Mid-Life Crisis Q&A-Lisa

Honey, you didn’t break him, therefore you can’t fix him–all you can really do is be there for him when/if he needs you–and yes, I can see you’ve been doing that, too.

I can imagine finding him on FB talking with a girl eighteen years younger than him was quite a shock for you. Emotional affairs–or MLC affairs as a whole are all about wanting to forge an emotional connection with the person the mid-life spouse is trying to connect with.

It’s about trying to find what he didn’t have as a child–unconditional love, acceptance for who he is, and validation for his ego. This is all about him–and honestly, this has nothing at all to do with you, nor does it anything to do with your marriage.

He is driven by forces he can’t understand himself, so how can he be expected to explain what he’s going through to you?

On the other hand, he had/has feelings for you, knew it was wrong, did it anyway, and tried to keep things on as much of an emotional even keel as he could manage. However the mid-life crisis had other ideas, because after all, this time of life is all about change, growth and becoming, and in the end, while no one gets a choice about going through, there are two choices presented: go through the process in full, submit to these changes, growths and becomings, or continue fighting the process for life.

It’s an emotional developmental process that actually requires the person going through this to go through the emotional process designed to fully settle all issues that were created within the first half of their lives. This is a tall order from anyone who has NO clue what they are doing, why this is happening, and it’s honestly rare to see a mid-life spouse that even knows why they’re going through this, at the time it’s happening.

They come to know afterward, as hindsight kicks in for a time, that they went through something, it changed them forever, and if they do it right, it brings them a deep, lasting peace.

They do not always vocalize it as MLC, they just know this particular mental emotional and spiritual battle, once finished, was important, that it meant something major has happened to them, and they come to see that it’s all good.

You couldn’t believe the mess he made, because you weren’t prepared to see this kind of mess–and I can imagine it was a serious shock on your part, and most likely another bomb to add to all of the others, as your husband was doing things you never thought he’d ever do. I sincerely doubt there is anyone that can adequately prepare a left-behind spouse for the devastation they’ll encounter upon discovering their spouse tangled up in an affair.

I’m glad you got a grip, and didn’t do something you would have regretted much later. Of course he hid, cycled etc…he was in fear for his life–but then, most of them are when busted in an affair.

OK, something about the other woman/other men of this world–they are ALL “affair downs” sorry, but that’s kind of a “duh!” aspect.…no self-respecting emotionally mature person is going to allow themselves to get entangled with these kinds of who are just as broken, if not MORE broken than the mid-life spouse that gets entangled with them.

As the mid-life spouse is different, if they get entangled in an affair, they will choose someone who is a direct emotional mirror to them–in other words, just like them. Other women/other men do NOT care about whether their affair partner is married or not, the affair is just as much as their selfishness as it is about the mid-life spouse’s selfishness..both participants are selfish, use each other for the purpose of various needs they won’t let their marital partners (IF one exists) meet.

Also affair participants are prone to choosing people who are “out of reach” and always emotionally unavailable. This goes back to the issues within each person that complement, or go together with one another.

The affair lasts for as long as it’s going to, and as long as reality doesn’t intrude on the couple in “true luv” and they can somehow manage NOT to shatter the “two-way” mirror that shows them as being the same, it will continue. The purpose of this two-way emotional mirror is to avoid accountability, and in this aspect, escaping accountability, and avoiding accountability is the same concept.

Nothing changed, until you finally LET GO of him–see, that’s where people can’t seem to grasp the concept of letting go…they are often forced to let go, and no one that I know about has ever willingly let go–they have always been forced to let go by circumstances that arranged themselves in such a way that ran them directly into a brick wall they couldn’t go around, nor scale–only then, do they finally do what they were advised to do back in the beginning AFTER the emotional bomb was dropped.

Lisa, understand I’m not getting onto you–sometimes, people have to make their own mistakes in order to learn, but I’m making a solid point that I often make over and over and over—no one can control anyone, but themselves, and to struggle for “other control” (control over others) is a pointless exercise, and wasted time better spent working on yourself.

The more a person tries to “fix” another person, that doesn’t want to be ‘fixed’ the more trouble that often comes about, and things escalate to a point where something has to give–and the controlling left-behind spouse is FORCED to LET GO.

You are doing right in not bringing up the relationship–that’s pointless, and would only bring bouts of confused, angry spewing on his part.

You have a lot of processing to do within yourself, that you’ve not done yet, and this surrounds his affair that still triggers and hurts you. You’re afraid that if you don’t let go of this, he will never truly account for it.

I suspect he hasn’t accounted fully for it, but honey, he’s not ready to do that in full right now–he’s got a lot on his emotional “plate” to deal with, but he will eventually account for that affair–just not right now.

From what I can see at the moment, he seems to be doing fairly well–doing the best he can with what he has to work with within himself.

While I realize he’s not acted like a good man, consider the fact that he’s truly struggling within himself. It’s hard to understand their struggles when you’ve not been there yourself, but one would really need to learn to be empathetic toward them, and consider walking in the shoes of their emotional struggles.

Developing compassion in spite of being angry at wrong actions that were done against us, isn’t easy, and I can’t sit here and tell you it was all that easy for me either. It wasn’t. However, one of the lessons we learn is that we’re ALL human, not divine, and all of us have our crosses to bear, and we also struggle in many ways. We want to be understood, and even supported during our struggles, and the mid-life spouse isn’t any different in this aspect than we are.

They’re human, too, and God would have us to learn compassion for their pain, even when we might not understand what they’re going through.

Learn not to judge, and give thought to the Bible passage that speaks to “He who is without stone, let him cast the first stone.” Your husband is struggling within himself to become the man, he KNOWS he is NOT at this point in time. He looks to you, his wife, for encouragement, even when he seems to not be listening or accepting what you may be saying. If you’re saying things that he takes as harsh and/or critical, it destroys what little self esteem and self confidence he’s trying to build within himself, to become this man he knows he needs to become.

Honey, I’ve been there, and I made mistakes like this a lot–I didn’t truly understand what he was facing until I walked this same road myself so much later on.

Your husband IS trying to grow up, and what you saw was a badly hurt, emotionally abandoned child who wanted someone to just listen and validate those feelings he had then, and is struggling so hard to reconcile and heal now. One last thing, when you validate someone, you FULLY validate them–you don’t try to “fix” how they feel, or validate them to a certain point.

You learn that right or wrong, each person has a right to how they feel, even if you don’t agree, and bear in mind that you are NOT him, you didn’t go through his childhood, you weren’t raised by his parents, therefore you do not, and will not ever know all he went through during that time.

Food for thought, and sometimes a simple, “I understand,” will serve to help the mid-life spouse know you’re engaged and really listening to their children as they cry, and struggle to express their feelings–you’ll also get more insight into this man you married as you listen to what he says, as each child comes through and tells its story.

The most important aspect toward settling children is being heard by whomsoever they’re speaking with–most of the time, it will be the left-behind spouse who listens to these things.

There are children within him struggling to be seen and heard, and he needs to process these, let them come through as they will–nothing you can do to get them to come through, but since you know how to recognize them, be a shoulder to them, as much as you can find it within yourself.

I do realize that my writing hasn’t only explained a great many things, but it has also given advice on how to deal with him. I don’t wish to offend you, nor cross a line, but the questions on your part do need to cease. They are only increasing his pressure within. He’s not in any shape to answer a lot of questions about himself at this time–later he will, but not now.

His depression is steadily increasing, which is common, and he’s withdrawing more, which is also common, because his processing is increasing somewhat, preparing him for this cross over.

He seems to be doing all right in spite of everything that is happening with him–you can’t say anything to him, that would help him, because he still has choices he can make for himself. Just keep giving him his space, and time to keep figuring himself out.

As far as me knowing the hearts of both people–that is an aspect that belongs solely unto the Lord, and not me. I only know it, because He allows me to know it. I have the experience, the Insight given to me by, and because of the Lord, the knowledge and wisdom, and extensive research that qualifies me to make these kinds of calls.

Each person is different just as each crisis is different, but what people don’t realize is that the ending of the affair, and all that comes after is only the precursor into the beginning of the end, but this end, contains THREE(Depression, Withdrawal, and Acceptance) more stages that are to be navigated in FULL, and each stage takes TIME to complete within itself.

The road becomes harder, change, growth and becoming becomes more painful, and the mid-life spouse’s past issues become more clearly seen as their “children” begin showing more and more over time.

If this were an easy process, no one would have to go through much at all, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. However, I can remember that the most painful aspects I ever went through, yielded some of the greatest positive growth I ever achieved on my own, and it did indeed take me walking my own journey in order to continue helping him with his, as my changes triggered his changes, and helped us both to grow, and become what God meant for us to become.

Hard road, but it was well worth the walk to get to the place where we eventually became mature adults–and our endings didn’t come together, they were separate, but they were achieved, in time.

This is not written to discourage anyone, and it’s written from direct and indirect experience. I never write of anything I’ve not already seen, either in my own past situation, or the situation of others.

Not everything in my life has been good, but God has always been good to me, and I will not tell you any differently. There has always been a clear purpose to all I have gone through, lived to tell about it, and I have learned to accept adversity in whatever form it will come, because I know it will always contribute to my ongoing growth in some way, leading to an even greater becoming within myself.

I don’t ever seek to “validate” writings that God has given me. These will always validate themselves, because God’s Word never return void within any circumstance–I just see things as they are, because one learns to recognize what’s ahead, as it’s approaching.

You have many people who try to accelerate the mid-life crisis process all the way to end, but that doesn’t work, because the crisis keeps every situation honest and true to the point that IF someone tries to skip, or miss any part of the crisis, they are simply stopped, and cycled back to the point where they got off course.

The stages themselves run in consecutive order, and ALL stages WILL be run-NOTHING is missed, because the crisis is that thorough in its process. We serve a God of order, and it would stand to reason that the crisis that HE created in the first place would be navigated in a certain order.

Although Depression and Withdrawal both show throughout the crisis–as each particular stage is come into, the main aspect will become so much deeper, and clearly show what stage is being navigated through–Depression and Withdrawal can run in tandem, but in time, Depression would fall off, or gradually slide off, and Withdrawal would remain in place, because the major decisions would have to be made.

I’m not for certain, but I look for this man to ask to return home before his crossover into Depression. Why? Because there’s a certain emotional process the two of you would need to go through, before he proceeds–however, he might not ask to return home, and progress on forward for himself.

It wouldn’t be unusual for him to remain on his own for a while longer, but Lisa, you do need to walk this journey for yourself–you’ve done so much to try and “fix” him, and it’s clear you’ve not let completely go of him, unless you were forced to do so.

As long as he contains issues within himself, you’ll see more times of “fogged thinking” and “children” making irregular appearances.

It’s going to be a while before he realizes that the answers he was seeking in outside sources, were contained within himself all along, and it is up to him to seek these out for himself.

Being analytical isn’t a tool used during the mid-life crisis by the mid-life spouse themselves, remember they are acting in opposite ways during this time, and the lack of analytical ability is mainly because the mid-life spouse is thinking emotionally, NOT logically—logic is set aside completely during the time of crisis, so don’t look for him to really do any analytical thinking for himself.

All processing is done within, and you will never know all processing he does–you will only the result of each time of processing he does, as he will tell you….just don’t ask him questions, be there for him, love him, accept him for who he is now, and not for what you might think to want him to be.

What you may see as barely making it day by day, may be the very best your husband can do, but be patient with him, and understand that a lot of his struggles are also due to serving serious consequences for his past actions against his marriage–and considering the books on marriage, I believe he’s looking at ways of repairing the damage he did, when he broke the fence, and only he can repair this in time.

As for you, Sweetie, you seem to be coping well in spite of everything, and I think you also need assurance things will be well, and I think with time, patience, love, forgiveness, and acceptance, they will be, although it will take a certain ‘friend’ of yours, whose name is TIME, to come through.

Above all, trust God for the future, and know that He continues to work within this same future–and though we may not always understand why things happen, we come to know that no matter what, God truly does love us and has our best interests at heart.