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The Myth of the Male Midlife Crisis
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Losing one’s youthful strength can feel like losing the armor that protected us for so many years, plunging us into anxiety and uncertainty. Ironically, it’s almost a blessing that time is limited. The finiteness of time gives the present its value; it forces us to focus on what truly matters to us: soulful versus immediate gratification.
,
If time and youth
were infinite, we might not find value in the present, in the moments we get to
share with each other, or in the wondrousness of our world. When the basket
begins to fray, panic sets in. It’s when our usual “fixes” stop working that
real therapy begins. So many who begin working at this — via therapy,
creativity, spirituality, relating more closely to others, or other means — discover
that, in the end, there’s nothing to be afraid of. There is sadness and loss,
yes, but also greater capacity for connection, even joy. Water is most valued
when the well runs dry, as the old saying goes.
By
Darren Haber, MA, MFT, Men's Issues
and Problems Topic Expert Contributor
As a psychotherapist who helps a lot of
middle-aged men, I have learned that, as with so many pop psychology clichés,
there is much more to the male “midlife crisis” than meets the eye.
The problems and challenges that crop up in
middle age are less about outside circumstances, which we can’t control, and
more about one’s psychology and perspective.
In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll
discuss
(1) how this
so-called crisis is really an intensified version of an issue that’s always
present,
(2) why that is, and
(3) what can be
done about it.
We are familiar with the pop
culture-inspired image of the middle-aged man who suddenly feels “old,” his
youthfulness scarily draining away, which leads to a reckless fling or pursuit
of a younger woman, often with disastrous results.
Think of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty
lusting after his teenage daughter’s friend; two grown men behaving like the
erratic college roomies they once were in Sideways; or Michael Douglas in Fatal
Attraction (note how well that worked out!).
Whatever your moral view, these dramatized
antics often strike a chord with audiences. Why is that?
The issue isn’t so much moral as one of
perception. It calls for deeper understanding of one’s own inner world, and of
one’s own vulnerability.
In middle age, many men find, perhaps for
the first time, that mortality becomes real, physical, in a way that can’t be
denied.
But that mortality, our human
vulnerability, is always present, whether we are conscious of it or not.
One of the great privileges of youth is
denial of that limitation, an embrace of invincibility, a vital rebuke to the
idea of aging and death.
Life is finite. This implies not only our
own eventual demise, which scares us, but also the demise of those closest to
us (also scary).
We all have to live with a ticking clock,
which is both a curse and a blessing; I’ll explain why later. At a certain
point, the clock can no longer be ignored.
I’m thinking of some of the men in therapy
with me who are creeping up on middle age and noticing their bodies don’t quite
have the same resilience; no more boxing, no more marathons.
Such activities had lent an aura of
invincibility that won’t be coming back.
Suddenly, eight hours of sleep seems very
important, and the mind isn’t quite the steel trap it used to be.
Viagra and Cialis are given a look, and
body parts that weren’t even on the radar begin to ache. (As I write this, my
lower back is sorer than it used to be.)
That ticking clock makes its presence
known, in ways both subtle and obvious.
It was always
there, of course, but we tend to deny it — which is not to say we ought to
obsess or brood over it like Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters, where he
says, “Do you realize what a thread we’re
hanging by?”
But sooner or later, deal with it we must;
our aches and pains and other signs of compromised endurance serve as
uncomfortable reminders that time is a kind of currency, and none of us has
unlimited amounts to spend.
We must, at some time or another, consider
how we really want to be spending it.
Sometimes, other unexpected losses
occurring in middle age can be uneasy reminders of that existential clock: we
may lose a high school friend or a parent; we might experience new medical
issues; we find ourselves unhappy with our work or career; or perhaps longstanding
relationship issues become more challenging.
Knowing we’re mortal intellectually is very
different from sensing it in our very bones.
These and other encounters with mortality
are indicators of what psychoanalyst and philosopher Robert Stolorow (2007)
calls “finitude,” the concept that to be human means accepting the finiteness
of time and human limitations, including the big kahuna of mortality itself.
These reminders can themselves be
“triggers” for those who experienced trauma earlier in life. Psychologists
sometimes call this “emotional linkage.”
Can’t we just have a fling or watch some
porn or take a pill?
I think this is why therapy can seem so
frightening.
In therapy people face their
vulnerabilities — and that can mean acknowledging that clock, which even
therapists are sometimes reluctant to recognize.
(Those of us in helping professions who
duck the issue, who don’t face it in some basic way, are doing ourselves and
the people we work with a disservice.)
Often a man will internalize mortality as
“weakness” and respond by trying harder at the gym, ignoring aches and pains,
working more, seeking more sex or self-validation by making more money, etc.
Consumption of booze, porn, and other
“medication” may also increase. All of these, of course, are Band-Aids.
These things are reliably diverting only
for a while. Ultimately, they fail to address the problem in a fulfilling way
psychologically or emotionally.
One thing that surprises many men who come
to see me is that the limitations and finiteness they are encountering in a
newly anxious way have, as noted earlier, been there all along.
The loss of the ability to box, run, work,
work out, and have sex with the same vigor and stamina may be subtle, if
potent, reminders of times in the past when one felt overwhelmingly weak or
defenseless in the face of unbearable pain.
Perhaps abuse or abandonment occurred and
equally intense self-protections were needed, ways of building the person back
up again.
The original trauma may have necessarily been
forgotten for the sake of survival, but here are those feelings and memories
again, with their same implications of shameful “weakness” and vulnerability.
Losing one’s youthful strength can feel
like losing the armor that protected us for so many years, plunging us into
anxiety and uncertainty.
Ironically, it’s almost a blessing that
time is limited.
The finiteness of time gives the present
its value; it forces us to focus on what truly matters to us: soulful versus
immediate gratification. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter,
provided it’s not the only means of enjoying life.)
If time and youth were infinite, we might
not find value in the present, in the moments we get to share with each other,
or in the wondrousness of our world.
When we can at least take a stab at
accepting our humanness, when we can live in abundance and in the present
moment no matter our circumstances, then our world can open up to us in
unexpected ways.
Human connection becomes more valuable, and
authenticity and emotional truth become something to strive for rather than
fear or dread. As we come to accept that, as men, it’s OK to need support and
love from others in facing what is frightening, we can better help and support
others in their own times of grief and loss.
Of course, facing
our humanness can be very difficult and messy, and often prompts the raising of
hairy questions such as, “Am I happy in
my work? At home? How do I deal with aging parents and their impending loss? Is
it time to forgive and forget? What do I really care about? Will the ‘real me’
please stand up?”
This is not to say, by the way, that
physical activity or outside “stuff” doesn’t matter. (I would not turn down a
free sports car.)
It’s just that so many men who come to me
for help have put all of their psychological eggs in that particular basket.
When the basket begins to fray, panic sets
in. It’s when our usual “fixes” stop working that real therapy begins. (Carl
Jung, for one, felt that therapy truly began in middle age.)
So many who begin working at this — via
therapy, creativity, spirituality, relating more closely to others, or other
means — discover that, in the end, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
There is sadness and loss, yes, but also
greater capacity for connection, even joy. There is as much beauty in the human
soul as in the natural world, if not more so.
Some tender scrubbing at a tarnished heart
often reveals a priceless gem. Hard to believe? Why not try it?
It’s not the fears and hidden demons that
can hurt us, it’s the persistent avoidance of them that gets us into trouble.
There’s no shame in asking for help (from a
therapist, religious or spiritual adviser, trusted friend, even a family
member).
The practice of gazing, with assistance if
need be, into our own psychic mirrors in the end helps us enjoy even more the
joys of exercise, food, drink, sex, and embodied aliveness.
Water is most valued when the well runs
dry, as the old saying goes.
I believe we are meant to enjoy our
pleasurable sensory experiences, but not as a total escape from our
all-too-human situation.
We are all in the same boat with this than most of us ever realize.
Darren
Haber
PSYD,
MFT
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https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/myth-of-the-male-midlife-crisis-1118154
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