The midlife crisis is a myth or a reality?


Most people are organized in a similar way - they love and are able to explain almost everything. Any events, any problems can be "put on the shelves." There are quite a few such explanations in the world of people. They are easy to detect when, in response to your story or complaint, the interlocutor says: "it's because ..." or: "I warned you ..." And, although the explanations often do not provide an opportunity to predict the future, people grab for them, as a lifeline. One of these circles says "middle age crisis". And, approaching the age of 40, many suddenly seem to lose their swimming skills and need this support. It is the crisis of 40 years that explains the notorious "gray beard", and after his happy experience - "in 45 baba berry again." Or not a berry - if you have not coped with the crisis. What is really happening to us in this period? And in general: the crisis of the middle of life - a myth or reality? And how does what happen affect family life? About this and talk.

Anatoly lived with his wife 24 years. Everything, he said, was like everyone else - worked hard, tried, brought up children - son and daughter. The children grew up, the son graduated from the institute and left, his daughter had to study for 2 years, but Anatoly hardly sees her: friends - friends - work and her own apartment. My wife is here. Anatoly heavily sighs - a wonderful woman, intelligent, interesting. She has made a career as a top manager, and she is almost never at home. Earlier, when the children were younger, it was not so noticeable. But the children have grown up, Anatoly has not had a job in recent years. He came home, but his wife or not yet came, or was already asleep. And if they met in the kitchen, then only as neighbors in a communal apartment. The wife with the handset continued to give out "cue" to employees, ate in a hurry and ran to the computer. By the way, both the computer and the television for each of the spouses had its own. They, apparently, would have lived for another thousand years. But somehow Anatoly fell ill with the flu. His wife was at a conference in another city, and from there she left to check someone, or to share her experience with someone. My daughter also left - vacation. Anatoly called a district doctor. They talked. The woman asked Anatoly about the symptoms, prescribed medicines, but after learning that no one was home and no one could take care of a person with a temperature of 39.7, she said: "I will bypass all the challenges and return." A few hours later she brought medicines and fruits. So they met. Vlad - so her name was - was younger than Anatoly for 10 years. She did not have a family. The institute did not work out, then the distribution, but where can the provincial therapist find her husband? She returned home, to the capital, and she devoted all her time to work.

When Anatoly recovered, he decided to thank the doctor. I learned the schedule of work, bought flowers, and took me home. And unexpectedly, for himself, after going to a cup of tea, he stayed until midnight. Vlad was an ingenious interlocutor, interesting and understanding. Anatoly shared with her many problems - and went home with a sense of ease. At home no one expected him. My wife was asleep. In the morning he greeted her, but she only nodded her head: the phones were torn. And in the evening Anatoly again went to see Vlad off. And after 2 months he realized what he always wanted and did not have in his life - the opportunity to talk, consult, get care and attention and share it in response.

Several times he tried to talk to his wife, but she answered the text of the mobile: "The subscriber's device is turned off or is out of the network coverage". And then ... Then he confessed to Vlad in love and said that while married, but she was ready to wait. And he moved to her.

... My wife only a week later noticed that Anatoly does not spend the night at home. At first, she was worried about the division of property, but not divorce. However, after Anatoly filed an application to the court, the wife dramatically changed her behavior. She started to call, met her husband from work, came to him at lunch time. We must give credit - behaved very civilized and tried to explain to Anatoly the unfavorability of divorce for both sides. It seemed that it was not a human being, but a robot. And only when I realized the irreversibility of what happened, it broke. She cried, and Anatoly saw in her that girl, who once fell in love, sincere and alive. But I understood that there was only pity left - to myself, to her, to the fact that they became strangers.

He came to a consultation with a psychologist because of guilt, a week before the divorce. Realizing that everything had already been decided, Anatoly tried to analyze: what happened to the relationship, why they could not establish them before everything burned out? When his wife rebuked him: "I tried for all of us," he understood that she was right. But if these efforts were not to bewildered by everything human in the relationship, if the work did not drain it to the limit - she might have noticed that next to her is her husband, who needs her ... "I know," he said. at the end of the meeting, Anatoly, is the whole crisis of the middle of life "...

So, this is the crisis everyone knows about. Psychologists define its boundaries in different ways - from 37 to 45 years. On the one hand, who really knows when this very middle? We are not given to predict ... However, according to the subjective feeling of people at some period, they are faced with the experience that half the life has passed. It is like a long climb to the top, a sense of flight, of its boundless possibilities, followed by the beginning of the inevitable descent down. The top is passed. No one can stay there forever. On the one hand, there is still a vivid sense of strength, energy, activity. On the other hand, it is understood that once again this summit can not be raised: the forces are not the same ... And people endure it in different ways ...

We are hard at the loss of physical strength and attractiveness. But even more difficult to survive the parting with dreams and illusions. It is during this period that there is an understanding of what Yuri Loza has outlined in his sad and deep song: "It's already too late for me, I already do not have many to become ... And to the amazing stars I will never fly ... I'm already bored with many, I managed to get tired of many people. I'm better off alone. It's easier and easier to dream ... "At this age a person inevitably encounters a discrepancy between dreams and reality. And he either accepts the impossibility of achieving them and says goodbye to a part of what warmed, moved, excited, or refuses to test reality and continues to live the same way, not considering that he himself has changed, and the world does not stand still ...

Often, the crisis of the middle of life proceeds with the intensification of internal experiences, the growing anxiety associated with the future. Some are able to realize these processes and channel energy into a constructive channel. Others do not understand themselves and think that the problems are not with them, but with the environment. It is they who in 40 years begin to actively rebuild their lives and change everything - work, friends, family . And then there is the illusion that you are experiencing a Renaissance, a second youth ...

Marina, at the age of 39, suddenly began to feel acute discontent with family relations. "What do you want?" - the friends were perplexed. Indeed, the husband is caring, attentive, affectionate. All is well, if not for "but". Marina had always had very little, and now she wanted more money, a new car, expensive clothes ... And her husband is an ordinary engineer, slightly fat and balding. Looking at him, Marina thought - is it really her classmate? And one day she decided ... She quickly divorced her husband without understanding anything, leaving an adult daughter with him, began to spread cosmetics, made a career and found a new husband. At age 42, she became a mother again. And, when my son turned a year, I realized that "the battery has sat down." The child was not happy, the young one - 7 years younger - her husband was annoyed ... Marina came to the psychologist to understand her life. She tried again to throw stones, not realizing that it was time to collect them. And even the psychologist looked sympathetically at this attractive woman who spends a lot of energy and energy trying to look young, happy and successful and at the same time painfully looking for answers to eternal questions: "Who am I? Mother? Successful business woman? Wife of an attractive man? And yet? "And Marina with nostalgia recalls life with her first husband, so simple and clear and so now inaccessible. She thinks with horror that everything needs to be done anew by the child, childhood illnesses, school ... And health begins to fail - she recently underwent surgery and could not recover ...

The middle of life is a time when children have already grown up, when life is more or less adjusted and you can think about yourself. About health, work, that from the vital plan still it is possible to realize, and with what to say goodbye. Sometimes awareness of the middle of life is a real opportunity to escape from destructive relationships based on the old and irrelevant choice. Because it is at this age that sexuality becomes less important than "sociality," confirming the primacy of man over the biological.

Andrew married Liza when she was 16, and he was 18. Love? No, passion and the subsequent pregnancy of Lisa. A daughter was born. Young difficult to build relationships, and if it were not for Lisa's mother, who helped her daughter and helped her in the household, they would not have lived together for so long. Their daughter got married when Andrei was 38. And he suddenly realized that Lisa was a completely different woman for him. And 20 years of their life, the relationship was held on quarrels, reconciliation, sex, subsequent quarrels ... And they simply have nothing to talk about. Liza is interested in TV shows and girlfriends. He - books and deep films. Andrei left from Lisa, but not to another woman. He said: "I'm going to my room."

And it is true. In this period, it is more important than ever to find yourself, to discover, to learn how to recognize a stranger at a meeting, realizing that this is an old friend. The pursuit, the fuss of the first half of life has already borne fruit. Now it is important to save the harvest. Some still have time to sow the field a second time, others do not take risks. But everyone begins to discover new opportunities. What seems like a loss - growing up of children, reducing activity, increasing interest in one's inner world as opposed to social activity - turns out to be an important resource. We gain maturity and wisdom, we learn to forgive close people and break up relationships with those who are not willing to waste time.

It is the aggravated sense of the changed time that is the sign that you have passed through this crisis. In the story "My Little Pony," Stephen King describes the aging process as a feeling of speeding up time. Slowly stretching, endless lessons at school characterize the beginning of life, the delightful fullness of time - the years of adolescence, when we live in harmony with reality. But over the years someone jokes over us and accelerates the hands of our watches, and time rushes, and it's getting smaller ...

And, maybe, all those people who are now at the very top or just started their descent, will be able to stop and think about themselves, about life, about their loved ones ... And, without delay, tomorrow they will live today, now. To love, suffer, do what you dreamed about, argue and put up, give birth and raise children, write pictures and music, learn to drive ... Because inaction, which they try to justify by waiting, is time stolen from life. This is life, shortened by own hands.