I heard rumblings of divorce among couples that I went to school with. Kathy’s husband came home one day and told her he was done. He was sick of mowing the yard every weekend, had already gotten an apartment, and walked out.
Julie’s husband left before we turned 50, I am not sure why, but we heard something about him wanting something new. I remember the shock that came over me. Hadn’t we gotten to that been married a long time and we are all okay point. Apparently not.
I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that my husband was in a midlife crisis. When the kids started leaving home, he felt like he had options. He came to me and said he didn’t want to stay at his job until retirement and needed change. He wanted to move and live near an ocean community.
None of that felt like a midlife crisis at the time, but I was so knee deep in my own crisis that I didn’t notice much of anything. His calm announcement that he needed change turned into a crisis and three years later he would be freaking out on a consistent basis. I started to notice.
During that time, I started a new job as part of a career transition. I was a 48-year-old intern working on my MBA and wasn’t having any fun doing work I could do in my 20’s. I wasn’t enjoying perimenopause, depression, empty nest grief, prolonged sadness, and working in a new industry, and getting these messages:
“I am going to walk out, I am going to quit, I can’t stand this, I need change.”
Years later he explained that he missed the kids too. They wanted excitement and adventure not a trip home to the rural Midwest. He didn’t like it when they weren’t messaging us about their lives and was struggling to get used to a quiet house. This was news to me!
Because what was happening didn’t look like the stereotypical midlife crisis, I didn’t see it as that. I was too broken at the time to do anything but go along with what he wanted. I didn’t have the energy to fight or divorce him because I didn’t like his solution for our lives.
Forward seven years and we are living a new life in an ocean community. It was exactly what we needed for reasons beyond what we could have seen.
There were things we couldn’t understand until we had space from our old lives. We needed time to get used to the many changes happening to us and thankfully gave each other the space to navigate our separate and personal crises.
If life gives you the opportunity to question everything, take it. It is a gift to be kicked off autopilot and given the time and space to create a new plan. If you are knee deep in your own crisis, say hello to the opportunity of a lifetime.
Marcy Pedersen
