When I look back at the Mr. & Mrs. Series, I find that the relationship between the husband and the wife remained awake until somewhere near the late 30s. Post that, it was more about life’s influence on the relationship rather than the relationship itself. Kids, finance, career, health – they’ve had enough come between them that the very little attention they could give to each other’s lives wasn’t fair on life’s part. Perhaps, what started with blazing love and lust is now somewhere in the corner of their everyday lives, forgotten and dumped into the multitude of life demands. Yeah, you both have traveled together almost half a century now, weary of making both ends meet; of the very many commitments and the ceaseless chores day in and day out. Marriage, family, and kids are as stressful as stress-busters they are, aren’t they?
At this stage, there can be three kinds of couples. One, both the partners are tired of each other, of the constant disagreements and intolerance of living with each other. Second, the happy ones find comfort and support in each other no matter what life demands from them, and third, one of the partners is a happy soul while the other has been sat upon by the happy soul, over the years. And of course, we don’t remain the same kind of people we were a few years ago. We keep changing and so are our relationships. Said that our relationships can be different on different days, neither a tiring one always nor a happy one all the time. But, if we should generalize, this is how one can anticipate.
You’ve had hopes, you tried pursuing, you fared in some and you failed in some and you are at a stage in life when you feel the most desperate of life and future. If your career and economy are stable by now, there could be some comfort in life though it cannot speak for everything else, especially relationships. According to an interesting scientific report by Business Insider, there’s something prominent about each of our life ages. The report above points to what we peak at during the different ages, spanning 90 years. In our relationship series, we are nearing our 50s as a couple and strangely after having lived with our partners for a quarter century, it is now that our brains are the most powerful in understanding human emotions. When your husband hangs out with his friends for a drink or when your son dates his girlfriend or when your wife whines about her knee pain, you are more mature now to understand that each of us has different wants in life and that we have to work out our individual karma. That pertains to you as well – you are at your best in understanding your own emotions now which can perhaps leave you in disquietude because you finally realize that you are and will always be a one-man army in this short drama of life. After all, your spouse is only a co-pilot in your life and you still need to take control when you are in the cockpit.
Your children could be of marriageable age now, giving you new lessons with the way they carry their romantic relationships. Your face and body may look different from how they were twenty years ago and you understand that you are aging. You could be in your menopausal stage which could churn a lot of emotional drama out of you. You might come to think of what your life’s purpose is. You might want to step a little into spirituality. Depending upon where you stand in your evolution, you go through experiences that give you a chance to forgive and move from bad pasts and get rid of competitiveness with others. In short, you are at the bottommost edge of life’s U curve.
Don’t be surprised if your partner is there but nowhere in your life now!
Image Courtesy
Life at 50 – Business Insider
Other posts in the series:
The Mr. & The Mrs. – The Evolution
A for Attraction – Why we fall in for Who we fall in?
B for Butterflies – The Stage is all Set!
C for Commitment – Stepping Across the First Line of Control
D for Dating – The Fairy Tale Begins…
E for Expose – Here enters the Family
F for Farewell – Goodbye Brahmacharyam!
G for Grihastha – The Mr. & the Mrs.
H for Honeymoon – The Happily Ever After
I for I Openings – Welcome to Reality
K for Kids – No longer the Husband & the Wife
L for Lost – The Lost Art of Making Love
M for Midlife Reflections – Is he/she the right partner for you?
N for Nesting – Coming to terms…..at 40