Let’s just look at what people do spontaneously to re-invent themselves at midlife. I think it is helpful to have a more specific sense of how this process works for others if you want to try to see how it could work in your own life. It also helps how it causes trouble in relationships.
 
An interesting example of this process is shyness in men. Male shyness is often hidden by high testosterone levels. At midlife, when testosterone drops, a lot more male shyness is visible. Shyness in relationships is a trait in many men. At midlife, however, those habitually shy men may come to feel that there are things that need to be said.
Now if one of these quiet men is in a stable, long-term relationship with a woman, you can imagine how upsetting this sudden drive toward self-assertion might be.

It starts out as an inkling. This man who has been so agreeable might suddenly want a little say-so around here for a change. He might feel that his wife doesn’t understand him, doesn’t draw him out, and isn’t really interested in him. Such a process has upset many long-term relationships.

One man I know had just switched careers. For the first time, he had his own network. For the first time, he has his friends. He’d previously relied on his wife to create a social life. He had been shy. Now, he’d become un-shy.  They began to quarrel more when they went out. He became resentful. He, who once gratefully found her fascinating and charming now found her dominating and self-centered. He, not used to speaking up, couldn’t explain himself. She, not used to drawing him out, couldn’t understand. The marriage ended within a year.

The re-balancing between shy and outgoing can go in either direction, by either sex. Often, it’s the woman who wants to be more outgoing. Often a woman might feel that she has been watching men do certain things for a number of years and, well, "Maybe I’d like to try that out. Maybe I could do this." A woman I interviewed told me the story of how she wanted to do more, but her husband responded to her frustration by doing more and more "for her." She felt patronized. His "help" only made her angry.

Here is poem I found by R. Masten, in Speaking Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 1977)

I have noticed that somewhere around forty
The man comes in from the field
Wearily, he throws his hat on the hook and says,
"You were right, Grace. It ain’t out there!"
And she, with children grown at last
Pulling her coat down from the hook, says,
"The hell it ain’t"
Coming and going they pass in the door way.

If you can see how disturbing these shifts could be in an established relationship and you can imagine how much more so in a relationship that is just trying to find itself.

One reinvents oneself at midlife in stages. At first, there is a Retreat, an exhaustion stage, a running out of gas on the old, outmoded project. Then, in the quiet there is a dawning awareness of important little voices that need to be listened to, inklings. I would call this an Awakening stage. Then there is a stage in which the person makes a strong commitment to discovering the new possibilities within, along with a Commitment to a New Self.

Discovering these new possibilities is a trial and error process. A lot of it involves listening to your inklings. The parts of yourself you want to claim at midlife are often stashed in some dark corner of the basement in unlabeled boxes along with your high school year books, and bell bottom pants and old vinyl recordings. Sometimes what you are looking for isn’t all that clear, more like a vague itch.

This uncertainty can look like pathology in midlife dating. I’ve had clients complain, "I don’t know what she wants. Why doesn’t she just come clean and tell me what is going on. Why is she torturing me?" The answer to this man is this: "She doesn’t really know herself. There is no coming clean. If there is a secret, it’s as hidden from her as it is from you. She really is making this up as she goes along. She is improvising a new Self."

There is an end to this making-it-up process. At the end of the midlife change there is a new steadiness, a kind of Wise Maturity.

Retreat. Awakening. Commitment. Wise Maturity. Each of these stages of the midlife change will interact with the stages of dating.

Go To Part II...

Dr. Phillip Belove EdD, is a psychologist with a focus on family and marriage.  He’s also a workshop leader, a university lecturer in courses in communication and a mid-life man who’s learned a thing or two the hard way.  For more information on midlife dating and relationships, please visit his site:  www.datingatmidlife.com.