Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  One great irony of people who are having a midlife crisis is that they often don’t think that this is the case.  They usually actually think that they are improving their life with long term changes.  In other words, they often don’t look at this as a “crisis,” or as a “phase,” or as something that is going to pass.  The crisis might be obvious to their spouse, but to themselves, they often actually believe that they are on a self improvement kick rather than in any sort of crisis.

So the spouse who is not having a midlife crisis can be left with a little bit of a dilemma, especially if the spouse in crisis becomes angry when you mention this possibility.  A wife might say: “it is very obvious to everyone except for my husband that he is going through a midlife crisis.  It is obvious to our kids.  It is very obvious to me.  Our neighbors and friends joke about it.  Even his mother has admitted as much. I mean, it’s staring us all in the face.  He’s started dressing in clothes that are way too young and small for him.  He’s been trying to work out.  He got a new car.  He hangs out with people who act as silly as he does.  He’s now started to talk about seeing other people or separating.  The other day, when he brought this up again, I got really frustrated and rolled my eyes.  He told me that if I had something to say to him, that I should just go ahead and say it.  I told him that all I was trying to do was to get through his midlife crisis and that I was living for the day that he would come to his senses and this would all pass.  He became very angry and denied that he was going through any crisis.  He insisted that he was just taking inventory of his life and making changes.  He said if I’m waiting for this to pass, then I am going to be waiting for a long time.  The ironic thing is that his brother went through the very same thing and we used to laugh about it.  My husband specifically called what his brother was going through a midlife crisis.  But I guess it is different when it is him.  I am not sure how to make him understand that he is absolutely one hundred percent having a midlife crisis when every time I merely say the word, he gets angry and defensive.”

I totally get your frustration.  But I’m not sure that your husband will ever want to willingly admit he’s having any type of crisis even if, deep in his heart, he knows that it is true.  Why?  For the very same reason that you and your husband laughed at his brother.  Middle aged men who are seen as going through this are kind of seen as pathetic.  And no one wants to be thought of in that way.  So anyone would get defensive at the implication.

The good news is that you don’t have to get him to admit it (or even realize it) in order to move past it.  Sometimes, you just have to wait it out, or perhaps seek counseling, or work with what you have.  In my experience, you will get a better result if you approach it in the way that he is hinting that you should – that you go along with the idea that he’s trying to improve his life.  Don’t announce that you think that this will pass.  Just keep that thought to yourself for now.  You want his defenses down, not up, so that he will work with you and not against you.

I know that it’s sometimes hard not to make comments or judgements about all of the changes that you see.  But in the grand scheme of things, you have to ask yourself which changes are the most troublesome.  For example, the working out and new clothes probably isn’t hurting anyone, but the talk of seeing other people and separating could potentially hurt multiple people.  So in order to keep the separation from happening, you might have to back down on the things that technically aren’t hurting anyone and are likely to fizzle out on their own in time.  (One day he might realize that he’s tired of working out and that the new car is silly.  You didn’t have to do anything in order for this to happen and you didn’t alienate him because you didn’t bring it up.)  That’s why it’s important to realize when you have bigger fish to fry.

I’d place my attention to the place where there is the most risk.  And that is your marriage.  You can try to stall him on the separation.  You can ask him to seek counseling with you.  You could try to make improvements to the marriage and hope that this is enough to turn the tide.  Or you could do any combination of these things.  But I think that it is best to be proactive.  Sure, it’s smart to know that this phase should pass.  Because it often does.  But it’s probably not smart to just wait around and to hesitate to make improvements while you are waiting.

The short answer to the original question is that if he is resistant to admitting a midlife crisis (and if it would damage your marriage more to keep pushing him about it,) then take it off the table for now.  This is likely an embarrassing issue for him. You might one day hear him admit that he was being silly and having a crisis.  But you don’t need to risk your marriage in order to get that admission right this second. It’s better to try to portray yourself as a supportive and loving spouse for the sake of saving or improving your marriage during this vulnerable time.

I made the mistake of trying to point out my own husband’s flaws in thinking before and during our separation, but it only backfired.  In order to save my marriage, I had to learn to play the game.  And by that I mean the long game and not the short game.  You play chess.  Not checkers.  There’s more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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