Middle Age Crisis

"I think my husband has gone insane - but only just recently! He turned 45 last year and is having some kind of middle age crisis. Now some 7 months later, he is metamorphosising into an albeit tall and craggy, schoolboy!"

(I thought I'd share this slightly humorous take on the archetypal 'middle age crisis' which many of us witness and experience.)

Signs of Middle Age Crisis or 'Midlife Crisis'

"Seriously, I can barely tell his clothes apart from those of our 15 year old son, which actually is no bad thing as we'd have trouble giving his old attire away to Oxfam - even they like a bit of style and taste!"

"He's gone all runners and skate-shoes with lots of white to match the stripes on his joggers and sweat-tops. He seems to be continually on the brink of a serious work-out or a couple of laps of the estate, but actually never even breaks into a jog."

"He's perfecting the art of appearing to be fit and young mainly through the judicious use of clothing which is for the fit and young! Oh, well, that's what the world's about now, isn't it?  - appearances. It's not who you really are or even what you can actually do, just which persona you choose to wear."

 "People are finding looking beneath the Nike, Adidas, Armani or Gucci labels increasingly tiresome. I suppose they're just too heavy to lift up and why bother when they already say everything about a person just by being there!"

"Anyway, it's not just the clothes and shoes which, incidentally, haven't stopped at 'sports-addict-leisure-wear'. He's also developed a bomber-jacket, neck-scarf, well-pressed Tommy Hilfiger-jeans look.  As if that wasn't bad enough it's now the hair - scare-eee! He's gone for that short, confused and multi-directional 'not sure if I'm gay' kind of  look." Are these indeed signs of middle age crisis?

"Don't get me wrong,I don't have a problem with gayness and I think it's a great style on multi-directional confused teenagers, it is, but on my hubby?? I find it sort of embarrasing and I won't even mention what our son has to say about it (behind his dad's back, of course, - he doesn't want to grounded for like  e- v- e -r,  now does he?)"

"But  back to the point I was going to share. He now just 'has to' go for after-work drinks twice a week with the new 'crowd' from his department. All their ages added together barely surpass his own. Now, admittedly, there are only three of them, but even so!"

"And he's texting like all the time and everything's 'cool' and not 'fine or ok'.  And... he's 'catching everyone later' and not 'seeing them tomorrow' like he used to before this middle age crisis or whatever it is, when he was more like my huband and less like my son."

"It's got to the point recently when I've had to shout "turn that mindless music down" and he's shouted back "K" and turned it down about one thou. of a decibel and opened the door so that it seems just as loud.....who is this person?"

More indications of Middle Age Crisis

"Obviously he has changed - he barely considers my point of view, feelings or presence and eats at weird times. He's into something new just about every five minutes. Oh and he's now got about like 500 facebook 'friends' so he thinks he's real popular. He sits watching youtube vids for hours, laughing and making utterences such as "cool", "oh man" and "wicked". He's having a great time!"

"My husband's middle age crisis has now forced him into trying to hang-out with our son and his friends. This obviously wasn't tolerated as they are actually more mature now than he is. But he thinks it's because they are too young. We don't want to shatter all his illusions before he actually grows up himself, so no one has told him the brutal truth - yet!"

"The other day he expressed the desire to change our perfectly respectable family Toyoto for a red 2-door sporty thing with great 'boots' that he spotted in the local car dealers. I bet car dealerships just love middle aged men. He says that it'd be great for a little trip he's thinking of taking - I dont mind do I? He's been feeling kinda trapped, his life's a bit of a bore (thanks very much!) and he needs new landscapes to activate his creativity - Oh yes, I bet he does!" This is definitely an archetypal middle age crisis sign!

"Well, anyway, I've been severely upset by my husband's recent behavour. I thought that he'd actually 'lost it' - he's a completely different person. Almost nothing of his former self remains. In fact I can hardly remember who he used to be and I'm wondering why I was ever with him in the first place and whether I have actually known him at all."

"Is it a chemical problem, drugs for instance, or a mental imbalance brought on by stress or lack of sex? He seems to think that most problems are my fault which is the archetypal 'teenager' take on life. He says that all he really needs or wants is to do his own thing, hmmmm. So while he's busy living his middle age crisis, what am I supposed to do?"

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Ok then, what to do?

Don't panic, I know that is easy to say but middle age crisis is very common. Your husband has suddenly become aware of his own mortality and is trying to make up for 'lost' time.

This 'condition' is somewhat due to hormonal changes around middle age, menopause in women and andropause in men. Hormonal changes can make us think and act differently and can be particularly troublesome if we ourselves do not understand what is going on.

Your husband may not be ready to listen to any kind of diagnostic information, especially if it's labelled as 'middle-age crisis', but do choose the right time to sit down with him and tell him your concerns. Make certain not to sound judgemental or to riducule him and giving any kind of ultimatum just isn't likely to work at this time.

Tell him what your fears are with regard to your relationship with one another. Tell him how much you miss him and ask whether he can try to include you in his new way of life. Make it plain that you are prepared to give up outdated parts of your relationship life and try new and interesting challenges along with him.

Be interested in who he wants to become and see what you can enjoy and love about that new person. If he feels that he will still have the freedom to explore himself and his life together with you he's more likely not to want to go it alone.

Make use of his 'middle age crisis

At this time it is important for you as a woman to explore any latent talents or passions you may have and to share them with him, it just may make hime suddenly much more interested in you and less self-absorbed.

He may have taken to blaming you for problems if you have been critisizing his behavior, when you take the critisism and judgement out of the equation things should become a lot clearer.

If this problem starts to really drag you down seek counselling of some kind and speak with well trusted friends for support.

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