From Ellen:
Bomb drop was 3 years ago. Husband moved out and lives with his parents. He swears there never has been OW but I know they lie. We have had constant contact (every day) since he left. I was interested in the touch and go. I feel he has been doing this for the past 8 months and moving closer ever so slowly as time goes on. Just wondering if there were not any significant childhood issues is this still a mid life crisis. He is text book in every other aspect but as far as I am aware he had an average childhood, parents still married he was the “golden child”. We have been married 25 years and he suddenly became a man I didn’t know and wanted to change every part of his life.
Thank you for your wisdom. This is the most horrible thing anyone can endure in their marriage
Hearts Blessings’ reply:
Dear Ellen,
To be fair, not every Mid-Life spouse gets involved within an affair, although their emotional actions might seem to point that direction. Unless you have solid, irrefutable evidence that he’s seeing someone else, or has been seeing someone else, don’t be so quick to assume that he’s lying within this aspect.
The Mid-Life transitional period, that may or may not become an actual Mid-Life crisis, comes for all people, so, UNLESS he’s gotten himself entangled with an OW, his may well stay within the realm of a transition.
BUT, he will STILL have go through, and finish the complete transitional process, (however long it takes him), that will teach him all of the life’s lessons he must learn in order to eventually emerge fully balanced, and emotionally mature. The ultimate goal of this transitional period is full emotional maturation. There are very few people who reach this particular goal before Mid-Life.
The majority of people are forced to have to navigate this full transition during their Mid-Life years in order to complete the necessary change, growth and becoming, they are called upon to do.
Considering he’s living with his parents at the moment, it could be that he’s reliving the time in his life where he hadn’t “cut the emotional ties that bind and strangle” from his parents as a young man-and he intends to eventually finish that particular unfinished action on his part. I would advise continuing to giving him space to figure himself out.
His “touch and goes” may continue for some time, as he is on his own timetable during this time of HIS Mid-Life Crisis, but don’t get so entangled in what he’s doing, that you forget the work you must needs to also do upon and within yourself.
When it comes down to it, you don’t have control over anything he does; you only have control over yourself, your actions and your reactions/responses.
As far as the mid-life crisis being the more horrible thing anyone can endure in their marriage, in all honesty, that’s only according to one’s perception. I once thought that same thing, but came to understand at a much later time, that this was not the most horrible thing anyone can endure within their marriage. If you sit down and really think about it, there are worse things that can happen, but during the time of the mid-life crisis, one is not thinking of anything but the crisis, as it can be all-consuming at times-and that only occurs if you allow yourself to focus on what you cannot change-your Mid-Life spouse.
On my own part, I came to see the Mid-Life Crisis as having been the best thing that could have happened. Why? Because of all that I learned during that time, all of the change, growth and becoming I went through, and because of the end result that came-that more balanced, better person I became, because of my experience. The point being, in time, I came to understand that I, too, needed to grow up for the first time in my own life.
The marriage that came through all and everything, was simply a bonus, not just a means to an end. My perception changed in a positive way, and I don’t have any bad feelings surrounding that past experience-this is what full healing does. I saw everything within the scope of my life, and marriage, within a reality never before seen during my own Journey to Wholeness and Healing, and out of both of the fires of crisis and transitional time, came a woman who is still, to this day, truly grateful for this experience. 🙂
It has taught me so very much. 🙂
In time, what became the most important aspect for me, wasn’t my marital status, it was the JOURNEY I took for myself that redefined me as an individual person, and this same journey, helped me to become a fully mature individual. To this day, I’m still learning, changing, growing and becoming, as this aspect never stops-it only finishes in one aspect, and begins within another.
Food for thought. ((hugs))