Shapes and Colors of Midlife Crisis


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Jato87 is offline Jato87 Post #11  June 8,2009, 3:25pm
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This is a great topic---it is a very real milestone in most lives. Most posts demonstrate that mid life crisis won’t be the same experience for everyone. Plato listed some honest and confusing symptoms/feelings.

I often think it’s best summarized by the song, “Is this all there is?” For a number of different reasons, and no matter how exciting one's life may be, most everyone comes to a time when this question will hit them hard in the face.

Some guys will feel they deserve a sports car or motorcycle, while others may want to step out of the ratrace and pursue a different kind of life or career. Often to the dismay of their partner.

The difficult part is how to get a relationship/marriage thru this period that’s seldom synchronized with the other partner’s reality. One may be in a funk about reaching mid life while the other doesn’t feel that way at all, and cannot understand what's changed. In some cases, a wife’s entire life focus shifts to her grandkids which involves staying close to home, and while grandpa also dotes over them, he’d like to rev up what’s left of excitement in life—maybe travel more often and far away. These two headed for trouble in different directions.

Does anything good come of it? I like something I read once that said it doesn’t HAVE to be a crisis, but if recognized for what it is, it can be managed into a very positive mid-life course adjustment.
 
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beloved0000 is offline beloved0000 Post #12  June 8,2009, 4:44pm
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Maybe that's the answer for all of us 40+ and still single. Find some guy in the middle of a mid life crisis that's left his wife and rub his back. Nature would take it's course...

Not to make light of anybody's midlife pain. There's pain in every neck of the woods. Every time I turn around some young thing says "I don't love you anymore" and turns and leaves the man or woman he/she said "I do" to just a few years before.

IN marriage, it's all about commitment. Commitment to the long haul. Not your own personal habits. You don't have to leave your spouse to find happiness. Find a new hobby. Volunteer. Give yourself away. Something wonderful happens when you get out of yourself.

I really think we die when we get to this age because we're supposed to. Somewhere along the line you're suppose to realize life isn't all about you. It's all about the people around you. If it weren't for them, there would be no relationship.

Relationship is always about the other person. Selfishness is what kills us.

I wonder if that's why mid life hurts so much. Suddenly we have time to think about ourself and it's depressing. We live in this ME ME ME culture. Everything is about ME. Change is depressing.

I can hardly wait for my kids to leave. They were all born with boomerangs attached and keep coming back every time I throw them out the door. Somebody tell me how to develop "empty nest syndrome." My nest keeps filling up over and over again.

I'm in it with ya'll. No doubt about it. I started back to school. Does that make me in crisis or can't I just enjoy school without everybody telling me I'm in a midlife crisis?

I have a 4.0 GPA! My garden is blooming. The spring rains are subsiding. My kitty is playing rubby rubby on my legs cuz he wants to go out. The sun is going down. All the fun stuff happens for kitties after the sun goes down. Let me owwwwwt....

It's the little things in life that make me laugh. Make me smile. Get a grip. Eat a grape. Watch the sun go down and marvel at it's beauty.

But whatever you do, get your nose out of your navel. Happiness is not buried in your navel so quit looking for it there!

Go....go....go....I'd rub your shoulders if you were here. I'd ride in your $50,000 sports car you traded your wife in on....I'd LOVE to find someone to crash and burn with but I ain't got time.

I am 48 and lovin' it!!! I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Bring on the midlife crap. I will hit it with a baseball bat into the next county!

Midlife? Midlife? Midlife? Challenge. Head on. Blow it to pieces. This is the Matrix after all. Nuthin' is real. Beam me up Scotty...There is so much to enjoy.

Waste it on self abasement if you wish. I won't be there.
 
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VolGal is offline VolGal Post #13  February 20,2010, 7:18pm
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Plato wrote :
Sadness. Whats it all about, I chased half my life to get to where we are, and in the end it really doesn't matter, I built things with sticks and stones, it will all fall apart some day anyway.

Tricked. Everything you see and hear tells you how great it will be when we get it. this might be why some men cheat, they may blame their mate, we should get a new home, a new car, did she really appreciate any of it.

New Friends. I'm not that important to the people that know me anymore, its all old news, new friends want to hear where you have been, what you have done.

Fresh start. I just want to sell the house and move some where far,
I want new memories, I'm tire of this same old movie of my life playing in my head.

She really doesn't care. ask me just once how i feel, act like you care that I hurt, rub my back, tell me how great I did for us, look at me how you did before we had the kids, before life took you from me.

I really just want to delete this crap, I don't let my self get emotional like this, I just maybe wanted someone to listen, and maybe understand, we don't like feeling this way.

S
Plato and Musmusculus - Simple Mind and everyone else who posted before -

BRAVO. This is an excellent thread and a very important topic. I have been a divorce lawyer since 1989 and every single thing that you guys and gals have said is true about a mid life crisis.

I went back to school (as if I didn't have enough) part-time for a few years to work on a master's degree in counseling. When I was in the couples counseling class, we discussed the topic of a mid life crisis. Funny thing, there isn't such a thing. At least it can't be defined for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). But you can't tell me they don't exist. They do. And both Men and Women have them, and the Ladies have properly defined those types that Ladies experience, and the Men have really defined very well what Men experience.

About half of all marriages survive. That tells me that most couples get through this. It all depends on what form the crisis takes and what the person does about it, the response of his or her partner, and the other environmental circumstances surrounding the crisis.

I personally think that the ski boat, the motorcycle, and the sports car would be the most fun type of mid life crisis. I can really get into each of them. But I don't think that is the idea that the Man has about this...

I read a short story by Margaret Atwood called "Happy Endings" which had endings A through G for the same basic story. I believe the moral of the story is that the begin and end of life is the same - it's what you do in the middle that makes all the difference.

Alcohol. Good Friends. New Memories. I'm ready for the 21st century, but is it ready for me?
 
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sittingbythefire is offline sittingbythefire Post #14  February 21,2010, 3:54pm
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ohhhh, I can feel your pain. I am so sorry you are so sad. It looks like you want to know what to do. Have you thought of talking it through with a professional counselor? Maybe they can help you see what you want.
 
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Jayne is offline Jayne Post #15  February 21,2010, 5:36pm
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I have seen both men and women go through a midlife crisis. I think it is important to make a point to work enjoyment into your life on a regular basis. In my observation it seems that instead of feeling like they are in control of their lives,some people reach a point where they feel that their life circumstances are controlling them. They want to break out of the cycle they are in by introducing something new, different, and exciting into their lives. Some go to more extreme measures than others.
 
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sqg123 is offline sqg123 Post #16  February 22,2010, 4:49am
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From the Harvard Gazette:

In 1989, two dozen scholars set out to study the much-touted midlife crisis. After interviewing some 15,000 people over eight years, they couldn't find it.
It's largely a myth, they conclude.



"We find no evidence that crises occur more frequently in midlife than at any other age.


Midlife Crisis Disappears
 
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