Introduction: I was married at the age of 20. And have been married for 28 years now. I had the opportunity to observe many marriages over the years, not only marriages with relatives, but friends and neighbors, tv characters, movies etc. I noticed there was this ‘constant’. This Constant started somewhere around age 35- 50 where one or the other of the couple went haywire, if not both! Too me it was no surprise when a mid-life crises happened, because, there were signs along the way. Shifts in attitude, behavior, a restlessness. I watched, took mental notes and asked myself to be consciously aware of these shifts in myself and my spouse when the time came.
We always seem surprised when someone has a mid-life crisis. Somewhere in the brain people have a gradual realization that they have a mortality bill waiting in the next half of their life and they want to spend sometime enjoying life before they get too old. This crisis creeps up on people, but it starts with warning signs. The biggest sign is a new sports car! People start dressing a bit more stylish, new hairstyles. Women will start wear heals with everything, Men will unbutton the top few buttons on their shirt to show a little chest. Take some trips to Vegas. These subtle changes start happening around age 40. And then the big whopper’s start happening- infidelity, affairs, drinking, divorces. Those little shifts turn into big life changing challenges and like a teenager – some adults can loose absolute clarity of priorities. It can be downright frightening for a spouse or family members who are affected.
Not everyone goes through a full blown mid-life crisis but there is a shift that happens in the 40-50 age range that helps us shift into the later, wiser years of our lives. A shift critical in our spiritual growth- a shift in understanding what real, true love is.
I would like to take a step back in time for a moment and talk about life expectancy:
When we talk about mid-life it is relative to the average life span. In the 1800’s 30-35 was average and it wasn’t until the 1940’s that life expectancy went past 65!
Before 1930 if every human had a mid-life crisis, it was when you were a teenager! When you were supposed to be reckless and hormonal and making big shifts in your life- like leaving home and having sex for the first time, getting married.
Now that we live longer, we get to experience two mid-life crisis in one life- time.
What’s the point with the second mid-life crisis?
With every ‘crisis’ we learn something important. As a teenager we learn to become adults, in our mid-life crisis we learn something even more important if we allow it. This mid-life crisis is a gift- to learn a beautiful lesson. It is a period of time where people indulge in everything material and lustful. People get so full of the material sense gratifications that one by one they realize, they are uncomfortably full – like eating Thanksgiving everyday. And then they look for another way to engage life with out feeling so painfully full..what I would like to call spiritual growth.
in relating the lesson we learn: I would focus on the sensitive subject of infidelity to bring awareness to The purpose of the mid-life crisis.
Let’s start with a typical scenario: A couple has been married 25 years, 2 kids- just left to college and one or both of the spouses has an extra- marital affair. The affair is discovered, feelings are hurt, jealousy, rage, betrayal and emotions that cannot not even be named erupt and burn the foundation of what they thought was their loving marriage in fiery flames.
What is actually burning in those flames is the false love they thought their marriage was built on. We are taught marriage is about fidelity and trust. I would like to explain false love. False Love is based on jealousy, distrust and control. We are surrounded by media and movies with jaded story lines of infidelities and false love including those stories of our friends and family. We are surrounded by images of False Love.
Let’s come back to this mid-life crisis that ignited the fire of destruction of false love. What do couples have left when the flames burn out? Ashes of Divorce or something more beautiful- True Love- unconditional love. Spiritually, unconditional love is the freedom to grow, make mistakes- to transcend the negative and allow your spouse to find a space of unconditional love within their marriage without fears, jealousies and control.
In this new space of unconditional love couples trust they will each make mistakes, trust that life is messy, trust that there is something more to build their marriage on other than false love, the foundation of True- unconditional Love.
I invite all of you to be awakened to this mid-life crisis with eyes and hearts wide open to the lessons it can teach you.