Note from the Author: This comes from a forum post written in the past.
Off I go just a preachin’ again! 🙂 Feel free to comment at any time and ask questions if you have them.
We’ll get started with this subject:
Like it or not, the mid-life spouse is NOT SICK
Whoever came up with the “sick” aspect, was trying to justify the means or “sugarcoat” everything, but I have not validated those kinds of opinions, and will not.
Now, no matter what anyone says, the mid-life spouse is NOT SICK, NOR DEATHLY ILL, nor is this some kind of temporary flu of a kind, although it IS a temporary process. This can take a long period of time to resolve, and it won’t last forever, although it can last for years.
The mid-life crisis is truly dependent upon the person that is going through. Reaching full resolution or getting stuck deeply within a particular stage/phase is all up to them. No one else has any say, although God, and the people who still love them, can influence the mid-life spouse in various ways.
I know all this probably sounds contradictory, but you know what? The mid-life transition/crisis/journey itself contains nothing but contradictions, contraindications, and since it is up to the person coming through, one cannot do anything but learn the lessons of life, and catch the next train leading to more learning.
Facing, resolving and healing their issues, that will lead to change, growth and becoming is the only way to complete the crisis which demands completion.
Once the door opens to this aspect, it will not close until all is done and finished.
There are no “magic pills,” nor “shortcuts” that I’ve seen that will bring this time of life to an end any faster. God did His job well, when He created this time of life, having made sure it’s to be gone through in full without providing a way out of it, EXCEPT for the one that has already faced, resolved and healed their life’s issues long before the Mid Life aspect comes forth.
On top of that, there is no medicine that can aid in its cure, although anti-depressants can take the edge off, and make it more bearable. However, their skewed perception won’t always allow for the benefit of taking any medication that would help them. Most of them think everyone is trying to poison them, and they will show clear paranoia in their refusal to get help.
Heck, you can’t even commit them to a psychiatric ward; the law no longer allows for that unless it’s a dire emergency. Again, a hormonal imbalance, is not considered any kind of real illness. It’s simply seen as a hormonal imbalance that sometimes makes for some very nasty people, who stay in a perpetually bad mood most of the time.
You can’t make them do what’s right; they have to figure that out for themselves.
Again they are not sick or crazy, they are mentally and emotionally developing within themselves during this time, and it will be them that comes through for themselves, not someone who brings them through, as this can’t be done for them, or even to them.
The typical mid-life spouse is also clearly suffering from a chemical change within the brain that has altered their perceptions, and this, too, has its part in contributing to the reason their hormones go into temporary imbalance, but this is NOT a medically diagnosed illness of any kind.
Women within the process of The Change(Menopause) have been known to do and say some pretty weird things, but even they are not suffering from any kind of sickness. Neither is the man who is suffering from Andropause.(male menopause).
Their minds aren’t making right and correct decisions, some of these cry out for behavioral boundaries, but make no mistake, they ARE aware of what they do at the time they do it, even if it’s forgotten later on.
When you choose to view this time of life as a “sickness,” that’s simply using an excuse to justify their rebellious behavior in your own minds, when there is NO excuse for bad behavior within the crisis itself. A mid-life spouse is within an emotional developmental process that can last 5 to 7 years, if not longer. These developmental processes include the aspect of growing up for the second time in their lives, but more thoroughly and completely than was done the first time.
It has been compared to puberty, called a “second childhood,” and in so many ways it is this. However, the only real difference between teenage puberty, and the mid-life crisis, is age, life’s experience, and financial resources. The teen is young, and has none of these, whereas the mid-life spouse all of these.
Just to clarify my own view on this. What really irritated me in the past, was instead of telling the actual truth from the start about what was happening, someone else decided to simply “label” it as a time of “sickness,” when again, mid-life spouses are NOT sick. They’re just suffering from emotional “growing pains.” Most certainly there are times of becoming sick because depression will cause various sicknesses, but the whole process of the mid-life crisis is not a medically recognizable disease in itself.
To speak to those who are choosing to stand for your marriages, your marital vows covered this possibility, as in “for better and for worse”. The mid-life spouse has destroyed their vows, but they cannot destroy yours unless you choose for this to happen.
You learn to exercise your own personal choices, as you see fit against everyone who might think you were a nut or worse.
No one can tell you what to do, you will do what you know is right within your own situation, and no one can live your life, but you.
The mid-life spouse isn’t any different than anyone else, except for reliving their childhood all over again for the second time.
You can set behavioral boundaries on any kind of improper behavior except the mid-life affair if you want to try and navigate your marriage through this time.
Once more, they are NOT SICK, ILL, or otherwise incapacitated, they are within a true developmental process that includes rebellion against anyone who doesn’t agree with what they are doing, and even what they are saying.
In short, they are immature people who need to mature into emotionally mature adults, and this is the process that will take them there IF they will do what this same process requires of them.
There are NO guarantees they will come through, but with the help of the Lord, and your own growth, which includes, but is not limited to the development of patience, and perseverance, it is possible you can come through with them, and be able to keep the marriage.
That decision, however, doesn’t just lie with you, it lies with them, as well.
Whichever way this goes, you will find that you will be so much the better for the growth you will have achieved within yourself through this experience.
