MID-LIFE CRISIS

Depressingly, quite a few of my married friends seem to be utterly miserable at the moment. Is it just the time of year or is it the dreaded mid-life crisis kicking in? How many of us will survive? I was the first to go out of all of my friends and have consequently suddenly found myself in the unenviable position of becoming unofficial counsellor/expert on all matters related to unhappy marriage.

I read an interesting blog recently, about how men in their 40’s are “screwed”. Ian Lidster (of “Or So I Thought” blog) described how, prior to the age of (about) 40, men “find life fairly blissful”. Moving in the right direction, “he has a ‘nice’ little wife and a ‘nice’ little family, and a ‘nice’ little house” At some point, having achieved all of those things, for whatever reason, he wakes up one morning and decides that everything that he has spent his life amassing, is actually “shit”. Dull. Boring. Predictable. Scream makingly monotonous.

He describes how his long-term marriage came to an end “after a long petering out and a few soulless affairs” in his 40’s and that it was without doubt his worst decade. I wonder if that was how my husband felt. What I do know though is that for me, and a lot of my friends we were one, big, fat happy cliche, living the typical suburban dream with all the domestic trappings, sticking our heads in the sand and hoping for the best. We were (and possibly still are) just time bombs waiting to explode.

Just before I found out about my husband’s affair, I was happy. I do believe that we are exceptionally good at deceiving ourselves, at seeing only what we want to see, but I genuinely felt my life was complete. That I was where I belonged. That I had found my place in the world. Everything and everyone could be understood. It was of course what I had always wanted. A husband. Children. A nice house. My future was clear. The path freshly mowed and pristine and very, very straight. It was going to lead me directly into endless happy family gatherings, old age and contentment.

Over the years, I had become a woman defined by both my children and my husband. I was a mother and a wife (probably in that order). My own voice had got lost amongst all the others, but I didn’t mind, I felt needed and loved and I was happy to play the nurturing role. My blinkered view of life allowed me to focus with total commitment (otherwise known as control?) on what went on within our own four walls (the same walls that later became my gilded cage). There were of course the usual frustrations, but I felt safe, cocooned in domestic bliss from the big scary world and any real fears were smothered by soft children and soft furnishings.

Every morning my tunnel of vision allowed me to walk my children to the local school where I talked enthusiastically about things that were important to me. It was the small things that moved me most deeply – my youngest child needing to stroke my hair to get to sleep or the warmth of their skin on my face. My main aim in life, my absolute role was to ensure that my children were happy. I protected them fiercely from all possibly risk. I had no desire to take any chances. I didn’t want to be remembered for having a rich and colourful life like my parents. My own childhood had been different. Abroad. Exotic. Transient. I wanted none of that for my children. I wanted safety. Familiarity. Roots.

With my blinkers steadfastly attached I lost the ability to see the bigger picture – there was no bigger picture. Everything that was important was within my reach. Would I have lost faith in what I had over time, had my husband not have blown my life out of the water? Who can say. I don’t think for a moment that my husband had any concept of how difficult it was for me to put all the pieces back together.

We all crave excitement and passion and when you suddenly wake up and find that you have not felt either emotion for as long as you can remember, it can be bad. We then look for danger. Look for something to make us feel alive. To make us look at the world differently. To make the colours seem brighter. To make our hearts beat faster. It is at that moment that we need help. Nobody tells us what to do…how to get through the moment. Some of us manage by taking our partners on the journey, others get away with a motorbike or a sports car, a few drugs or an illicit affair. There are other’s, however, who spectacularly fuck up.