Is MIDLIFE CRISIS REAL? WHY OR WHY NOT?

Question

My officemate says it is an excuse to be selfish.

Answer 1

No it's not real. It's an excuse for men to become more irresponsible.

Answer 2

Your office mate is so far wrong.
Yes it is real. Yes is throws a guy off a bit.
Women go through changes constantly over the years. Guys usually plod along until they get close to 50. That's when they look around and realize some friends have died, half my life is gone, i probably will not get a better job, I probably will not make any more money, I'm 20 years from retirement, I've lived longer than I have to live and my youth is LONG GONE.
Even worse is the realization that you can no longer be cool.
No matter how you try cool is gone too.
How do you react? Something new and fresh, Car, Girlfriend, Skydiving, who knows?
But is it selfish? I don't think so. In fact it is the reaction you see when a guy begins to think about himself for a change.
Then it could seem selfish to a woman who has got away with the "what about me " mentality for a number of years.

Answer 3

I know it is real my ex thinks he is 20 again and he is almost 60, thanks to the little blue pill. Before he could not even get it up now only with the help of the pill so he thinks he is God .
He thinks he is missing out on something. DRINKING, PARTYING , ETC. He cheated many times , now it is all the time. Hope what goes around comes around one day. He has not worked in 20 years , disabled HA HA what a joke. he always said he could make more on disablity than work . So, that is what he has done and now with the little blue pill plays. Waiting for the revenge. Just and old man that wants to be young.

Answer 4

I speak from experience here.

When you're young you think it will last forever. Then you get into adult life and suddenly you're on the go day and night just to pay the bills, raise the kids etc. So you don't really notice life passing by. You're just too busy.

But you can't run forever, and sooner or later, usually between 40 and 50, you just plain run out of steam and you can't avoid the truth anymore and you stop and look around and wounder what happened to the life you hoped and dreamed of. You realize for the first time on a really deep level that it isn't all going to last forever and you're never going to live many of those dreams. You feel like a worn out old used up person. You feel cheated and robbed. This is a dangerous time. This is midlife crisis. The mistake people make here is that they panic.

The temptation is to try to turn back the clock and "live it up" while you can. You may have some fun for a while but in the end you just make an @ss of yourself, and you're right back where you were. The only thing left is alchool and such to dull the awareness.

The best approach that I know of is to turn it into a midlife re-evaluation instead of crisis.
1)Take some time to look at your life so far and ponder the life you have left. Don't just look at the bad, count your blessings.
2)Look at what mattered to you in the past and ask yourself if it still matters so much. Maybe the goals you've been chasing in the past aren't so good for the future.
3)Make some new goals, ones that make sense for you and resolve not to let yourself get too busy to enjoy life in the future. Most people at this time in life feel like they want to have more adventure and fun, so they go after what they wanted when they were 18. Before you do this take a minute to ponder. Imagine that you went out and got these things. A sports car, a new younger lover. Now where are you? Right back where you started only poorer and looking like a chump. 18 year old's goals don't make sense for a 40 something.
4)Go do it.

Here are some of the changes I made:

Decided that I didn't really need to die rich. In fact I pretty much had enough money, so I cut out a lot of my businesses to give me more time to do the things I wanted to.

Realized that my wife was going through a similar time (in a womans way) and decided that I would try to help her get the most out of her remaining years. (How she wanted them to be, not how I thought she should).

Realized that my wife and I didn't know eachother as much as we thought we did and started actively working on our friendship.

I realized that there were many things that my wife (and others) and I were never going to see eye to eye on, but most importantly I realized that it really didn't matter. Very few things that people argue about are actually honestly important. So I now try very hard to ask myself if it really matters, before I open my mouth. In short, I decided not to waste my life 'being right'. Along this line I realized that I couldn't fix the world and the news was always the same, so now I only watch once in a while. Democrats, Republicans, Arabs, Jews, bombs, lousy schools, drug war, stock market up today, down tomorrow...Yep, the same old news every day so Who cares?

Realized that I wanted to be active and healthy in my remaining years and so I started losing weight and exercising.

Realized that I haddn't done many of the things that I'd wanted to with my kids so I started doing what I could, without intruding on their lives.

Once I got in shape I found ways to have fun adventures, like hiking in the mountains, fishing, sailing with my friends, rock climbing, charity work, travel, plays, went on a cruse, etc. In a few weeks my son is taking me skydiving, then we're both going to go take a sail plane lesson. There are plenty of ways to enjoy life that don't involve having affairs, getting drunk or making a fool out of yourself.

So when you hit midlife, don't panic and make a fool of yourself. Re-evaluate, take what you've learned and make the most of the life you have remaining.

To answer the question, yes midlife crisis is real and it's all consuming emotionaly at the time. So if you are dealing with someone who is in it now, try to be understanding, and try to be patient. And try to encourage them to make it a midlife oportunity, and not a crisis.

Good luck, and enjoy your day.

Answer 5

I believe it is real. I think it happens when you are hitting the point of old age, or getting there... your looks have tapered off, your kids are leaving the nest, your spouse is looking distinguished and you are in a rut sexually and mentally.. because you fear getting older... so you do dumb things trying to make the most of the last years without a walker...

Answer 6

Excuse to be selfish when evrything is drying up.

Answer 7

totally