Peace.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I was flabbergasted! what was the result of their ‘investigation’? as a director of her own company, she pays herself £100 per month. Therefore the maintenance due is £5 per week.

So, they ignored the obvious “well how does she keep herself on so little income” and “how can she pay for her 4×4, her dogs, her restaurant meals! Even though I made them aware of her lifestyle they didn’t investigate at all, they just asked her what her salary was. They didn’t check her bank accounts, it didn’t occur to them that might have been informative and tell them something nearer the truth.

A totally wasted exercise and a costly useless government organization. I feel very sorry for those single parents out there who are trying to make a living and bring up their children whilst the other parent can hide behind such a poor weak organization that is supposed to be there to make the challenge of bringing children up fair and to the positive benefit of the children concerned. I would be ashamed to say I was part of the Child Support Agency. How they sleep at night I do not know.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

How about giving yourself some more fundamental plans. Plans that really help you change your life for good. Its all very well dreaming about the ‘you’ in the future when everything is sorted and you have the life you have always wanted, but what will you need to do to get there? and how long does it take to put all these things in place? some things do really just take a long time to develop. Lots of nurturing and sustaining to make them become real and part of your life.

Why not start next year by laying out a plan of your wildest dreams. The dream alone may be something that keeps you going when things seem like life is too hard. Create a dream of a life that is realistic and achievable, but is creative enough to realise all your needs. So what are your needs? define them, list them. Leave them and come back to check and add to them when you think more about them all.

Then look at them all and find a plan for each that may take a year or maybe five years to achieve. Make that first step for each of them part of your new year’s resolution.

Good luck!!

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I love old VW Beetles and have had quite a few in the past. It would be lovely to have one again. Maybe one day I will. But for now it is impossible for financial reasons to even consider it. But as my business grows maybe once the debt is paid off and the costs of living are covered, maybe I could consider getting a convertible again.

Thank would be nice. It would be something to look forward to. So, therefore it keeps me going.

So for anyone who is feeling the pain of a situation that is hard, finding that ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ and keeping that in sight as the reason why you are going through what you are going through would make a difference and help you not give up, I am sure.

Without that focus, that dream, you have less clarity of your direction and might be the cause of you either giving up your dream or not really understanding completely your direction.

If you feel this article has helped you, please donate to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I looked at it again other day and found a mind-map I did whilst on holiday (which happens to be about 20 minutes from where I now live).

Titled “Out Of Control” It shows that I was pretty fed up with how things were going for me and most of all, had a lot of things that were bothering me that I seemed not to find the time to resolve.

One comment says, “Work is stifling me”. Another says, “New Adventure – travel”

What do I take from this? well it seems to me you can keep on being disillusioned about your life and wanting to get on and do something else for a long time, but it wont go away until you do something about it.

Take control of your life and make plans for change today. Don’t leave your life in the hands of others to make those choices for you.

You risk loosing the opportunity of your life to make something of it and find out what will make you fulfilled as a person.

Don’t leave it too late. My first frustrations were written down over eleven years ago now. Today I am working hard to make that dream become a reality.

One day I hope it will but it will take time, so my recommendation to you is to start today. Do something today that will make your dream a little nearer. Keep it up. Every day do something. Keep a notebook and write your ideas out and give yourself some actions to do.

If you don’t you risk ending up making your life change turn into a midlife crisis.

Here’s a pic of my notebook. There are four other smaller mind maps that took these ideas further as well.
It just goes to show you how complicated our lives can become. We eventually have to fight to find some time to work out what we really want to do with ourselves.

Take a look below.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I’m experimenting with a new way to write today. I want to write it as it comes rather than collect and organise, which may work for other articles I want to publish to you.

Nostalgia is something that once in a while really hurts. Its not something I can put a finger on and say, “owch” like, I miss a person, or I wish I had done something specific 20 years or so ago.

But its a general feeling of missing so, so many opportunities in my life that I want to just run out there and gather up all the remnants of the past and sit looking at them.

It wells up inside me until I see myself sitting on this planet with absolutely no idea why I am here and what to do about it. Yet I feel that there is so much, so much that I could, and can do. So why am I not doing it, why have I never found it?

I feel like trying really hard to go back in time even though that sounds so absurd, then, when it does I feel like working out what it is that I need to do to create something that feels like what I am missing.

Its almost like a ‘past life’ experience where I feel there are or would have been so many other ways my life could have run. I sit here now thinking, am I watching it, STILL, watching it flow away, flow out of me when there is so much more I want to do.

What is it that I really want to do with my life? have I really found that yet? will I? how long will it take to happen? is my path right now the path for me to take, or is it just another diversion, just another ‘take one step at a time’ not knowing where I will end up, and if this will be anywhere nearer something I can take a deep breath and say, this was my destiny.

I have had some chances in my life to do some interesting things with it. Im sure we all have and I can imagine that for a lot of us, many of those chances are not even realized. We never saw them coming and we never saw them go either.

So how does that help me? how does that help you if you feel the same way?

Well, maybe. Maybe we don’t have to try that hard. Maybe we just need to know who we really are and be passionate about that. Don’t let anything else get in the way of you being who you are all your life. Don’t stop being you. Do more of you, make more of you. Then, that destiny will come, because you certainly won’t be able to see it come, or grab it if you can’t see it go away. If you are being passionately honest with yourself, you will FALL into it. You won’t need to grab it, you won’t need to hang on to it as it flies by.

That’s the best I can offer myself today. And to you too.

Fall into your opportunities big and small and ride them as they take you on your wild journey to your destiny.

I’m off to see the B52′s

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Are You Still The Baby Of The Family Even At Forty?

Sibling and parent relationships don’t tend to change over a lifetime. Even if you are in your forties and seeing the wrinkles appearing you will still be the baby of the family to your other sisters and brothers.

Why is this?

Why do we look to continue the relationship as if we have not developed or moved on, seeing our youngest as if they were ‘just a kid’ still?

It seems that we, as humans, tend to just want to label each other, we decide on an identity for each of our siblings and in many ways the sibling will adopt that identity because that is what everyone says about them.

So the identity is formed whilst the family is created, and everyone is comfortable that the dynamics of the family are static and wont change.

The baby of the family might get fed up with everyone else telling them what to do or how to do it or what to avoid. Perhaps the feeling that they are being considered un-able to look after themselves is still part of the label they have. Perhaps they have chosen to own that label a little in their reckless behaviour when they were younger.

Maybe mum and dad look after them too much, also falling into the trap of feeling that the youngest needs to be wrapped in bubble wrap whilst seeing the elders getting on with life with little or no need for rescuing. Mums and Dads continue to feel they are needed whilst they struggle with their own midlife crisis of nearing the ‘empty nest’ syndrome.

What happens when the parents, or at least a dominant parent dies? The dynamics and the natural hierarchy of the family breaks down. It is time for the family to decide if it wants to continue to nurture that family, or is it time for them to move a step away to focus on creating the own developing families?

Maybe someone take over as the leader of the family. Whilst this is going on the youngest might decide, actually, they are fed up with being ‘the kid’ of the family, the clown perhaps, the one that everyone chooses to knock down or at least think they can not manage life without a regular dose of advice from the elder brothers and sisters.

It can be frustrating for some to have to listen to their elder siblings bending their ear all the time. Its as if they have no ability to make their own decisions and explore life’s experiences themselves. Like before, an identity may be created where they believe this is who they really are and always look up to their older siblings, believing that they really do have a lot more experience and that they will always rely on them to help them through their own challenges in life.

So when things change in the family, or perhaps it is safe for them to decide to change because their parents are now not able to exert their opinions on them anymore they might lash out a little, telling everyone that their childish nickname is no longer acceptable and that they don’t want to be ‘hen pecked’ and knocked down every time they get together. Its time for them to stand up and make a change that reflects their new middle-aged identity. They shed the skin of the young kid who was always looked after by mum and dad and never let out to do the things their older brothers and sisters were allowed to do.

Perhaps for them, they have found a relationship that in some ways emulates this. They might look for someone who looks after them, and parents them. For the baby of the family, this is a midlife point of change. A crisis? Not really, but an un-masking? yes. An unmasking of the identity that was bestowed on them by others that perhaps they chose to accept because it got them the attention and what they wanted whilst they were young but didn’t help them in the big wide world.

Has this happened to you?

If you feel this article has helped you, please donate to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

In the previous article I listed and discussed some well known triggers for a midlife crisis which have a significant impact on people in their mid years. This maybe as early as thirty or can happen much later in their fifties or even sixties.

Because the crisis of your life can happen through so many events, a midlife crisis is quite a generic description. It is because it describes the affect and what we see, as opposed to what is really happening for us.

So What Can Someone Do If They Feel Like They Are In A Midlife Crisis?

If we can learn to understand what really is happening for us at midlife, then we will know what to do to make it work out for the best for everyone. What ever you do, don’t deny what you are feeling. Listen to yourself.

Work out what is the issue, maybe it is complicated because it involves many feelings, which then conflict with commitments you have for others that are innocent to this.

“What ever you do, don’t deny what you are feeling. Listen to yourself. Work out what is at the root of your midlife crisis ”

Its not easy considering that perhaps so many conflicting issues are running around your mind. It makes it harder to pin-point the real issue. Perhaps consider it isn’t a single issue, perhaps there are a range of things that are going on for you that build into one overwhelming feeling of a crisis at midlife.

If you are feeling like you are having a midlife crisis, be as honest with people close to you as you can. Don‘t leave them in the dark to worry and try to work out what is going on for you, or to even unfairly blame themselves. You have a responsibility to others as well as yourself. Seek out a good counsellor that can be your confident and provide you with a safe place to share and unravel your feelings. It will be a priceless opportunity at a pivotal time in your life.

Infidelity: Is This The Cause Of Your Partner’s Midlife Crisis?

Many times what is happening for us is hidden deliberately or not. However, when an individual decides to become very self focused (narcissistic) and seeks out a new relationship, this is normally well hidden and can be confusing, ambiguous situation for their partner to experience. This is then followed by the shock, anger and real trauma felt by them when they realise what their partner has really been up to and hiding from them.

Normally individuals who are having an affair make great efforts to hide it and try to continue to live their life normally. This leads them to eventually living two lives, the real life at home and the hidden life they have in their minds and which they experience perhaps one or two nights a week or at a weekend.

Most people aren’t that good at keeping this twin life up for too long. Of course there are some stories about people who were perfectly able to live two separate lives for years. These individuals, often of a narcissistic personality, have no remorse for abusing and lying to others.

I have written about the common signals of infidelity and how it an be confusing to really understand what is going on. Check these out here:

Some interesting thoughts (external to this site) on preparing for the second part of your life are written here.

But for most, infidelity something that happens as a result of not feeling right about their existing lives and their relationships, and not having the courage or ability to deal with it in an honourable way. This then leads them to finding the ‘easy way out’ by continuing to keep the infidelity hidden and them choosing to enjoy the excitement of the situation.

Take a look at my growing article list to the left and under the sitemap at the top to view all articles on midlife and the issues that are common around this situation.

I wish you the best transition in midlife that you can create for yourself or your partner.

Here are some popular articles to read after this one:

Depression Triggered By Midlife Crisis

What Is Narcissism?

Surviving Infidelity

The Aging Identity

But for most, infidelity something that happens as a result of not feeling right about their existing lives and their relationships, and not having the courage or ability to deal with it in an honourable way. This then leads them to finding the ‘easy way out’ by continuing to keep the infidelity hidden and them choosing to enjoy the excitement of the situation.

Take a look at my growing article list to the left and under the sitemap at the top to view all articles on midlife and the issues that are common around this situation.

I wish you the best transition in midlife that you can create for yourself or your partner.

Here are some popular articles to read after this one:

Depression Triggered By Midlife Crisis

What Is Narcissism?

Surviving Infidelity

Here’s an interesting article on midlife crisis which suggests that some of the issues we come up with are more about stuff that just seems to happen at midlife so its not about midlife so much. I see their point but a real midlife crisis isn’t just about getting fed up with being a dad, its about the change that happens and your own perspective on life.

What are your midlife crisis experiences? Tell me about them below.

If you feel this article has helped you, please donate to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

This is part two of my article "What Is A Midlife Crisis’. The original I wrote a while ago. I have now expanded and broken it into three parts.

In part one I discussed some definitions of a midlife crisis and of the ambiguity that can make what seems to be a midlife crisis more complicated. To follow is a list of well-known triggers for a midlife crisis.

Parent’s Death

Parents are usually different to other people in your life when they die. They usually are the people who have always been there in some form or another and so provide some consistency to your life.

The more supportive they have been the more they will be missed. Clearly some parents who have, for example been controlling may create a feeling of freedom within you, which may make you less responsible and reject responsibilities that you have committed to such as children, career and relationships.

I talk about my own feelings of loss, dealth of close relatives and the cycle of life here.

Close Friend Or Sibling’s Death

Someone dying who is close to you will be devastating for sure. But apart from the upset and probably depressing feeling it will cause within you, you may wonder about your own mortality.

It may make you cherish every day as if it is your last. Although this possibly sounds a positive way to deal with such a tragedy, maybe it also means that you never plan anything, and life from day to day with little long-term direction.

This way of living works well for many, but I would worry that 20 years further on for example, you may feel you haven’t achieved much from your life and have lost time that you need to catch up on now.

What Is The Meaning To Your Life?

You’ve achieved pretty much all that you set out to achieve, now what?

Maybe all that you’ve achieved now seems superficial such as the big house and the impressive car. Is all that’s in store for you is aging towards retirement and holidays a couple of times a year? Surely there must be more to life than that?

This is what Maslow would describe as looking for ‘self actualization’. It is the higher point of a pyramid of needs that a human experiences on a day-to-day basis and over the course of their life, but only when the lower levels of the pyramid are achieved. More about Maslow’s hierarchy and fulfilment in midlife here.

Moving on from this thinking maybe you’ve thought, what is the meaning of life at all? What is it all about? What is the POINT of your life? Maybe religion and philosophy will give you some answers you will feel hit the mark, or maybe you are looking for something else?

Nostalgia

Missing past times; school, teen years, 20 something’s. Perhaps a time that was simpler, or when you last felt happy or fulfilled. As life progresses we seem to develop responsibilities that cause us to loose our own identity.

Likewise, when your children leave the household, maybe that is a time when you feel lonely and wanting for past times. I begin to talk a bit about feeling nostalgia for the simple life of a younger me in this article which is the same one as the Maslow article linked just above.

Mortality

Whenever you’ve looked at the path of your life in the past you have seen the majority of your life ahead still. This can make you feel there is still a lot of time to achieve what you want to.

However when you near your middling years its clear that time is moving on and your most youthful years have gone forever, never to be repeated. How much time have you got left anyway?

Who’s to say that you won’t be struck down with a terminal illness within five or ten years? Your own existence is uncertain, how much life do you have left?
I explore my own feelings about death and the cycle of life here.

Missed Opportunities

When you are younger, as much as you would look at the “well dressed old guy’ with the large office and fancy car and think,

"he’s got it made, I look forward to being his age",

the same guy could be looking at you thinking,

“I missed some great opportunities when I was younger like him. I had so many choices and chose to stick myself in an office for 30 years”

You may feel like trying to recreate the same opportunity again, but now you are older. Some opportunities happen when you are young and can’t be re-attempted again such as making it big with your college band. But others at midlife, are perfectly reasonable and perhaps you are now better prepared to succeed in. So, instead of the college band, perhaps managing college bands? I talk about my own experience which is similar to this example in my own midlife crisis here.

Sexual Exploration or Confusion

It may be a time when you are thinking you missed out on really exploring life sexually. So you think, it’s now or never. Perhaps you have been hiding your real sexual desires and wish to now express and explore them. In many cultures a person’s homosexuality and bisexuality is hidden because of fears of humiliation or retribution.

Perhaps at midlife you are now ready to be honest with yourself and genuine. You perhaps either don’t care anymore what people think of you, or you wish to immerse yourself in alternative lifestyle cultures where your true self will not stand out from the crowd.

It isn’t easy for individuals to be honest with their partners about their true hidden sexual desires if they fear a negative response and so it is very common for those determined to express themselves to do this away from the family home and live another life for however long they can get away with it.

As much as it is the hardest thing to do, to be honest about this, it is also a huge challenge for people to accept the news that actually there is a significant part of your partner that you didn’t know about, and now you do, you are not sure if you can deal with.

For example, discovering a partner with pornography maybe quite a shock since it questions your own self in that relationship. But it needs to be seen as a sign that something is wrong and worth talking about openly. It will be hard for both to do. If there are ways to talk openly about it, perhaps there will be a mutual understanding that can be achieved.

Denying who you own feelings is about denying your true genuine identity.

Another example of a person I am aware of has struggled with his own femininity. He wanted as a child to dress in female clothes yet his parents punished him for it. So he had to hide his real feelings.

The man explored his bisexual side whilst in his forties but still looks to deny that side of him for fear of rejection. This rejection that has controlled him all his life.

I recall years ago one of my daughter’s friends (a boy of around 4 years old at the time ) coming around and always dressing in girls clothes. He was fortunate that we didnt stop him, he could be his real self, as was the case, I understand, with his own parents.

I wrote an article about the aging identity which is about how your own view of yourself and the view of you from others will need to change as you age.

Quite simply, you arent as young anymore and how you deal with this is key to your own well being.

Empty Nest Syndrome

When your children finally (!!) grow up and leave the family home life can paradoxically become very quiet. Not only this, but actually it can be a time when you review your purpose in life.

Women can become a little lost in their direction since for so long they have been mothers to children and growing adults that always need some sort of emotional or practical support. Depending on how motherly a woman is will depend on how much this affects them. Additionally, the menopause can have a significant impact on a woman’s identity and will question their being.

For a man it can be very similar. Normally seen as the head of the family, now they have to exert their leadership over a number of houses or look to other ways to focus themselves whilst also dealing with the introduction of new family members who may question or challenge their decisions and authority. Not exclusive to the male gendre, women may feel their role have changed with new individuals making and influencing decisions for their own children.

An Interrupted Life

Somewhere along your life’s progress you may feel that you didn’t fully complete or fulfil a certain part of your life’s progress. It could be as simple as regretting not going to university or not taking a year out to travel, both of which you could still do later in life. But some that are about the progress of growing up and learning and experiencing life in the right order can affect someone quite hard.

For example, being raped at a young age would devastate anyone but consider how this interrupts the innocence of child development and provides damaging experiences about sex and (probably) the opposite sex.

More subtle than the above take the example of a 15 year old girl who was given a house. Three years later she had to manage tenants the same age or older than her. All this at a time when all she really wanted to do was party.

She suddenly had to grow up pretty quickly, leaving her with additional responsibilities at an age when she should have been focusing more on herself, her education & her personality development. In her late 30’s when her parents died and she was finally released from needing to keep their approval for the way she lived her life, she regressed to act like a 15 year old and rejected her children and husband to live with a man that would act in the same manor.

When we hit midlife, irrespective of a trigger as discuss above it is a time when many of the choices that worked for us before may simply not work anymore. In my third and last part I discuss how relationship break-ups and infidelity have a significant part to play in many midlife crisis experiences, and I also talk about what can be done to minimise the impact of a midlife crisis.

In part three I touch on what can you do about a midlife crisis and also about the most common issue going on behind a midlife crisis that will change your life as a person with midlife crisis, and that of a partner to a person with a midlife crisis. Infidelity.

What are your midlife crisis experiences? Tell me about them below.

If you feel this article has helped you, please donate to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I hear of people who are able to show empathy and care for their parents even though they were physically or / and emotionally abused by them. It feels hard to understand how a son or daughter can show unconditional care for a parent when this has happened, particularly in cases of the more extreme abuse.

This sort of experience tends to come into our lives as we hit our midlife.

Billy Connolly was one I recall from his biography written by his wife Pamela Stephenson.

I wonder if for some, its really the need for the son and daughter to try to make the father or mother be the parent they really wanted, trying as hard as they can to make it work right to the end.

I can only guess how hard this is.

A person I am aware of was emotionally abused by his parents. His father beat up his mother. His mother would tell him he, the son, was the only reason why she stayed and took the beatings.

He spent his childhood, and now his adult life constantly trying to gain their approval whilst they dangle it in front of him, needing him to do more and more for their narcissistic souls.

It then transfers through the generations and he is now doing exactly the same with his children.

Fortunately, his children now only live with their mother who is trying the best she can to remove the narcissism from their upbringing and heal the hereditary abuse that could have been going on for generations.

Here is an article about a person who dealt with the issue of parents who needed care who abused at aging care.com.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Live Each Day Like It’s Your Last

This is the third and final part of my thoughts and experiences of my own mortality and cycle of life. Part two is here.

My dad tells me his thoughts on the way home. “when you get old it all starts happening to you. I was ok until I got to around seventy-five then everything started to happen. I’ve lost an ear through skin cancer, I can only see clearly in one eye and I’ve had my bladder and prostrate removed.”

“Old age is horrible really. Live each day like it’s your last and make the best of your life”

I felt this is a good message to everyone. If only we all could live with this rule, really live with this rule. Only a few people I have ever met live with this in mind.

They don’t take the cautious route, they follow their dreams and don’t take the easy and safe route. They follow their hearts and do what it is that they feel they were put on this earth to do, (whatever their religious beliefs are or are not).

When you are at mid life, and wondering how much time you have left it’s a good time to consider your life past, present and future.

Life really is too short, you probably never thought about it before when you were young, but now, you can see age coming soon. You might have a bigger sister or brother who is now close to their 50’s and are trying to accept that you are next for the big five – zero .

"One minute she was writing the card, the next her long life was over."

At the end of the day my mother gave me a birthday card that my Aunt had written for my daughter. My aunt had written ‘Happy Birthday” from Sally and Peter”.

The card was never put in its envelope or sent to my daughter because she died 5 days before her birthday.

It was as if whilst she looked for the envelope her life had ended, half way through the sending of that card and felt like a sound way to end a day of reflection on the value of life and how things can change for us at a moment’s notice.

One minute she was writing the card, the next her long life was over.

How do you deal with the cycle of life ?

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Live Each Day Like It’s Your Last

This is the third and final part of my thoughts and experiences of my own mortality and cycle of life. Part two is here.

My dad tells me his thoughts on the way home. “when you get old it all starts happening to you. I was ok until I got to around seventy-five then everything started to happen. I’ve lost an ear through skin cancer, I can only see clearly in one eye and I’ve had my bladder and prostrate removed.”

“Old age is horrible really. Live each day like it’s your last and make the best of your life”

I felt this is a good message to everyone. If only we all could live with this rule, really live with this rule. Only a few people I have ever met live with this in mind.

They don’t take the cautious route, they follow their dreams and don’t take the easy and safe route. They follow their hearts and do what it is that they feel they were put on this earth to do, (whatever their religious beliefs are or are not).

When you are at mid life, and wondering how much time you have left it’s a good time to consider your life past, present and future.

Life really is too short, you probably never thought about it before when you were young, but now, you can see age coming soon. You might have a bigger sister or brother who is now close to their 50’s and are trying to accept that you are next for the big five – zero .

"One minute she was writing the card, the next her long life was over."

At the end of the day my mother gave me a birthday card that my Aunt had written for my daughter. My aunt had written ‘Happy Birthday” from Sally and Peter”.

The card was never put in its envelope or sent to my daughter because she died 5 days before her birthday.

It was as if whilst she looked for the envelope her life had ended, half way through the sending of that card and felt like a sound way to end a day of reflection on the value of life and how things can change for us at a moment’s notice.

One minute she was writing the card, the next her long life was over.

How do you deal with the cycle of life ?

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

What Is Your Role In A Changing World?

This is the second part of a series of articles about my perception and experience of witnessing the cycle of life and dealing with the changes of life around me. My first article that focuses on the cycle of life and witnessing the loss of some of my closest relatives… is here

Where I grew up was slowly being erased as new buildings were put up and the people were being changed for new people.

As life continues, children grow up, new people move into the area and with it, the culture was changing. Every face to me was a stranger.

I wondered where the people who I once knew were now. My parents told me of a few that stilled lived around the area, and I could make contact with some via Internet sites such as FriendsReunited .

"All that I knew was slowly being erased from existence and turned into a memory."

I felt in a muddle about my feelings. I was feeling the effects of change from a number of sources and it took me until I returned home to work it out. It was as if my own life was being erased.

All that I knew was slowly being erased from existence and turned into a memory.

My Aunt was gone, my Uncle was now in a home and perhaps soon to follow. My father had gone through a lot of surgery and I wondered what was next for him. They had watched their friends start to die too.

I wondered if when I finally died, would anyone notice in this busy suburb of a city?

Therein lies my life. A speck in the time of great change. Have I  accomplished nothing that would make a difference to anyone, except perhaps raising my children to be successful.

That’s what I had for my forty plus years on this planet. I had left London and moved to the countryside. After thirteen years there I had moved on again with no impact on my surrounding society.

Now, living by the sea I wondered what was next, what could I do to make a difference and make my life have some reason, some benefit for my world.

These are the feelings of a person in midlife crisis. Someone who is feeling the need to create self actualization for themselves.

The level of crisis element to this situation depends on how stable your foundations are as a person. How much trauma and suffering did you experience when you were a child? How did your parents treat you? Were they abusive, violent? Narcissistic?

These conditions, common across the globe make a considerable difference to the stability of a person when they develop into an adult.

After many years of adjusting to cope with the effects of a hard upbringing that structure you have built up that you now sit on top ofnow can look very shaky once someone removes some pieces from underneath you.

"I have a vision that keeps me going.."

So, with my aunt, lost, my uncle loosing grip, my roots disappearing I have some of my structure being removed from me. What does that leave me with?

How will I cope with these things now removed? For me I am willing to set out to look at life with optimism and as an opportunity to build myself into the person I want to be.

I have a vision that keeps me going whilst I cannot fully achieve the person who travels and explores the world as I nurture my children to an age of independence.

Having said this I am interested in the opportunity to involve my children in an exiting life of adventure that inspires them and opens their eyes to the wonders the world has outside the cosy office career that will be the destiny of many an average person in the western world of the future.

How do you deal with the cycle of life ?

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The third and final part of this series on the cycle of life and dealing with mortality is here

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

The Road Of Reflection

Recently I drove along a road that I had not followed for more than 18 years.

It was an opportunity to reflect on the changes of my life in that time and consider the people I had not seen since those times.

I past a house where I dropped off a lovely girl who wanted to date me, almost 20 years ago. Why I had not dated her is beyond me now. Notched up as one of life’s regrets.

"The world is still changing, perhaps faster now than ever before. "

I watched the houses and shops of this suburb of London go by. So many of these average looking houses now hosted luxury cars parked outside where before would have been an average family saloon.

It seems the houses themselves had been promoted to luxury status just by being so in demand from the large number of people who wanted to live in the area.

What was drawing them to the area were the large office blocks being build where before were until only recently just simple shops and pubs from pre and post war suburban growth.

These survived the recent decades where others were replaced with wine bars and luxury clothing stores only to end their days being squashed by high office blocks designed to impress.

These offices house thousands of people, many new to the area that also would need housing and entertainment when not at work.

In the mid last century there were three cinemas. By the time I was walking the streets there were two, and soon after only one. That was altered to accommodate three cinemas of smaller audiences. This too was closed by the time I was in my twenties. Ten years later a new one was opened with thirteen cinemas.

The change I have witnessed, many have also seen in their towns across the globe for this isn’t particularly a western happening, its about the growth of people and the move towards living in cities for the majority of the world’s population.

"To expect everything to stay the same, to comfort me in its stability was unrealistic."

I had to keep in mind that there was continual change, and that when I was a child what I saw was part of that change. To expect everything to stay the same, to comfort me in its stability was unrealistic.

The world is still changing, perhaps faster now than ever before. How long would these new buildings last? Perhaps hald the time, or less of their predecessors.

The end of my journey took me to where my Uncle now lives. A home for the elderly. My uncle now suffers from altzimers dementsia and has been here since he could not be looked after by his wife, my aunt around a year an a half ago.

Recently my Aunt has sadly died and now my parents are involved in spending their time with legal representatives dealing with assets and wills.

Seeing my Uncle was more of a shock than I had expected. He looked a lot older, although I had not seen him for quite a while since I live a long way away and find it hard to travel because of child commitments.

He looked confused and didn’t seem to recognise that we were there, let alone who we were. It was Peter but he was thinner and stooped where before he was always bright and alive and in good humour.

So quickly that had changed. His wife, noticed his confusion and he struggled to make sense of what he was trying to say when he got involved in discussions with others.

He got up from his chair, turned and walked to a door to fiddle with it. Turned around and walked to the window and touched the sill, turned around slowly, pointed to the floor and muttered something and then shuffled out of the door to go along the corridor.

He looked confused and unable to understand how to express himself. He looked as if everything was confusing him, as if life and objects around him consumed his mind with confusion.

I felt a rush of emotions myself in that room. I was warned that he had deteriorated and in fact everything was exactly how I was told but yet the emotions about Peter, about his late wife Sally, about my own father’s health and my own midlife position all welled up inside of me. I struggled to hold back the tears.

"The cycle of life was laid out all in front of me on that journey."

The cycle of life was laid out all in front of me on that journey. The girl I remember on the journey there, what had she done with her life? Was she successful and contented? What about me? I have so much more to do.

What about my father? I read a story about a couple who lived together for 55 years until one of them had to go into a home to be supported. My parents had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last week. So to compare my parents to this story they have 5 more years to go?

How do you deal with the cycle of life ?

Do you want to know how my thoughts progressed? Check out the second part of my midlife crisis thoughts and the effect of seeing the cycle of life had on me here.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

My Own Story: The Crux Of My Midlife Crisis

My midlife crisis has over recent years developed into a midlife transition. The hard part, the lack of understanding of what is going on and who I really am has gone. Understanding myself happened once my wife had left and I was able to understand how much of me had been lost in my relationship. But it wasn’t just about the divorce that got me to open my eyes again.

To find yourself again, and to be able to do that without blaming others is a liberating experience. However, before I went through this part of my learning I spent a number of years trying to work my true inspirations and motivations with little success because of the influence my marriage had on me.

Once my wife had gone I was only then able to begin to look at me without feeling guilty about what really inspired me. I took responsibility for how I felt within my marriage and decided that wasn’t the way I wanted to feel now so I made a conscious decision to be honest to myself about what motivated me & thus accepted who I really was.

There was something I brushed over when I last wrote about my own experience with midlife that I feel now ready to expand on. Its about that defining point in a midlife crisis when you are right at the crux of your crisis and you are looking at your life thinking, “oh crap, now I know exactly what went wrong and what I should have done”.

For me it seemed at that time (and still to a degree now) quite simple.

One error of judgement. One choice of life that changed everything for me.

I chose to be safe and secure rather than risk everything and follow my heart.

I promise myself repeatedly to never to that again.

Here’s what happened.

I was at a point of disillusionment with the whole topic of working for corrupt negligent and inefficient corporates and was struggling with my mid life coming up, my sense of achievement and my self-esteem. I had more money than ever before and was looking for ways to fulfil myself.

I started to collect cars with an irresponsible passion but it didn’t fulfil me, it only fed me. Feeding yourself like that requires regular feeding, you never get full, just more addicted. Fulfilling yourself is more about achievement. It moves you on in life and gives you a sense of well being.

Whilst in the middle of gently musing over my midlife value, being disillusioned about my chosen career and the life that I had achieved a bomb hit me square in the face.

I had spent some time trying to make contact with a bunch of old friends I had lost as part of marrying and moving away from my home town. The more I looked the more I thought of those who I had met and passed by me throughout my life.

I now wanted to hear from them all. So it came to the day when I went looking for my old band on Google. Using their names I started to come up with a new name for the band and remembered around 15 years ago briefly talking to one of the guys who said they had changed their name. There it was. Websites and discographies about them.

Luckily I got hold of our old manager and he responded to me within a few hours. He told me a couple of the guys were still in the band and were coming back from LA (to London) after doing a track for the latest Matrix film whilst the other was off to the BBC to play live with his new band. I was very happy for them and wished them well.

However, I myself was devastated.

The more I thought about their success the more I realised how much my life could have changed if I had made one single decision earlier in my life. I had been a good contributor to the bands creative output even including near the end some of my own fully composed songs so there was no reason to think I wouldn’t have been part of the success, and maybe would have influenced it too.

I missed the opportunity to become part of a successful musical partnership because back when I left the band I didn’t have enough confidence to ditch my safe comfortable well paid job and take a risk to follow my heart.

I had qualifications coming out of my ears with telecommunications which was beginning to build into a booming industry. In contrast and I had nothing to show for music other than some budding talent.

My parents would not support me taking music seriously and so I would have had to leave my family and set up somewhere and cope with all the needs of survival (at a pretty young and unconfident time) not knowing how I was going to earn any money.

I think of this point as the crux of my midlife crisis. At the time I was loosing some connection with reality and dreaming of slotting back in with them like the past 17 years had not made any difference.

It was the point at which all the thinking and deliberating about what I should have done and do with my life & what was the point of my life all came to me like I was punched in the face. I saw my whole life as two parallel lives, the one I was in, and the one that I could have taken had I been more confident, stayed with the band and earned money by immersing myself in my own creativity.

I went off the wall a little, and that will be interesting reading I think for another day.

At the time my wife and I had already decided to move out of suburbia and corporate life to start afresh by the sea where we loved holidaying. So this was another wave of emotion that added to that decision and challenge.

For although we were on our way into the sunset I had discovered that there maybe something I could do that would perfectly fulfil me, and I was planning to move away from where it was all happening; London.

I had suppressed my musical aspirations because I had no support from my family. As a kid with not a lot of confidence I struggled with music because it was a big gamble and I just didn’t have enough guts to follow my heart.

Yet as I became honest with myself I rejected any feelings of guilt about the value of making music. It was part of me and a very natural thing for me to do. So in what ever way I needed to get it back into my life for good.

I spent the next few years ‘playing at’ music before finally understanding myself and being free of any guilt I had about feeling that music was a waste of time when there were so many other responsibilities needing my attention.

Over time a few people have helped and encouraged me to the point where I don’t need any more encouragement.

I have a little site named Ambient Music Garden which sells my music along with a number of other independent artists from around the world.

I’m not making a living by far but I feel I am now nurturing part of me that is real and that I can not deny.

Someday the website might be making enough to call it a contribution to ‘a living’ but whilst I don’t, that is no excuse to stop doing what I love because that is the first and top reason why I make music. It is part of me and always will be whilst I stay honest to ourselves.

Is there anything that you feel you have lost in your past ?

Guy

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I am going to spend some more time writing about my own experience of midlife crisis, infidelity, divorce, depression and self-esteem in a number of posts under the Mid-Life Crisis section.

I have been inspired to write when I noticed Dave Schoof’s article ‘Making the big change – stories from the front’ . Here is a brief summary to start things off. When its my turn to talk about me, it can feel overwhelming to bring up all the details and what exactly happend, so I’m hoping to start with a summary and add to this series by adding in detail when I can .. or feel like it!

My midlife career change came when I was earning more than I had ever done before. The problem was, I was very disillusioned about work and some of the people I had to work with. My role became ambiguous, the company became ambiguous and my reason for getting up in the morning was becoming lost.

My wife and I chose to ‘get away from it all’ having both got fed up with the commercial hussle and bussle of suburban living and so headed off to live by the sea and set up a new life for our family.

We started a business that was focused around our own creativity and selling within the local tourist industry. A year and a half into this I discovered my wife was having an affair so once the bomb had been dropped I found myself trying to manage three children and trying to work out how to get our business to work with just one person.

I spent a lot of time working through my midlife crisis then and dealing with what had happend in parallel to children and trying to work out how was I going to make money from now on. What was it I really wanted to do with my life?

Within a few years I got qualified as a counsellor and also started writing and producing music again and started to sell music online with a bunch of other independent artists. I had always loved music and had lost out big time in my twenties when I had not the courage to follow through with a band who later went on to be successful. So part of me wanted to ‘right that wrong’ now I was older and had the confidence I didn’t have when I was younger.

So today, I enjoy my music production and my little online shop. It doesn’t make much money right now but I hope it will bring me a part of a modest income sometime in the next year.

I also blog and help people with personal issues through counselling which has been great and very rewarding too. I have a number of other projects starting up that also fulfil me in other ways (such as creating free online games) and although a modest income is still waiting for me out there someday, its not about obtaining the biggest salary anymore, its about personal fulfillment whic I may have missed again, had I not had the time to reconsider my life’s objectives when I broke up with my wife.

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post a comment below.

Guy

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t Fear Your Dreams

I’ve been working hard these last two days. The kids have been off school so its been hard for me to get the time to work for any length of time.

Plus I’ve been away to see my parents as well. So I felt pleased with the progress I have achieved with all my work, I wrote a couple of pages of ‘to do’s’ that was beginning to look daunting.

However, I am ploughing through it nicely, even the bits I don’t really want to do.

So, I’m getting close to my objectives, I don’t think it will be long before DiscoverAid reaches a good part of its community which is one of my objectives.

Why am I telling you all this? Well because as I get closer to my goals, I’m wondering what it really will feel like to be finally there. What will happen on the other side? Will my objectives actually change anything for me at all?

It’s a bit of an old cliché but fearing that your dreams may actually become true is a real threat that might inspire you to subconsciously try to hijack your success.

For instance I might decide that half of my objectives are not worth the time and go off in another direction, and continue, forever to change my direction, never getting to the end and completing anything, getting bored (so I might tell myself) before I get to completion.

As part of your midlife transition you might have come up with some plans that end with a ‘happy ending’. Take for example the image of yourself driving off into the sunset in a new sportscar, hood down and looking good to boot!

Well, as you get closer to the dream you start to realise that maybe the new sportscar looks odd with you, and driving it along alone makes you look a bit of a loner and somewhat stupid that you are trying to drive with the hood down when everyone else has theirs up.

So maybe the reality of your dream is safer and more complete when its not real. Perhaps you should keep on living in the future and not for today?

Perhaps that is safer and in that way you will never fail the dream, even if you forget that you are actually never getting to complete anything.

But fear not! You have forgotten that other cliché; enjoy the journey not the destination (or something like that).

Only use your dreams to motivate you to move on when things are hard.

Make sure you complete your objectives and keep those motivational dreams that are the rewards as a separate part of the dream that you can decide what you want to do when you get there.

Maybe you will choose to go scuba diving in the Caribbean for six months instead of driving that sports car? Either way, when you get to your destination, its time to plan for your next.

Keep going and keep knocking off those achievements now you are fully empowered at your age to do so!!

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Please post your comments below.

Guy

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Is Your Partner Suffering From A Midlife Crisis, Or Is There Infidelity Involved? Part Three

Part Two of Three is here

Back in Part Two we asked what can you do about your partner’s situation? It maybe OK to find out the truth, what to do with it is another matter.

Well, some seek out proof using video cameras and private detectives. Maybe you don’t want to take things this far.

Perhaps in that case you might want to sit your partner down and explain clearly the difference in them by comparing recent behaviour with past behaviour.

In this way you avoid confronting them on what is really happening and discuss the evidence that is clear.

It will be a good time to be assertive and stand firm by looking after yourself. You may be looking at a person who you thought you knew who has recently (maybe temporarily) changed their priorities in life.

Put a priority on explaining what you will stand for and what you find unacceptable. Don’t major on explaining your own feelings.

Your own feelings may anger them, they may see that as you suppressing them or trying to make them feel guilty for their current behaviour.

I believe it is fine to tell them you love them (if you do) but avoid showing an emotional weakness for now. Avoid also acting like a parent. Just be clear about what you want from a relationship and what you don’t want.

Tell them you want to review how things are going in a few weeks time but explain very clearly what you want from a relationship and what you don’t..

Your partner may reject and be angry at your assertion. But after a few days may start to realise you have needs too. They might have ‘forgotten’ you have needs by being so consumed by their own issues and needs.

Be clear about what you want from life and from a relationship. I see many people who’s partner’s midlife crisis becomes a need for them to review and understand clearly what they want from life and for the future as well, which is not such a bad thing for anyone really.

Separate yourself from the person for a while and think about what it is that you want from life. Clearly loosing a partner, which may ultimately be what is going to happen to you, will be a great loss but consider living with a partner who you love but who doesn’t love you and abuses the situation.

The person you have woken up with every morning for many years maybe a person you don’t know anymore and that isn’t part of your future.

Part One of Three is here.

Find out what you need to do if you decide that you want to save your relationship after you have found your partner is having an affiar here.

Download My E-Book On How To Survive Infidelity & Divorce

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post them here.

Guy

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Is Your Partner Suffering From A Midlife Crisis, Or Is There Infidelity Involved? Part Two

Back in Part One we started to wonder what is the difference between a person who is trying to deal with self-doubt and low self-esteem as part of a midlife crisis, or someone who is engaged in infidelity as part of a midlife crisis ?

Take a look at the following table to see how confusing this is. I’m sure if you are reading this today you are familiar at least to some of these.

This table shows how the same action by your partner can be seen as infidelity or a more honest result of a midlife crisis without infidelity. So how can you really know which way your partner is playing?

Well, someone who is in a soul searching midlife crisis will more likely be looking to talk to you, and to friends about how they feel. Sure, there are lots of people out there who don’t know how to openly express themselves. But there’s more. Their change in behaviour will probably be around a change of clothing style and not necessarily to attract, but to feel younger, or accept their ageing identity and look stylish but embrace their age. They will probably be drawn into and be consumed by an activity that takes them away from the family more when they are not at work (for example, golf, scuba diving or other social sport).

Conversely a person who is seeking out short term or an alternative relationship without being honest about it will be reducing their weight, dressing to attract and, most noticeably, will be absent more and more from the home, working late and staying with friends more often. On questioning them they will be evasive if you dig too deep, become argumentative and defensive if their stories do not add up and turn the blame or self-doubt onto you.

Keep an eye on them. If there are not willing to share their thoughts… secrets.. then you will need to keep a close eye on them and eventually you will see some more helpful evidence that will secure you with knowledge and help you understand what you need to do to protect yourself if required.

You might drop into the golf club only to find they are not there today but when questioned when they return home their excuse seems to be quickly thought up on the spot so that when you dig their only way out is to argue and confront you with why are you questioning to push you into backing down.

They will spend more time on their phone and on the Internet perhaps. They will delete their phone text messages immediately, they will keep their Internet activities protected.

What can you do about your partner’s situation?

Download My E-Book On How To Survive Infidelity & Divorce

Part three of three is here.

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post them here.

Guy

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.