Men, Middle-Age, And Marriage

“I don’t know you anymore.”

Since the inception of the modern age, this phrase has meant the beginning of the end for many marriages. In this article regarding menopause and divorce, I offered a real life example of a time when a husband said these words to his wife. I discussed how “The Change” can cause much more than the simple shutdown of the female reproductive system, and how those changes often lead to divorce.

But it takes two to Tango; or, in this case, two to ruin what used to be a wonderful relationship.

Man-o-pause is real.

All right, so to an extent, the effects of dropping testosterone levels in men aren’t nearly what they are for women. As it tends to do, the natural health world has exaggerated the incidence and ramifications of the male side of things.

Nevertheless, the drop does happen, and in some men, testosterone levels drop to the extent that they experience mood swings, fatigue, muscle loss, hot flashes, and/or the dreaded erectile dysfunction. They may even, as a consequence, develop estrogen dominance, which can exacerbate and add to the variety of unwanted physical and psychological problems. Just as low estrogen and progesterone levels in women can cause a skewed perspective on life, so can low testosterone levels in men.

Even if those levels are within the normal range, medically speaking, a guy can still feel the physiological shift. And regardless of testosterone, no one can argue that between the ages of forty and fifty, men begin to experience the aging process, which can lead to both physical discomforts and emotional issues.

Therefore, while middle-aged husbands need to have some understanding and empathy toward the difficulties their middle-aged wives are going through, so do the wives toward their husbands. If you’re a man experiencing symptoms such as those I mentioned above, I encourage you to research how you might remedy the situation. Either way, I beg both husband and wife who have hit the particular time of life in question not to give up on each other.

Let’s talk about how and why.

How to train the (middle-age) dragon

How To Train Your Dragon has to be my favorite movie of all time. Yes, even before Forrest Gump, the previous winner. In the movie, dragon-fighter-in-training Hiccup encounters one of the rarest dragons known to the Viking clan of which he is a part. Instead of killing the Night Fury, he becomes the dragon-whisperer, studying Toothless (as he names his new friend) to learn what the dragon likes and hates, and how to be its friend.

Menopause can turn a previously mellow, kind woman into a dragon. Same for men experiencing a drop in testosterone. Hormonal changes affect brain chemistry, and that can turn you into a wild creature who constantly reacts with instinctive fear to the slightest of threats, whether real or imagined. Or it can turn a previously active, fun-loving person into a depressed couch potato.

Such changes can precipitate the frustration-born observation, “I don’t know you anymore,” which can precipitate the end of a marriage.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Instead, the frustrated spouse in question can choose gentle communication. They can choose to ask, with genuine love and care, how they can help their partner. They can choose to surreptitiously and carefully study their unhappy spouse to figure out what activities or rituals or words now ground them and bring them a sense of calm and balance. They can choose, together with their spouse, to research ways to conquer the root problem, the low hormone levels, the messed-up brain chemistry.

But, it’s not always about hormones.

In my last blog post, I revealed that a memoir audiobook inspired my thoughts about menopause and divorce. Having now completed listening to the memoir, I know that while perimenopause might have been at the root of the struggles of the author, her husband’s struggles may have had another cause.

Basically, he’d been fed a lie about the place where he, his wife, and their young daughter went to live on the other side of the globe. The owners of the private school who’d hired him to teach in a jungle had deceived not only him, but also all the other teachers. Long story short, the author’s husband became physically and psychologically exhausted within a relatively short period of time. The situation was nothing like the panacea of education they’d been told it would be.

And so, for a time, the husband took his frustrations out on his wife. It was an easy cop-out because of how she’d been behaving for months before they made the move. Toward the end of the memoir, he admits as much. When you’re feeling beat down every day, it’s next to impossible to have the right perspective on anything. Easy to cast the blame on other people.

And this is where a lot of marriages that might have otherwise gone on, end.

A third reason I believe a lot of marriages end when the couple is between the ages of forty and fifty: people change. Not completely. But over the period of twenty years, a person is going to develop different goals, create a bucket list, change religions, quit religion, try a new career, become more passionate about a certain issue, and so on. The way each person changes is as unique as each individual. And if a spouse changes in a particular way that competes with or clashes against how the other half of the couple has changed – or not changed – this can cause conflict.

Many couples decide that a no-fault divorce is in order in such cases, but that’s not the case. A couple can stay married, have a strong marriage, despite differences that crop up between them.

How? The answer is simple, but not easy.

Commitment.

I’m not talking about sticking with an abuser or adulterer. I’m talking about the typical struggles of life that bring people down, as well as the changing I just discussed. None of it has to signal the end of a marriage. In fact, sticking to the person you made vows to could end up being by far the better option. Why?

Working through hard times forces you to grow. 

It also brings you closer to the person you’re taking the life journey with. Working through the challenges of marriage might actually help you become a much better person than you would have had you just thrown in the towel.

Communicate. Express what you’re feeling, your concerns. Ask what your spouse is feeling, their concerns. Talk and think and talk some more until you both have come upon a plan of action to improve things.

If it’s about change, compromise will be in order. Say she loves to travel, but he’s a homebody. Maybe they agree that twice a year, he’ll go on a short trip with her, but once or twice a year she can take a longer trip by herself.

Focus on and nurture those things you still have in common.

My mother was born, raised, and remains, in her late eighties, Democrat. Her second late husband was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.

BUT. They were both Catholic.

So. They talked about spiritual things, and mostly left political things alone. They had other things in common, as well: they were both parents and grandparents. Both had lost their first spouse. They were born and raised in the same general region of the U.S., a mere state apart.

Remember the things you have in common with your spouse. Remember the unchangeable aspects of their core that contributed to your attraction to them in the first place.

Unless your spouse has decided to engage in illicit or morally gray behavior that is simply unconscionable to you, stark differences in dreams, goals, beliefs, and desires do not need to mean the end of a marriage. Neither do emotional struggles. 

The latter are usually temporary, the pain of which can be mitigated when the non-suffering spouse is supportive. If they have an organic cause, they can be treated with diet, supplements, and/or medication.

Commitment. Communication. The ability to accept your spouse where they are on life’s journey. These are the stuff that strong marriages are made of.

The ingredients that divorce-proof any marriage.