man-o-pause

Guest Post: How To Stop Your Midlife Crisis

Gwenn Clayton, guest author, How to Stop Your Midlife Crisis Now

I am in my forties. I am very happily married with two fabulous young children. I love where I live and have lot of friends and fun.

However a few years, despite all of the above, I was left in the throes of a midlife crisis. Why? Because of just one thing - I felt I had wasted several years of my life trying to set up a small business that ultimately was a failure and meant all the financial sacrifices we had made were to no avail.

As a result, I felt that all the great things I did have in life didn't matter because overshadowing everything else was the belief that I was 'a failure'.

For me that belief was my downfall. It took quite a while for me to shake it off and renew my faith in myself.

Part of my journey to renewal was to write down the beliefs I had about myself that were useful and those that were not. For example: I am lucky; I am happily married; I have two great kids VERSUS I am a failure; I am no good at business; I hate selling, etc.

I began by consciously changing the latter as I realized that I could hold on to them and ultimately feel destroyed by them or change and reframe them so that my beliefs could empower me.

Now I believe I am successful. This is true if I look at other areas of my life (marriage, kids). I learned some great business lessons and am the better for them. And I gained useful insights into the world of selling.

Take some time to write down what the positive beliefs you have about yourself. Keep reading that list - it will inspire you.

Take time too to write down what, if any, beliefs you have right now that are not serving you in midlife. Once you have that list, as I did, convert them to positive beliefs instead.

At the end of the day you get to choose how to describe yourself to yourself. I know the new set of positive beliefs made all the difference to how I felt about myself.

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For more information on setting smart goals midlife, visit Gwenn's Web site.

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I've written a review of Seth Godin's latest book, Linchpin, that speaks to creating the mindset that YOU are indispensable. Being disposable or indispensable is a choice we make every day. Taking control of your self-talk is the first step to creating the life you want.

Midlife Myth

What would you do if your spouse one day announces, "I don't love you anymore. I don't know if I ever loved you?"

After you take the "Ann Landers Test:" Are you better of with or without him/her? and you answer, "With" then it's time to simply duck. Yes, duck. Don't react in anger, recriminations, guilt-ladden barrages about selfishness.

Because in reality, your spouse very likely bought into the "midlife myth." The midlife myth is that your personal happiness is dependent upon your outward success: personal, professional, financial.

This myth is smacking up against the hardest reality most of us have faced in our 40 or 50+ years.

Don't let your marriage become a casualty.

Inspired by Laura A. Munson, Modern Love, The New York Times.

Men & Women Let's Talk

Image via Wikipedia

Some people find it odd that I'm a woman writing for men, and recently I found a man writing for women.

I'm delighted to introduce to you Owen Johnson, my first Guest Blogger:

We've all heard about guys going through the dreaded "midlife crisis." Or "male menopause" as women like to call it. Usually this involves a guy who hits a certain age, and suddenly feels the urge to look and act more youthful. The cliché is the middle-aged guy who goes out and splurges on a new sports car.

Evolutionary psychologists believe the "midlife crisis" is real, but it happens for reasons you wouldn't expect. It’s not because the man has reached middle age; it’s because his wife has. The midlife crisis is triggered because his wife is about to enter (or has entered) menopause, meaning she can no longer reproduce.

This in turn makes the man feel a renewed need to attract younger women, in order to have a way to continue producing offspring.

On a conscious level, the middle-aged guy usually doesn't have any interest in having more kids. But on a deeper, primal level, he is being driven to pursue this.

He’s probably not thinking to himself, “Hmm... My wife is getting too old to bear children, so I’d better go out there and find a fertile young hottie.” But his primitive needs are telling him to do so.

A 50-year-old guy married to a 25-year-old woman probably won't experience a midlife crisis. But a 25-year-old guy married to a 50-year-old woman probably will.

So, the midlife crisis really doesn't have anything to do with the man reaching a certain age. It’s about the age of his partner.

While we're at it, here’s another interesting factoid:

The famed "Seven Year Itch" has actually been researched and found to be false.

It's a THREE year itch.

Most couples that have not had a child after 3 years start to feel the pull towards other sexual partners because the union has not resulted in the bearing of a child. Our minds turn off to that person on a certain level because they haven't proven themselves as fertile.

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About the Author
Owen Johnson, Man2Woman.net, owner and blogger at "Let's Talk....Man to Woman" helps women to understand men better - how men think, what men want and how men communicate - so they can enjoy happy, healthy relationships with men. He's also the author of an e-book by the same title.

4 Strategies to Sanity

Or, What to do When Shit Happens...

The only recommendations I've made through this site are the links I post to resources I find compelling, humorous, insightful or helpful. Today, I'm encouraging my readers who have the time and $19.95 to attend Les Brown's online seminar.

Here are the details:

Event: At the Turning Point: 4 Strategies for Sanity
       "Limited Space at this Powerful Webinar"
What: Informational Meeting
Host: H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Start Time: Tomorrow, March 24 at 8:00pm
End Time: Wednesday, March 25 at 9:00pm
Where: Online (Eastern/NY Time)

What’s Next?

This webinar is an introduction to a four-week workshop in which Les will present all seven of the critical life strategies and walk participants through exercises that will teach them how to apply these strategies in creating a successful business, relationship, or life.

How to Register

Details and registration can be found at http://www.turning-pt.com/fe-101.html. The cost is $19.95 for the 2-part webinar, and registrants will receive an audio CD with humorous reflections on the seven critical life strategies. There are limited seats at the webinar, and they’ll be assigned on a first-come-first-serve basis, so early registration is strongly advised.

Of Mid-Life Crisis Affairs

As John Edwards demonstrated, there is no timeline for a midlife affair. Was it precipitated by a crisis? Were there any indications that he wanted to leave his wife and end the marriage? Only he knows for certain, although it seemed important that the voyeur-watching public know that his wife’s cancer was in remission.

Affairs are never about sex, IMHO. I knew a colleague who, while never having had sex with her coworker, was having an affair nonetheless. Their relationship involved sharing intimate details that neither wanted to share with his/her spouse.

Affairs are really about violating a trust. And any committed relationship, regardless of marital status, can succumb to a midlife affair.

While midlife seems to be the time when men and women tend to stray, it’s not necessarily a cookie-cutter midlife crisis affair, e.g. "My wife/husband never touches me."

For example, a woman asked a UK newspaper columnist, “Is my partner having a mid-life crisis?” when her husband’s behavior changed dramatically after learning that his step-daughter was pregnant. Apparently, when she called him “Grandpa” jokingly, he snapped.

The columnist’s advice was to hang tough; give him time and space to sort things through.

I met a 54-year-old Englishman at a party last weekend who told me of divorcing his wife after 20 years because she wouldn’t (or couldn’t) stop coddling their 20-something. He, too, snapped. He didn’t volunteer whether he was having an affair or not.

While clearly he was a man in crisis, a sexual affair might have been the better choice. His story sounded like a classic case of midlife neglect.

Who knows anymore? There are as many midlife crisis affairs as there are reasons to have one.

But it’s when you’re being dishonest with yourself that you really land in the soup, regardless of age, gender or country of origin.

Two Men Debate Midlife Relationships

Okay. Maybe not debate, but here are two Baby Boomer men with different and distinct points of view. And since I get to be the moderator, I'm calling this a debate in the hopes that my lurking readers will join in ;-)

The "How To Survive Male Menopause" post has received the most traffic and click-thrus of any post I've written in three years.

Yet MidAgedMan comments, "I think that this is a somewhat ridiculous concept. "Crisis" is often too strong a word - what we, like any human being, need is a partner who can accept change and grow with us."

I agree, but for many, that information resonated. I'm one of the fortunate who can call her husband "my best friend." And crises being part of life, I like to think that not only are we surviving midlife, we're thriving and overcoming the odds of mid-life meltdown.

Then we have Man Up Men, who's launched a companion blog to promote his 143-page book, Have a Great Midlife Crisis. Based on my cursory review of his posts, it's pretty clear he's grasped that controversy sells. Well, maybe not sells, but certainly stirs things up.

He's also wrangling with this whole Social Media thing. (Hint: Throwing up a blog that is so obviously self-serving will not win you fans nor buyers.) You'll notice no link love here.

If he'd left off the subtitle, "Without Getting Caught," I might have been able to recommend the book. If you're really advocating "to man up," why not be a man and exit gracefully without the collateral damage?

Man-o-pause strives to bridge the gaps between men and women, not divide and conquer. Part of having a great midlife is having gained perspective on the "gender wars" and coming through intact and improved.

This Neanderthal approach to men vs. women will insult enlightened men everywhere. Why would anyone spend $19.95 for a 143-page rant, when you can come to Man-o-pause and read over 180 posts for free?

As MidAgeMan so succinctly states it: Crisis is often too strong a word.

I prefer opportunity. But then again, we all have our take on the mid-life crisis cure.

If you're looking for great books to help you meet the midlife transition with dignity and humor, look no further than the right column for books I recommend through Amazon.

Two books I recommend wholeheartedly are Being the Strong Man a Woman Wants, by Eliot Katz and Real Men Don't Apologize, by Jim Belushi.

Boomer Kids' Quarterlife Crisis

How to Survive Your 20-Something's Midlife Crisis

Mid-life crisis, quarterlife crisis, all around angst. I want to stop the world and get off. I want to run away from home. But I know that this knee-jerk reaction is a subconscious fear that I can't handle "it".

The "it" in this post is a child's 20-something, quarter-something, WTF-not again crisis. Many of my readers are struggling with their own insecurities about unmet expectations in midlife, and they may not have the emotional reserves or stamina to manage their adult children's quarterlife crisis as well.

Prior to reading Quarterlife Qualms, I was fuming about my son's irresponsible behavior, yet again. I just didn't get it. How hard is it to get a job and keep it for more than six months?

Quarterlife Qualms provides some insight into this "quarterlife crisis for twentysomethings:"

1. Competition in the job market has intensified with a 53% increase in college enrollment since 1970.*
2. Attaining a decent standard of living requires a college degree today.
3. To reach the level that their parents have achieved often requires a professional degree.
4. College didn't prepare them for the harsh realities of "real life" nor did their parents (emphasis mine.)

"It's like, 'Man, I didn't ask to be an adult.... I don't feel like one. I still feel like I'm in high school...' ," said Jeff Milone, 27, founder of Quarterlives - Truth in Our Twenties.

For us "helicopter parents," therein lies the rub.

How many of my female readers were pregnant with their first (or second) child by the time they were 27; how many men (women) had been in the adult workplace for 5+ years?

All together now, "When I was your age...!" OMG - we've become our parents.

It all boils down to expectations. We can blame society, the econmony, pop culture or ourselves. I believe that there is a correlation between the quarterlife crisis and the midlife crisis.

Two twenty-something women quoted in the post agree. They believe that "if you really go through the quarterlife crisis on a deep or profound level, you might be able to escape another crisis in midlife."

What can Boomer parents do? Lower one's expectations. Reward positive behavior and ignore the rest. Understanding and tolerance go a long way.

Funny. That's the advice I give when women ask, "How can I deal with my husband's midlife crisis?

*Source:Quarterlife Crisis Hits Many in Late 20s: Settling on a Real, Grown-Up Job is Harder for a New Generation of College Grads, Keturah Gray, ABC News (2005).

Midlife Crisis Wife

Menopause Humor

Since this is an equal opportunity midlife blog, I think it's only fair to follow How to Survive Male Menopause with a bit about your midlife crisis wife. I find it's best to use humor when trying to understand women, especially during that time of month. Women, if your significant other doesn't appreciate raging hormones, he will after viewing this video.

Hey guys, you could have it worse.