish to water) as homemaker and childrearer is generally what is called the submissive role (the more nurturing role), that since taking it on I have moved from meetings in the boardroom to coffee and tea with the girls, etc. That my desires and comfort levels are no longer that of an alpha-male. And in fact she is right about that. I have as much desire to re-enter the workforce in my old capacity as I have to re-enter the dating scene, effectively zero.

While there may be a multi-stage process as you are suggesting, the issue of sexual intimacy is being met at home, and I appear to have a strong set of ties that support my asexual intimacy needs (as gender-confused as they appear to be from my comments above there is another set of people that I spend time with, my "cigar smoking buddies", which is an exclusively male group). My best guess is that since my physical and emotional needs are being met this MLC is more about identity (upcoming empty nest) than a desire to impact the marriage. 

Like I said when I first posted, I'm looking at this process with a detached analysis as I want to understand what is happening (can the participant be an detached observer? Why do I feel like a cat in a box?) and see if it is a new model for a MLC that is happening when the male accepts what is commonly viewed at as female roles (although I guess the use of my wyfes term "submissive" would also suffice for the role, I am still a breadwinner and I don't fit the classic definition of submissive from a psychological viewpoint, but the role itself is classified that way) or am I an anomaly? 

Thoughts?


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## muttgirl (Mar 23, 2012)

but you still have your kids at home, right? you are starting the process and havent had the loss of your main job and the jarring affect on your household yet. As for your tastes you had earlier in life, my h is also stuck where he was when he was 15-18 yrs old. The fact you discuss these things is nice but discussion and/or research does not justify any behavior that interferes or avoids your marriages needs or plans. Dont hide things from your wife no matter how much you grow or evolve or explore all the things you "missed".


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## Going Mental (Apr 8, 2012)

This is interesting justmetoo. I have had the exact type of MLC you mention, except I am female. The very quick conclusion I draw is that because your social life is feminised, so is your MLC
There is nothing wrong with that as I have a H that talks more than I do, and can be great "asexual" friends with the opposite sex.

BUT, as 827Aug says, be very careful, because as your confidence increases, so will the attention from the opposite sex. Happened to me. Make sure your marriage is truly strong as these sort of changes will throw up and make you question any weaknesses there may be.

Good on you for losing weight & shaping up! Its an awesome feeling!


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## justmetoo (May 1, 2012)

muttgirl said:


> but you still have your kids at home, right? you are starting the process and havent had the loss of your main job and the jarring affect on your household yet. As for your tastes you had earlier in life, my h is also stuck where he was when he was 15-18 yrs old. ... Dont hide things from your wife no matter how much you grow or evolve or explore all the things you "missed".


1) I have 2 kids, 5 years apart. The first one is getting ready for college now, which I think is one of the things that precipitated the issues for me (seeing the future of an empty nest and knowing that I have 5 years to go)

2) The mortality/job issue was 11 years ago. Then I had the widowmaker and lived through it (yes, I am mortal and lucky) and because of the left my job in top management (Chief Officer position) and went "home" to be with my family [and I thought that was my mid-life crisis]. We saw a reduction of income in six figures, so that was also the financial "bang"

3) Because of cultural differences between my wyfe and I we have always had to "talk" as communication is the only way past the differences from our cultures that we have. 

Lastly, regression is NOT getting "stuck", but a desire to return to a point in time when you were more comfortable in your skin. Think of it as attempting to achieve a known comfort zone. Not to sit and stay there, but to enjoy the experience as a waypoint before moving forward again. Sort of like hitting a reset button (I think that's part of the "fast car" issue with male MLC's).


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## justmetoo (May 1, 2012)

Going Mental said:


> This is interesting justmetoo. I have had the exact type of MLC you mention, except I am female.
> 
> The very quick conclusion I draw is that because your social life is feminised, so is your MLC


Not the word I would have chosen (feminised), but that sort of aligns to my thinking. If these MLC's are partially role-based, then what happens when men and women start to exchange formalized roles? How does the role change affect each?

But your use of the term "feminised" brings up the idea that a man taking on this role and integrating with it seems to lose their gender identity in some ways (non-sexual in nature). I'm not sure about that any more than a woman entering the workforce loses her gender identity. 



Going Mental said:


> BUT, as 827Aug says, be very careful, because as your confidence increases, so will the attention from the opposite sex. Happened to me. Make sure your marriage is truly strong as these sort of changes will throw up and make you question any weaknesses there may be.


Okay, anyone who says that they don't like getting looked at is lying. We all like being noticed and appreciated. When I was going to work in suits I appreciated it. Appreciating that other people find you attractive/handsome/whatever is part of the desire that all people have to be recognized. It's what you do after the initial physical moment that means something. Do you take up that interest and "feed the beast"? 

I think that comes down, in part, to how much stability you feel about who you are in your identity. If you define a large part of your identity as part of a couple, then there is little outside interference that should affect you. But if your definition of who you are as an identity is not tied closely to the relationship with your partner, then there is the "opportunity" for you to accept the attention as something worth losing that identity for. 

Infidelity is not just a part of a MLC, but is a part of everyday life. When the individual determines that their "individual self" is greater than the "partnership self" they can use anything to justify getting personal liberty from the relationship. If that weren't so, there weren't be so many "cheating" spouses. 



Going Mental said:


> Good on you for losing weight & shaping up! Its an awesome feeling!


Yes it is. I adore the fact that I can wear clothes that I couldn't wear for years. It's liberating (not from relationships, but internally). I am amazed that I had let myself go as far as I had, and now that I am halfway to my goal I' find myself actually excited and driven to achieve it. Success breeds success has always been just a trite phrase, but now I am undergoing the process and I see what the phrase really means. The positive feelings that achieving the small goals makes really do feed into the larger goals success.


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## Sara8 (May 2, 2012)

justmetoo:

My husband also started out just like you describe. ....losing weight, car lust, new clothing.

Our sex life was robust still.........

I am not saying you are headed for an affair, just saying that my husband started doing all of those things, too. 

Also, you mention having survived a widow maker. 

Soo...........just a warning stat. Men are far more likely to have a fatal heart attack during affair sex than sex with their wives.

I guess it's all the excitement of the forbidden and the intrigue of it all. 

Imagine your wife and kids finding out about your affair that way.

Not be mean just stating the facts.


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## justmetoo (May 1, 2012)

Sara8 said:


> justmetoo:
> 
> My husband also started out just like you describe. ....losing weight, car lust, new clothing.


AH! you have misunderstood.

That is male pattern MLC. What I'm discussing is female pattern MLC by men who have adopted what used to be considered the female role within the family. These are men, who like myself, have decided to return to the family as the homemaker/child-rearer role. A role that was stigmatized as the role for the "wife" while the role for the husband was that of "breadwinner". 

That men following their standard role based MLC fall prey to it is not news, it is news when they don't follow the standard pattern (lose weight, get the car, get the clothes and NOT have the affair). 

But, as more men start to embrace the role of home maker, are they also falling into the pattern that used to define the female MLC? 



Sara8 said:


> Not be mean just stating the facts.


I don't think you were being mean. I do think you misunderstood the thread. I posted here because I believe what I am going through is something that is very unusual (a male going through a female MLC) and that in attempting to understand the psychology of my experience I am dissecting all the possible reasons why I may be undergoing a MLC in the wrong gender state. I don't have gender dysphoria (at least I am not aware of having it) so there has to be a reason for it. This thread was an attempt to explore if I'm an anomaly or if there could be a cause (choice of pleasurable role assignment).

Would love to know your thoughts.


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## Sara8 (May 2, 2012)

Just me too:

Thank you for the clarification. 

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I am a bit reactive these days. PTSD maybe.

I reread your responses and I see what your saying. 

I agree with your own assessment about being the stay at home dad and responding in the more feminine version of the MLC.

Also, maybe reversing roles gave you more reverence for the family and home front and more respect for what woman do at home. 

Perhaps a lot of men have MLC affairs because they don't feel the wife is pulling their weight if they are stay at homes. But you have seen how hard it is and you respect that role now.

BTW: I think it's amazing that you were willing to do the role reverse. 

IMO, the female version of the MLC is a healthy one.....get yourself in shape, spruce up your look set some new goal, etc.


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## justmetoo (May 1, 2012)

Sara8 said:


> Thank you for the clarification.
> 
> Sorry for the misunderstanding, I am a bit reactive these days. PTSD maybe.
> 
> I reread your responses and I see what your saying.


No need to apologize. It happens. This is an issue that intrigued me because it seemed odd to me that I was undergoing it. Thus I started to research it. At 6'3" and hairy, I don't think anyone would think of me as feminized, but the role reversal that I willingly took on (and again, I am still a "breadwinner", jut not the only one) seems to have had an odd series of repercussions. The female type MLC being the oddest.



Sara8 said:


> I agree with your own assessment about being the stay at home dad and responding in the more feminine version of the MLC.
> 
> Also, maybe reversing roles gave you more reverence for the family and home front and more respect for what woman do at home.


I agree that taking the last 11 years to raise the kids has definitely changed a certain amount of my perspective. I do wonder if single-parent dads also undergo some of this perspective change. 



Sara8 said:


> Perhaps a lot of men have MLC affairs because they don't feel the wife is pulling their weight if they are stay at homes. But you have seen how hard it is and you respect that role now.


I have not been able to find a great deal of research on MLC's in general. There are some theories out there. Most people have looked at them from the perspective of why they happen, but not from the perspective of the actual process and what drives it. 

I think a great deal of the lack of information has to do with people not understanding that they are going through it until well after it has passed, and then they view their experience from the perspective of hindsight, which is clouded by their personal filters. 

This method of research tends to create a symptom solving approach to dealing with an MLC. See the symptom, deal with the symptom not the underlying foundations. Rather than driving forward with solutions, this patchwork model seems to play chase-the-latest-symptom. A chase that doesn't deal with the underlying issues, so the results tend to be less than satisfactory.

I hope by exploring what I am going through in a more detached way I will be able to find the points where I can leverage positive change from the experience. 

For instance I started losing weight for health reasons, but then I reached a point where I transitioned from health to wanting to "look better". This is a point where identity issues overtook the initial reason for the weight loss program. That point was a key component of moving from weight loss for health into a mental state change, but was it a point where I entered the MLC, or was it just one data point in an array of data points that led to the tipping point of the MLC?



Sara8 said:


> BTW: I think it's amazing that you were willing to do the role reverse.
> 
> IMO, the female version of the MLC is a healthy one.....get yourself in shape, spruce up your look set some new goal, etc.


What drove the role reversal change was threefold. The first was coming into direct face-to-face reality of my mortality. The second was that I had already made it to the top of my career path and that was un-fulfilling. The third was that my father's deepest regret as stated to me while he was dying of cancer was that he had not spent more time with me when I was growing up. When I realized that my son had taken his first steps and I had not seen them for over two weeks, my father's words came back to haunt me at the same time I was making a decision on what I was going to do with my career. The end result, I choose to focus on not sharing his regret.

Since I am confident about my sexuality I think I am taking the fact that I am going through the female version of a MLC well. I'm sure a person who had sexual identity issues or questions about their sexual identity would NOT be doing this as well as it doesn't "feel right" (more emotional swinging than most men would feel comfortable with). It was the emotional swinging (happy and sad at the same time) that made me aware of the transitional process and started me looking for answers as this was not healthy male pattern behavior. I do think that re-evaluation and staking stock of your options is healthy, for both men and women. The question then becomes what I started looking at. Why the inverse gender MLC? and is this a normal outgrowth of role-based lifestyles?


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## Going Mental (Apr 8, 2012)

> I'm not sure about that any more than a woman entering the workforce loses her gender identity


Good point. But you are off limits sexually if you know what I mean. The genders are moving out of their traditional roles in some respects. It was a thought/idea that it reflects your current role in society. Apparently women have never been ones to go all out with a MLC. It used to be that a MLC for a woman is buying a $1000 pair of shoes, for a man, its a Harley/sportscar. But more and more women are developing full blown crises and I suspect (totally with basis or scientific fact) that it may have something to do with the changes in gender roles.



> I think that comes down, in part, to how much stability you feel about who you are in your identity. If you define a large part of your identity as part of a couple, then there is little outside interference that should affect you.


I disagree about the stability in your identity. I am certainly strong/stable in my identity....I think it has more to do with the connectedness between you as a couple. In my case much of that connectedness (for many reasons) had disappeared. Hence my warning about ensuring you maintain the strength in your marriage.

Continue on that fantastic journey of weight loss/get fit self discovery!


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