When your husband is having a Midlife Crisis, Selfishness is a very central concept.
You immediate reaction to that statement might be that the whole thing is down to him being totally selfish and if he weren't then none of this would be happening! Maybe so, but I have a few other angles for you to consider, if you are willing?
The Midlife Transition is a natural passage of adulthood, although your husband's passage is is not running smoothly and it is hurting you, it is something he HAS to go through. Can you accept that? If you can then where does selfishness enter into it?
The first aspect is that his 'Self' is in crisis, he cannot find or face who he truly is and so he is running around trying all kinds of behaviours, either to see if they might fit him or to avoid having to do the hard inner work. So in that respect he is being selfish, he is either trying to discover himself in previously unthought-of places or he is trying to hide from himself.
The second aspect is the more traditional interpretation of the word 'selfish' he is not considering you or pretty much anyone other than himself. He is thinking of his own needs and desires and giving no thought to how his behaviour will affect anyone else. This is the part that most likely hurts you the most and probably makes you angry.
Why does it make you so angry? If you understand the first aspect - that his 'Self' is in crisis then is it not easier to understand his behaviour? - I'm not saying like it, but at least understand why he is behaving so 'unreasonably'? Could it be that you feel angry because what he is doing doesn't tally with what you want for yourself? Could it be that you are being selfish in your own way?
I hope you are still reading! I'm not trying to offend you, just to get you to think about things from a different perspective. You see if you want everything to be as it was before and your hurt and anger are based on the fact that he is changing everything, then you too are only focusing on yourself! You are being selfish. He can't cope with the way things were, he needs to go through a transition, OK the way he is going about it is far from ideal but he does HAVE to go through some change.
I say this not to hurt you but to help you see the line between him SELF and your SELF. He is trying to attend to himself. You need to try and focus on yourself and he's not doing anything to help you, at this point he can't, even if he wanted to. You have to look after yourself and that means looking at what you can control and what you can't and what you are responsible for and what you are not.
I know most of the hurt and anger come from the way he goes about things. It's the lies and deceit that hurt the most, so many Midlife Crisis Wives say that if he had just been honest and left, it would have hurt but I would have been able to cope. The more normal track for him is to stay in the marriage, withdraw, say he is unhappy, say he doesn't know what he wants, blame you, claim it's all your fault, often he is hiding an affair the whole time and he cycles back and forth through all these stages.
If you can view his behaviour as being about himSELF then you can base your reactions on what is best for your SELF. If you can accept that his crisis is not about you or caused by you then you can detach from him. Don't make his crisis your crisis, if you let it, it can aid your own transition. You can turn the adversity into opportunity and learn about your self.
You really can!
If you can learn to be selfish through this time you can come out the other side stronger. I hope you are starting see the word selfish in a less negative light. I want you to learn to be the kind of selfish that focuses on YOU. The kind of selfish that acknowledges your SELF as a good, strong, decent human being who is worthy of being loved and cared for and who is more than capable of providing that love and care for her SELF.
Welcome to Midlife Wife Support
For the Wives of Midlife Crisis Men
You would think that midlife would be a time to sit back and reap the rewards, really wouldn't you?I mean, by the middle of our lives we have a couple of decades of adulthood behind us. We have launched and worked hard at careers, marriages, families all those things we aspired to achieve. Yet for so many of us it is a time to see those things fall apart.
Midlife Transition is a natural passage of adulthood, we all reach a point where we assess and evaluate our progress in life, we take stock, tweak a few things or even overhaul them and set a direction for the next stage of our lives.
The Transition process is as individual as we are, for some it is barely noticeable, an integral part of our daily life, for others it is a time of reflection and introspection. For others though the Transition can hit a brick wall and can turn into a full blown crisis. When this is the case, the sufferer themselves is often completely unaware, it is their partner who suffers.
If you are the partner, the wife who is left wondering what happened to your husband, your marriage and your life, then this blog is for you.
If you are seeing your marriage fall apart as you watch your husband go through a midlife crisis then I hope you will find useful information / thoughts / musings here to help you get through this time.
My whole point in publishing this blog is to help you to see that their crisis is their own issue. No matter how much you want to, you can't fix it for them. No matter how badly you want to help them, you really can't. It is an inner journey that they need to go on and you are not being offered a companion ticket!
You will do best if you can turn your energy and attention toward yourself. You see, you are going through a crisis of your own and although you cannot save your husband or do his inner work for him, you must do your own inner work and save yourself!
Friday, June 19, 2009
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My husband left but hasn't gone far making frequent trips home to collect mail and say the next lot of awful things to me, including the declaration. I would rather he had stayed so we could have faced this with him in the same house. Believe me it's awful when they leave. R
ReplyDeleteMy husband is 36 and I really think he is going through a MLC early. Everything that has been described fits him to a T. But what is really hard is we have 4 children that range from ages 7 up to 16 (two older ones are from previous relationships). He blames me for everything that goes on with the kids, the house is not perfect, my weight and on and on. He is a workaholic and uses that as the excuse of why the kids are my responsibility. SELFISH is not the word when it comes to how he feels.
ReplyDeleteHow am I dealing with this?
At first I cried and cried and kept asking myself,"How am I going to start over?" and I one day just broke down and prayed to God and said I am leaving it in your hands. Because God is where you need to draw your strength from.
At the moment I read a daily devotional "Every Day Bride". Pray daily and try to make changes not only for myself but for my husband. It is tiring and sometimes overwhelming, But I am praying and asking God to help me through all of this.
There is no real answer.... the only answer is to make yourself happy and do things to better yourself and then your husbands unhappiness with you will go from you did not do this or that to well you used to not do this and that. And that is when you point out to him.. I may have not used to do this or that and I noticed that and I am doing this or that NOW.
So, then it will become he knows he is the one with the problem. It may take a while believe me I know I am going through it. If it does not help and our marriage fails at least I KNOW that I tried.