Believe you me, it's a real thing. When I went through mine 13 years ago, it nearly cost me my marriage. I never thought my wife and I would go through any of the events that transpired. I had many preacher friends of mine tell me that it was just sin in my life, but, when it came their time to experience these same things, many of them succumbed, and ended up out of the ministry, divorced, and are now paying alimony and child support. They thought they were above a true physical change...Now they know differently.
My bride and I nearly divorced in 2009. there was a lot going on in both of our lives. Our church had decided to split...another church split, and it was just too much for both of us. We've been through many during our time together, and we were on the side that wanted to serve the Lord...Yet, within three months of splitting, the side that wanted to stay conservative had started to drift into all kinds of error. We were asked to explain our reasoning on why we didn't agree with the pastor's positions, and we did, showing the church how the Bible had directed us to go certain ways in certain areas. They decided to disregard the Bible and to listen to some heretical teachings of men who were "name it, claim it," and "your best life now," type of preachers. That split ended up yielding two churches that died out. My wife and I worked things out with help from Christian friends and several family members. I turned 60 in May, and she turned 59 in October. We started dating 39 years ago on December 16, 1983. Our first date was Christmas caroling with the South Augusta Baptist Churche's college and career class. We've been married 39 years this coming May.
, for my 2 cents, there is variability to the extent of this phenomenon but it certainly is real. People often take stock of their lives at certain stages and react accordingly, and some overreact, which leads to behavior that justifies the description “mid life crisis”. Maybe put another way, it is clearly a reflection in some peoples lives of their consideration of their own mortality and trying to desperately live their fleeting heretofore unfulfilled dreams.
I can agree with some of this. I also know that there are chemical changes in the brain and body that contribute to this phenomenon. In my case, I know that my thyroid, testosterone, and other chemical changes took place. They were carefully documented by Vanderbilt and my doctor. That was the strangest time I could recall since my teen years.Lots of opinions and you know what they say about those
No disagreement whatsoever that biochemical variables can cause behavioral change. Admittedly I hadn’t heard of that sort of phenomenon being responsible for what we call midlife crises. So the percentage of which of those factors (biological vs psychological) would be an interesting thing to know.
Two quick caveats before posting this link, first, we know that correlation does not equal causation and secondly I am very leery of soft sciences like social science and psychology with the manner in which they draw conclusions from statistics and such. Having said that, this article does have some musings about the brain and changes that we go through biochemically, which may affect behavior in midlife demographics….
you might be the youngster among the men on the forum.... . but if you are 42 then you are several years older than me.... but then i don;t fit the profile or the gender of someone at risk for a mid-life crisis either...
....however i do know a little bit about the male malady known as midlife crisis - from the perspective of someone who has to endure the obnoxious behavior of men in public.. and also on the internet.. who were suffering those issues... and handling them very badly... 
..i think it;s a different world today... ..from what i have seen most older men now days have hair longer than what younger ones have.... and tend to be far less concerned with how it looks ......they only become aware of it when it gets in their way... ..and in fact with pretty much everything in their lives.. even the cars they drive... they come off as more concerned with getting a job done than they do with fitting in to the popular culture... though unsettling changes occur in all of us as we get older - i think most don;t actually go through a midlife "crisis" so to speak.... or if they do they handle it in ways to where nobody notices.....
I didn’t forget about you…I was just focusing on the male midlife crisis.
I did actually mention in another post about women going through a similar experience when they begin going through “the change.” That, by the way, might be even worse than what men go through. I’ve seen firsthand it happen to my mom and even to a minor degree the beginning stages with my wife. It’s a very real thing.
We are all different and I’m sure there is truth to the mid-life crisis period but I don’t think I ever went through one. Im only 72, so maybe I’ll face it in the future.
. I was startin' to sweat it out