What Is A Mid-Life Crisis?

Posted on September 9th, 2007 by Guy Lewis

So What Is A Mid-Life Crisis?

Why Is A Midlife Crisis So Hard For Some And So Easy For Others?

What Really Is Happening For Someone WIth A Midlife Crisis?

Not all mid-life crises are the same; someone’s crisis is someone else’s “bad hair day’ and someone else’s signal for infidelity, relationship break-up, separation and divorce. Often partners don’t understand what is going on for their loved ones as their relationship begins to change and their partner begins to become introverted and distanced. Is this a midlife or are they having an affair? How can you tell?

Midlife Crisis or Infidelity?

Often it is very hard to get to the truth.

Sometimes the partner with the problem doesn’t even know what is happening for them. All this at midlife is about coming to an end of living life as they have been in their younger years.

Something has triggered a point where how they dealt with themselves and the world around them is not going to work anymore.

“The most important thing to do with a midlife crisis is to get it out in the open to be explored and understood so to smooth the transition.”

What they learnt to deny within themselves is now erupting and they cannot go on any more. The secret is out and they are having a hard time balancing their feelings whilst keeping hold of the mask they have used all their life.

Yet, as much as I paint a dark picture about a midlife crisis, there are good reasons why some events trigger a review of life for some. Priorities are questioned and a new direction is called for.

The Midlife Crisis: Definition

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-life_crisis) describes a mid-life crisis as, “Midlife crisis is a term used to described a period of dramatic self-doubt that is typically felt in the "middle years" of life, as people sense the passing of youth and the imminence of old age. Sometimes, transitions experienced in these years, such as aging in general, menopause, the death of parents, or children leaving home can trigger such a crisis. The result may be a desire to make significant changes in core aspects of day-to-day life or situation, such as in career, marriage, or romantic relationships. “ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-life_crisis) .

Quite rightly, Wikipedia also describes how a mid life crisis can be triggered by a significant event but highlights that significant events can trigger a crisis at any time in a person’s life too.

Consider that for a moment, is (for example) the passing of your parents a time when you try to deal with a world where your maternal and paternal influences are no longer there for the first time in your life.

This clearly creates a changed world, somewhat empty, without people that had significant influence on your life. Consider also a near death experience. How does that remind you of your mortality and how you perhaps should consider living your life to the full ensuring no day goes by wasted.

These events described above are significant events that create a crisis point for you, but perhaps not so much “mid-life’ but any time they happen to you.

Mix this with a feeling that actually, you want your life to be a little, or a large bit different, and you have yourself a full review coming up of your life. If you find it hard to accept since the changes in your mind are much harder to convert into reality, then you have a conflict of needs that makes your midlife review far harder to cope with and becomes a full blown crisis.

So depending on how much you feel your life and yourself is wrong, this midlife crisis feeling can happen even in your thirties, or even in your fifties or later.

However, irrespective of what is happening, I appreciate that as you are here reading this, you are doing so for some reason. We may call it a crisis or a mid life crisis but to you its certainly something that is causing interruption to your life today, be it your midlife crisis or your partner’s midlife crisis.

You will find many articles here at DiscoverAid for the issues and causes of a mid-life crisis. Some or all of which may be what you are experiencing or will experienced sometime in the future as you progress through this challenging time for you.

Relationships are a key part of the change within a midlife crisis.

This is normally because the change will affect the partner to a lesser or greater degree (i.e. a partner going out and choosing to purchase a sports car, or have cosmetic surgery is at one end of the scale, whilst leaving the family to join a commune or to live with someone else is at the other end.)

A midlife crisis can be a great time of self-exploration that is exciting and fun. It can be a time that you share with those you love and who, through you sharing your feelings and needs, get to understand you more deeply than before.

Perhaps your sharing of your midlife crisis will answer some questions your partner has had for a long time that now can for the first time be discussed. It doesnt have to be a drama, we only choose to make it so through our own actions.

If we can all accept that a midlife crisis is something that happens to a person withouth their control, that they are trying to deal with their own feelings and needs, then the transition to a new life, a new identity even, can be a rewarding and exilerating life experience.

Here are some top ten’s of a midlife crisis for some light hearted break before we get into the depths of what a midlife crisis is all about :

Ten Great Things About A Midlife Crisis.

Ten Most Irritating Things About A Midlife Crisis.

Ten Pieces Of Advice About A Midlife Crisis.

In the next article of three that discusses a midlife crisis I list some of the most common triggers of a midlife crisis. Click here to go to part two.

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

Guy.

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