Surviving Midlife Crisis as a Couple: Part 2
How to Survive Midlife Crisis as a Couple Part 2: Your Partner’s Midlife Crisis
Weathering your partner’s midlife crisis while keeping your sense of humor and hope is extremely challenging. The person you have known and love may be making changes, either subtle or radical. He or she may feel like a stranger some or most of the time. He or she may be rewriting history, even your history, and questioning you and the relationship. If you want to survive midlife crisis as a couple, you’ll have to be patient.
Read More»Surviving Midlife Crisis as a Couple: Part 1
If you are facing a midlife crisis, you may hope it will just go away, or you may believe that dismissing it or ignoring it will help. Unfortunately the feelings people experience in Midlife crisis are strong and often persistent, and it’s important to pay attention to those feelings without acting suddenly on them. Many couples make it through significant midlife issues. You can help your relationship by taking time to unpack the feelings you are having. Common feelings include:
Wanting change, often desperately. You may want to leave your partner and family, to start a new life, to find excitement. The pull to change things can be overwhelming at times.
Wanting to be with someone different—either specifically or as a vague idea that life would be easier or more fun with someone else.
Wanting to do things you never got to do as a young person, particularly if you’ve always been faithful and responsible. You may feel destructive, reckless, like you want to burn down your life—even intentionally sometimes. You may feel empty, resentful, angry, and rebellious.
Having trouble seeing why you chose this person, and why you should stay. You may feel that nothing you have is good enough or satisfying and that you want to cast off your life like an old coat you can’t remember why you chose. You likely want to live only for yourself and for the day. And you might occasionally have a sense of being confused and lost.
Most people facing a midlife crisis think there must be good reason for feeling all of these things, and they pay attention to the feelings without evaluating the bigger picture. Midlife crisis usually drives us into focusing on questioning our exterior life. In the bigger picture it can be an invitation to look intentionally at ourselves and reflect on what we want for the second half of our lives.
If you think you might be going through a midlife crisis:
- Don’t make any major changes.
- Have the courage to talk honestly and gently with your partner about what you’re experiencing.
- Remember that the intensity of your feelings will pass.
- Consider speaking with a counselor or therapist who understands midlife crisis and can help you understand what a midlife crisis is and means, sort out what is really driving the urges you’re feeling, and walk through it with you.
Laura Lindekugel M.S., M.S. is a partner in Rekindle Counseling.
Surviving Midlife Crisis as a Couple Part 3: Midlife Crisis Together
How to Survive Midlife Crisis as a Couple Part 3: Surviving Midlife Crisis Together
Being in the midst of a midlife crisis can feel like being trapped in a nightmare for both partners. And it can seem like it will never end. It will. Keep checking in with each other. It is possible to survive midlife crisis together. The truth is that there are many gifts on the other side of a midlife crisis. Partners who can weather the storm of a midlife crisis with grace and dignity, by paying attention, by honoring the gripping desire for external change one partner is wrestling with, and who can focus on themselves and on the big picture, can come through the other side with a more fulfilling shared life than they had before the crisis. Relationships can be even more connected and exciting after a midlife crisis than might have been possible beforehand. Hang in there. This isn’t easy, but it’s possible. A crisis can be a catalyst for intentionality and meaning. It can be a break-through, a time to wake up and create a life that is in alignment with what you both truly want. In the midst of the crisis, external change seems like the answer; the siren song of the un-lived life can be powerfully gripping. But the deeper need over time is for internal reflection and understanding. On the hardest days remember it’s possible to survive a midlife crisis as a couple, to support each other through it, and to come though it stronger and more fulfilled than ever.
If you or your partner may be in the midst of midlife crisis:
- Be compassionate towards one another.
- Remember that this is a painful, challenging, and confusing time for both of you.
- Focus on yourself and try to use this time for growth and for pursuing individual interests.
- Honor the process, even when you want to be dismissive.
- Respect your partner, even if he or she seems or sounds like a stranger most days.
- Be gentle to yourself and to each other. Kindness goes a long way.
- Stay connected as much as you can.
- Have some fun together. Life is hard right now. Take a break and do something you enjoy together. Or find something new to do together.
- Consider seeing a therapist or counselor who truly understands midlife crisis and can help the two of you navigate this difficult time together.
Turn Towards Instead of Tuning Out
Do you ever tune out your partner or just give him or her half of your attention?
We’re all guilty of not really tuning in sometimes when someone is talking to us. We may not even realize what we are doing.
But it turns out that these small interactions are powerful…
In fact whether we tune in or tune out can show whether a relationship is heading toward success or failure according to research conducted at The Gottman Institute.
Read More»Talking about Couple Issues
“I didn’t tell him how much it bothered me…he’d be annoyed and we’d probably end up fighting about it anyway.”
Sound familiar? You’ve probably heard something like this before, or even said it yourself on occasion about couple issues you have encountered. Periodically blowing off steam to someone else about your partner’s annoying habits can help, especially if the person you’re venting to can relate. But venting (or ignoring the problem altogether) shouldn’t replace talking with your partner.
Read More»Should You Follow Your Ex on Facebook?
Should you follow your ex on Facebook? You already know the answer, right? But in case there is any doubt a new study by Tara C. Marshall might help you do the thing you need to do to move on. The study suggest that having continuing online exposure to your ex keeps the wound open, making it harder for you to begin to heal and create new relationships. For most of us the issue isn’t knowing what we should do–it is finding a way to do it. The urge to look and re-ignite those painful feelings is often quite strong. If you are caught in a cycle of checking an ex’s Facebook page and would like to break free consider the following ideas
Read More»Videos of the “Four Horsemen”
- At April 23, 2012
- By Jennifer Stoos
- In Fighting, Things not to do
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Ever wonder what distinguishes a strong relationship from one that is headed for disaster? John Gottman, marriage researcher, talks about his research on the four most damaging ways of communicating. These “Four Horseman” strongly predict which relationships will either self-report as very unhappy or end in break-ups. Listen to Gottman discuss the Four Horseman.