New Perspective
For the first time ever, I wasn't ready to leave the year. Normally I'm all about ringing in the New Year and letting go of the old. But not this year. I didn't realize it until last night. I wasn't ready to let go of 2024. Why? Because in 2024 I was still married, and in 2024 my mom was still alive. But I am ok and today is a new day!
Life is 50/50 meaning only 50% of the time you are supposed to be happy. (I have a blog post talking about that). I have learned to deal with my emotions during my husband's midlife crisis. Yes I was a little sad last night. But they are just emotions. They last 30 seconds if you really just sit with them. And once you acknowledge them, and allow them -they go away. It really is that simple but allowing an emotion is a skill that you have to learn and practice. (How to allow an emotion - is something I teach in my program).
However, most of us spend so much of our time resisting and avoiding dealing with our emotions, but they are just our feelings. They can't hurt us. Feeling a feeling doesn't hurt us. We think it will - so we do everything in our power to avoid them. Often we use buffering- eating, drinking, shopping, Netflix etc to escape them.
This is what your husband is doing in MLC. Only on a bigger level. He doesn't know how to feel his emotions, so he buffers - big time. He's trying to make himself feel better from the outside. New clothes, drinking, gambling, working out, running away, getting an affair partner - those are all his ways to avoid the emotional turmoil bubbling up and exploding in his mind.
After talking to so many of you this week, it's no wonder your husbands are going through a crisis - the amount of childhood trauma, death of a parent, deaths of friends, diagnosis of a terminal illness - it's staggering. And so much of their childhood trauma we don't really even know about - because they never told us. Eventually if you push all that trauma down and you don't deal with it, it bubbles up in midlife.
We naturally avoid any negative emotion because of how it feels. That's what your husband is doing- resisting, avoiding. It's hard to be happy when your mind is filled with all that negative clutter. That's why he's monstering as well. He doesn't know how to handle it all.
Once you open your eyes and see mlc from a different perspective, it really is fascinating and interesting. It would just be nice if it weren't "our" life and would be better if it were someone else's. But rise above from the crisis - get out of it, look down on it with a new perspective. Your husband isn't doing this to you "on purpose," he just doesn't know what else to do. He thinks you are the problem because it's easier to blame someone else, than look inward. But down deep he knows it's not you. Once you realize that, your life starts to get better.
This is a new year.
What will you make it mean? It's up to you!
For me it's going to be an amazing year. I don't let his mlc determine my happiness anymore. Yes I had some moments last night but they were moments. I'm on the other side now.
More ways on how to handle his crisis coming soon. (My program opens in a few weeks, get on my mailing list so you’ll be one of the first ones to know!)
With love and many many hugs,
Amy