Ways To Respond to your Spouse’s Midlife Crisis
The monotony of routine marriage life is the biggest stumbling block in ensuring a smooth and trouble-free relationship between the partners. In today’s busy world, a considerable number of married people are working couples. They have their own life outside the realm of their conjugal life and spend long hours attending to the need of their respective professions. Let us read more about what to do when your spouse is going through a midlife crisis.
In the case of these couples, where one partner has settled for a non-working status and took the role of a house maker, the situation is somewhat different. In both cases, at least one partner stays away from home for long hours. There is no fixed age for starting a marriage life. However, maximum cases of tying the nuptial knot usually occur between 20-30 years of age.
After the initial few years of intense romance and passionate lovemaking, couples all over the world often find it difficult to continue in the same fashion.
[adsforwp id="18080"]
Monotony – A Reason for Midlife Crisis
The monotony and struggle of day-to-day life often take its toll, and one or the other partner may fall victim to it. The situation is often termed as ‘Midlife Crisis’. And, the period of age between 35-55 is the most vulnerable period for such a crisis.
There are certain signs and symptoms by which one can know that they or their partner is going through such a crisis. In this article, we will shed light on a few such signs and symptoms and the remedial measures by which midlife crisis can be averted:
Signs of Your Spouse and a Midlife Crisis
1. Unusual Dramatic changes
Couples spending long years together seem to understand the requirement of one another perfectly well. When your spouse wants something extraordinary outside the regular requirement of a person, he/she has to be carefully observed. An unusual change in the lifestyle of your spouse and dramatic change of habits and interests is a bright red flag for a midlife crisis.
A sudden inclination to become too adventurous also confirms the same result. You have to concede to your partner’s unusual demand initially and have to reconcile to the changes. A subtle counseling and deft dealing of the situation will turn the tide in your favor in due course of time.
2. Outpour Of Negative Emotions
When your spouse is undergoing a midlife crisis, he/she will most certainly suffer from a series of depressing, negative emotions. This might include pessimistic attitude, loss of interest in usual, commonplace activities, unusual sadness, subdued attitude. Despondency, loss of appetite, fatigue, inability to make decisions, unusual sleep pattern etc too can occur.
A medical rather psychiatric consultation would perhaps be needed in such cases to ensure that your spouse gets back to a better frame of mind.
3. MR. Grumpy Loves Playing The Blame Game
An unusually aggressive behavior of your spouse where your spouse loves to hold you responsible for every wrong thing happening around both of you is one of the clear diagnostic tools for identifying midlife crisis. If you ponder over the circumstances carefully, you’ll see the changes in your relationship quite clearly.
Earlier it used to be quite different when you both shared the ups and downs of life spiritedly and countered them with joint efforts in a harmonious way. However, this sudden change in your partner from being Mr. Helpful to Mr. Grumpy indicates that you need to step in and help your partner get back to his/her jovial self.
4. Signs Of Excessive Obsession
Midlife Crisis is a psychological phenomenon. One of the symptoms of such a psychological disorder is an excessive obsession with certain things in life. The obsession may be of materialistic nature like hair or baby. It may also be of an intangible nature like hairstyle or about a choice between a bearded and clean-shaven look. What is worrying is the extreme nature of such obsessions.
5. Contradictory Behaviour
A person who is full of contradictory behavior towards his partner is sure to be suffering from some sort of midlife crisis. Confusion reigns supreme in such circumstances. Nobody knows what follows next.
There may be a bout of hateful repulsive attitude immediately after a soft romance. It is a deplorable and alarming situation and can only be taken care of with proper medical consultation.
6. A sense Of Emptiness
After spending long years with your partner, suddenly a feeling of emptiness may engulf you. You find yourself at crossroads of your life. The progress and achievement made so far in your conjugal life makes no meaning to you anymore. This is also a kind of midlife crisis.
A careful evaluation of the marriage life you have undergone so far with context to the present situation will be immensely helpful in diffusing the crisis.
Whatever may be the provocation and whatever may be the underlying cause, a midlife crisis can always be averted. But, there has to be careful observation, proper planning and counseling, and better judgment.
Turn the midlife crisis into an advantage and not into a disaster. Couples need to start seeing the crisis as a time for renewal of their mind, body, and souls. Then, they will surely be able to save their marriage from hitting the rocks due to this mid-life phenomenon.
See Also: