A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Howard Mcllveen is a chaplain at three long-term care facilities in the Vancouver, B.C. area.
Recently my wife and I sat in a meeting beside an old friend. She has three children. She told us that that very day her husband of ten years was moving out, not because of another woman but just because he “couldn’t take it anymore.” Both are Christians. Both are active in the church. I asked, already knowing, how old he was. She informed us that he had just turned forty.
Women go through a mid-life phase that is inevitable, although there is an enormous range of experience in it. It is hormonal and chemical. The “problem” is not nearly so easy to identify or localize for men. Added to this is the fact that men cannot or do not talk about stress and distress as easily as women. In that respect, we are the weaker sex.
Actually, a man may experience a number of crises over a number of middle years — one expert says from 35 to 55 years of age. Some may experience one critical period and some may sail through those years without a whimper. Here are some key areas of crisis.
Work
A man may achieve what he has wanted to and yet find himself unsatisfied. More men will realize that they will never realize their dreams and may see themselves fated to spend twenty more years in a work world that is passing them by. They become increasingly conscious of younger men and women with much more energy, more talent and more training. Insecurity can grow like wildfire. Many men change careers. Others want to drop out of the work rat race altogether.
Marriage and Sexuality
This can be a time of marital strain. In the face of steadily accumulating pressure a man may simply decide to get out of it. There are similarities between a mid-life man and an adolescent. However, a big difference is that with the man, there are many other people’s futures hanging on the choices he makes. It is a time when a man may “have one last fling” sexually or leave his wife for another woman, especially a younger one. King David was a midlife man that fateful late afternoon when he walked on the roof of his house and saw Bathsheba bathing.
Physical Energy
Someone has said, “We spend the first quarter of our lives growing up, and the rest running down.” We begin to recognize energy loss, muscle tone diminishing, the loss of hair and the redistribution of weight downwards in the trunk of our bodies. One also is jolted by sudden heart attacks that happen to peers. There is a temptation to think of oneself as a has-been.
Spirituality
As is true in any breaking-up period, a man may decide “to put God aside”; conversely, he may decide to seek God. This can be a ripe time for the right kind of evangelism.
Here are some preliminary strategies and encouragements.
- Men, cultivate friendship with one or two other males with whom you can increasingly share yourself, including your problems. Resist the temptation to appear to be self-sufficient. The landscape is littered with men who have ended up making far-reaching and sometimes silly decisions, in total isolation from wise, responsible male friends.
- Wives and families, be sensitive to the pressures and changes that your husband or father is going through. Be understanding but not indulgent. Find a balance between nurturing and holding the man responsible.
- Recognize that adults keep developing. If you hang on, you’ll get through this stage, too, and be the richer for it.
- God is a God of covenant faithfulness. That has tremendous implications for us when we are experiencing uncertainty, doubt, frustration and a sense of failure. God does not give up on us. It’s a wild and wonderful truth. He stays steady in love for us. Not only can this stabilize us, securing us in him during transition stages, it can steady us as we relate to others. God’s covenant faithfulness has a great bearing on our covenant faithfulness in marriage and in the church.
- The Lord is a Master of creative possibilities. Einstein reputedly said, “God doesn’t play dice,” referring to the fact that life is not just a game of chance. We could say in contrast, “God does play chess.” The essence of chess or bridge strategy is to look beyond the immediate challenge to the multitude of options that are open beyond.
The God who raised Jesus from the dead has enormous possibilities for us (whether we are 35, 45 or 65) “according to the power that is in us.” Mid-life is not the end of those possibilities. The most significant of our contributions may still be ahead of us.