It’s not always going to be possible to tell if a Midlife Transition is also a Midlife Crisis in the beginning. First, Midlife Crisis is a Midlife Transition—but not all MLTs are MLCs—just like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Some of the things that make a Midlife Crisis a crisis could be present in a general MLT.
Midlife Transition
Midlife Transition is a typical transition of life that, supposing we live long enough, we all experience—even if we don’t notice.
Some changes happen to us—internally and externally:
- Menopause or Andropause
- Empty Nest
- Parents (Aunts, Uncles…) aging and needing more assistance
- Becoming Grandparents
- Acts of God/Weather Disaster
- Physical/Aging issues
Some changes may be chosen:
- Career changes—starting, returning, advancing, forced out, retirement…
- Moving—new dream home, new community…
- More kids—some friends raised their kids and just finalized the adoption of 5 (all siblings) from foster care!
- Lifestyle Physical/Aging Issues
Some changes could be both chosen and external:
- Relationship struggles
Infidelity, divorce and other problems aren’t exclusive to MLC
If you google Midlife Transition, the search will bring up Midlife Crisis. I googled Midlife Transition symptoms and the search basically replaced transition with crisis and even when it didn’t, the topics focused a lot on anxiety and depression during midlife! This shows the bias that we expect a transition at midlife to be negative. And sure, it can be challenging, it can be a dip in life satisfaction or it can be the opposite, but that’s not talked about so much. Though for our purposes here, we do need to give more consideration to the non-crisis MLTs that are about a dip in life-satisfaction since it’s those that may be close to tipping toward MLC. It is, afterall, just a spectrum, so where does it tip into being a crisis?
The orange zone of the spectrum shown below is the joyfully embraced transition. If you’re wondering if your spouse’s Midlife Transition is a crisis, they’re not in the orange zone; they’re somewhere in the middle—though Midlife Crisis gets worse, so they may seem more mild and then leave your doubts behind as they blast into worsening horrors of Midlife Crisis.
Midlife Crisis (my definition)
A normal life event—midlife transition—that has escalated to crisis levels of emotional and mental turmoil. Denial and attempts to avoid the transition yield crisis which manifests through avoidance, regression and depression and in the context of a marriage often includes infidelity, separation and eventually divorce. MLCers react overtly with outward destruction; whether intentional or not, an MLCer hurts other people in significant ways.
Key Points
- Denial and avoidance. MLCers deny they are in crisis, deny they are wrong, at fault, aging… MLCers avoid attempts to make the breaking relationship better—even those who acknowledge they’re the problem—it’s not you, it’s me.
Of course, depression and anxiety can be present when it’s not an MLC and these can be methods of avoidance. In non-crisis or crisis transitions, depression can be an attempt to maintain emotional safety by avoiding facing the stuff in the Shadow that they’re afraid of. - MLCers react overtly with outward destruction. That’s a key difference. Midlife Crisis is a relationship destroyer. It’s not simply that relationships end, but that there’s damage. Relationships may end or change during a midlife transition and such endings may be painful, but the destruction from a crisis is often traumatic and more damaging.
Time and Insight
The lack of insight and the resistance to becoming insightful is a key indicator for MLC. But it’s also not uncommon for someone to initially be resistant to facing their own issues and being accountable—so look at the amount of time a person takes in their resistance. Midlife Crisis is three to upwards of seven years, with a few years of that spent in Escape & Avoid—the stage in which they run away from facing the mirror. But what if it seems to only take 18 months?
OR what if they just don’t seem as severe—those of you with Low-Energy Wallowers may feel this way. My husabnd Chuck was a High-Energy Replayer and I felt this way too–because as a Clinging Boomerang he came home multiple times and his need for reassurance from me meant he projected less blame on me and didn’t demonize me. During his crisis and even still today I have to remind myself of the soap-opera-level insanity that was his MLC.
How do you know if it’s a not-quite-crisis Midlife Transition or a full Midlife Crisis? If Bomb Drop was recent, your spouse’s cycling may fool you because it may seem they’re changing their mind, maybe thinking clearly, trying to make amends… But MLCers often cycle quickly—some have the attention span of a fruit fly, others may have longer cycles, but typically even those are relatively short—weeks, not months. Does that mean that it’s not MLC if they change back into who they were—or improve forward—for months?
Ahem, here’s where it gets tricky. It is not uncommon for an MLCer who seems to have a short MLC—a few months to even a couple of years—to go back in years later to finish the crisis and the MLC at that later time (often a large span like 10 years) is often worse. Was the first instance a not-quite-crisis? Not necessarily. I refer to it as the MLCer being yanked out the front of the MLC tunnel. They didn’t finish their development and reintegrate. But what if it was a not-quite-crisis and they really did make it through their full transition? Basically, how do you know they aren’t going to have a full MLC in another 10 years?
Well, technically you don’t—sorry. But there are indicators. Take note, I’ve included some end-of-MLC indicators for those who may try to return—so if it’s been 6 years and thus you know this Midlife Transition was a full-blown crisis, these may indicate an MLCer is exiting or has exited the MLC tunnel.
Empathy or a Return of Empathy
- Insight
There’s a connection between the capacity for empathy and the ability to self-reflect. Does your spouse have the ability and willingness to face the mirror and accept who they are along with embracing their desired changes?
For exiting MLCers, are they able to see, understand and accept the behaviors that have gone along with who they have been—the damage committed by the MLC Monster? Do they have some insight into what they were avoiding, why and how to accept themselves? - Communication
Will or is your spouse now opening up to you more about how they’re feeling. Do they feel more secure within their fears so that they can share with you or confide in you?
If they were depressed, they may have withdrawn—physically, mentally, emotionally… They may have turtled in for a while, but a turtle only advances when it sticks its neck out; is your MLCer coming out of their shell? - Willingness to be Accountable
If this willingness is present throughout or early on in the transition, it’s not MLC. Accountability is not only about sins and debts, but also about taking account of one’s life with a clear view—no rose-colored glasses. It can be difficult to be objective, but not impossible!
An exiting MLCer will become willing to be accountable and therapy may be an indicator or a guide into accepting and understanding accountability.
For Exiting MLCers…
- Understanding Recovery
How willing is your spouse to understand the trauma you experienced and your recovery challenges—such as not merely rebuilding trust, but learning to trust again. Betrayal damages your trust in the betrayer, but it also may do significant damage in your ability to trust yourself—to trust in your ability to judge the character of others. - Remorse
Regretting one’s actions is normal and important, but it’s also superficial compared to remorse. Remorse is a deep level of empathy and understanding of one’s personal responsibility in harming others along with empathy for the harm and a desire and compassion to make amends. Remorse is also painful and some may become stuck in the feelings of guilt. - Making Amends
Superficially this just means to put right or correct, but the action of making amends is deeper than simply correcting something because it’s specific to the individual. Amends are an active apology. Did your MLCer return home, talk about being sorry—maybe show they were sorry, but then the two of you sort of just went back to a former comfort… rug sweeping with no or limited therapy? In the situation of spouses and betrayal, making amends requires an intimate knowledge of the partner and their needs in healing—what does the betrayed partner need to feel safer, to extend trust and to feel that their partner is stable—that this isn’t just another cycle?
A Midlife Transition may be without crisis and embraced by everyone, but there are also transitions of self-questioning, loss, confusion and leaving parts of life behind that others want to hold on to. Separation and divorce can be part of a non-crisis transition—whether it is joyfully embraced transition or coincides with or creates a dip in life satisfaction. Given that a hallmark of Midlife Crisis is acting with outward destruction, those not-quite-crisis transitions that include marital challenges should still have greater chance at reconciliation. That’s not a statement from research and I have no statistics to back it up; it’s just an assumption based on what I think is logic.