Excerpt from Urban Dystrophy [the book] on what Midlife Crisis Looks Like from the Inside

“I’m sitting at a white plastic table in front of a wine bar. It’s one o’clock on a Tuesday morning and an empty parking lot is the only landscape.

The streets are deserted.

Most guys my age are asleep. Their time came and went, and they let go in that unconscious way most men do when their stories have been told and the end is a long, drawn-out epitaph.

But, I stayed behind, along with the rest of the itinerants of the night.

I have no place to go that I haven’t already been, and nothing to do but wait and hope and sometimes pray for mercy that relevance and that one big love will one day redeem me, but it never does. Not really.

We’re beyond salvation. Most of us.

There have been exceptions, but the grace is never a hundred percent and you have to make peace with that the best you can.

We’re members of the bitten, the damned, the fighters against the forces of time until we no longer can.

Most of us are children of narcissists, narcissists who never died because narcissists never do—they’re just recycled and the kids are left to clean up the mess.

I wonder where all the time went. Time is all I have left to make a final stand.

I remember my first midlife crisis at 28. The rest is a blur.”

~~~

The “buzzword” for most men I know is relevance.

To my late father, it meant carrying a business card with his name on it next to “Chairman and CEO.”

This gave him relevance no matter what else happened to be going on in his life.

Symbols like these are the quintessential calling cards that legitimize driven, proud men.

It’s otherwise known as a good “back story” every man needs to get the right party invitations.

I inherited this “gene,” if you will, and continue to struggle with what it means to feel a viable part of a world I’ve already traversed a thousand times.

Aging rockers continue to tour long after the songs have been written and the money’s in the bank. They don’t know what else to do with themselves, and more importantly, the limelight is better than no light at all.

Movie producers keep producing movies because they want to feel like they have more stories to tell, that there’s still juice in the tank…that they’re still viable.

I even heard a guy in Aspen say that no matter how much money he had to throw around during ski season, he still felt invisible:

“Hell, $200 mil is a drop in the bucket for a lot of these people. I can’t win.”

What he was saying was that he felt invisible in a world where money and power and influence and connections are the sole determinants of human value.

Sadly, for many men this is the fuel that keeps the soul alive.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t exclude myself from any of this.

Why are Middle-Aged Men Committing Suicide in Record Numbers?

In 2013, 78 per cent of the 6,233 suicides registered in the UK were men. That’s a rate of 19 deaths per 100,000 population.

That more men take their own lives than women is not new. But in 1981 the men’s total was only about double, or just under, the women’s.

Now it’s nearly four times as many.

Since 2007, in fact, baby boomers have had the highest rate of suicide of any age group in the United States.

Historically, people between the ages of 40 and 64 have had one of the lowest rates.

To complicate matters, baby boomers are now sliding into the over-65 demographic, an age group that historically has had one of the highest suicide rates.

Making matters worse, suicides among middle-aged men with mental health issues have soared by 73% since 2006, which may be attributed to a combination of alcohol, job loss and debt, as compiled by the University of Manchester’s National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness.

Oh boy. Want more?

“Our findings show that within mental health care, middle-aged men are particularly at risk,” said Prof Louis Appleby, the director of NCISH who was formerly the government’s mental health tsar and leads the national suicide prevention strategy. “The problem is not simply that they don’t seek help – they are already under mental health care – so we have to understand better the stresses men in this age group face.”

How about this?

More men in the UK have died by suicide in the past year than all British soldiers fighting in all wars since 1945.

I’m neither a Sociologist or Psychiatrist. In fact, my only authority in this area is interpersonal exchange and an open heart, for which I have earned several Doctoral Degrees.

Men my age and socioeconomic niche are, generally speaking, over-achievers. They made their “piles” working hard, passionately over many years.

Many have been married and divorced a few times over.

The majority have children somewhere.

Now they’re smack in the middle of the Baby Boom generation, with nowhere to go and nothing to do that they haven’t already been done a thousand times before.

Only this time around, they’re older – a lot older – with far less time to enjoy life the way they did when the journey started.

It’s a small window of opportunity in which to reinvent oneself before everything becomes a hobble along a windswept beach on the edge of oblivion.

With this as a backdrop, here are my 5 top reasons middle-aged men off themselves:

1] Loneliness

Heterosexual men in mid-life are dependent primarily on female partners for emotional support.

One reason for this is that they’ve never explored anything beyond sports stats with their “friends.”

Women, on the other hand, maintain their independent relationships throughout life – divorce notwithstanding – which is one reason they outlive us.

To wit, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts were three times higher among divorced men, and two times higher among separated men compared to married.

This is the quintessential dichotomy about men: While we love sex, we love relationships more.

2]Reluctance to seek help

Professor Shirley Reynolds, from Reading University, said one of the reasons for the rise in suicides is the fact only around ’15 per cent of men with depression and anxiety seek help’.

Most men my age practice intimacy-avoidance. They’d rather swallow a pack of Gillette straight razors than open up about clinical depression.

For one thing, depression is not manly. Men don’t suffer depression unless it’s tied to warfare, in which case it’s called PTSD, an acceptable acronym.

Anything else is an indication that you’re either gay and in denial, or didn’t get into enough fistfights when you were a kid.

In either case, you’re screwed in the eyes of middle-aged frat boys who are themselves gay, and in denial.

3] Money

Okay, I know a few people who put bullets in their heads when the market crashed in 2008.

Not having any money after have a shit-ton of it sucks more than just about anything else, excluding colon cancer, which is a close second.

You lose your house, your cars, your vacations…and usually, your wife.

So now you have nothing at age “60” and have no interest in starting over at Dairy Queen.

I get it. Use the gun. 30 years mopping floors or flipping burgers just isn’t worth it.

Plus you’ll never get laid again as long as you do happen to live.

4] Feminism

Many men bought into the notion that marrying super-achiever women – the ones who handle all of the traditionally male responsibilities – was a novel idea…until the women in question left them for real men who could buy and sell them a thousand times, which earned their respect.

It’s been my experience that women want men to be men in the traditional sense no matter what they say to the contrary. I’m not talking about some archaic master-servant relationship, but one where the man is clearly the head of the household everyone look up to.

But these days older men are caught in a cross-fire of conflicting expectations about what it means to be a man. This usually means that when things go South, they don’t have the coping skills to handle the downward spiral.

The bottom line here is that men should take care of themselves first – and everyone else – second.

5] Irrelevance

Okay, so your career is winding down, the kids are out of the house, and your ex-wife is a colossal bitch. What the hell are you going to do with yourself? You already proved to the world that you could become CEO of some star-up and make a pile of money.

Now what?

That job is done, but when people ask you what the hell you’re doing with yourself, you have nothing to say. This means you’re only as good as your last performance – which, by the way, was 10 years ago. Not good. Very bad, in fact. Particularly at society cocktail functions.

Men are inextricably tied to what they do professionally, so if you’re not doing what you were once doing, then what the hell are you doing?

Men need an answer.

If they don’t have one, they dwell on what to say to people.

This often leads to introspection, as in the meaning of life kind of crap and then hookers, drugs and a shotgun blast to silence the noise.

Believe me, older men need a good back story to survive. Otherwise, the only thing anyone will be interested in is conning them out of whatever money they happen to have left over from their glory days.

SUMMARY

Getting older sucks. The best you can hope for is money in the bank, good health, and a competent psychiatrist.

Note that money was the first on my list of must-haves because without it you’re probably better off dead.

How else are you going to afford the psychiatrist?

~~~

For more information, here’s a good article on depression in older men:

http://www.fiftyisthenewfifty.com/mid-life-crisis-depression-or-both/

Self-Acceptance the Antidote for Existential Annihilation.

Striped_bodysuit_for_Aladdin_Sane_tour_1973_

You can’t please everyone.

THE GOOD NEWS: Accept yourself for who you are and it won’t matter.

~~~

Children seek the approval of their parents, while adolescents seek the approval off their peers.

Down the road we all seek the approval of our employers and/or clients if we want to keep our jobs.

But what happens to adults who rely solely on parental approval?

Why do we care?

Because on a certain level, all of us want to feel secure, both physically and emotionally.

But external affirmation is a slippery slope, keeping us in a state of emotional vulnerability.

We never grow up.

We’re frozen in time and space where nothing changes.

Eventually, we morph into facsimiles of our parents. We become clones, if you will.

The person inside never climbs out from the shadows, and for all intents and purposes, they die.

Just another seamless line of wallpaper on an endless wall.

The greatest achievers of our time set out on missions to accomplish certain objectives that were important to them, not to anyone else.

This is particularly true of writers, musicians, actors, entertainers of all kinds, where parents looked upon their life choices with disdain.

The classic case is the parent who wants their kid to carry the torch for the family business, but he or she decides instead to pursue science, research…or the culinary arts?

If that child – and all others – were trapped in the cycle of “parental approval” humanity world would be bled white of its individuality.

Does anyone think that great art comes from a parents pat on the back?

Hardly.

That only happens after they’re successful, then they’re praised in exchange for a house in a better neighborhood.

All I can say for men my age who didn’t have the courage to be themselves is I’m sorry.

I’m sorry you’re depressed that life wasn’t the rose garden you imagined.

I’m sorry you have nothing to say for yourself other than you were an obedient son, an obedient adult.

Now you know why no one respects you, including you.

The true blessing of children is their individuality, which should be embraced above all else.

Of course, if they start killing the neighborhood cats, I might suggest boundaries that have nothing whatsoever to do with their interests.

For everyone else, gay or straight, painter or attorney, your life is yours to live as you see fit.

In the end, we’ll all be better off for it.

Godspeed.

Clear and Present Signs of Exercise Addiction in Older Men [and women]

I know a few older men [and women] who would rather die than miss a workout.

This is because missing a workout is worse than death.

http://breakingmuscle.com/sports-psychology/are-you-addicted-to-exercise-the-tell-tale-signs

~~~

There are quite a few exercise-addicted older men with whom I share a gym acquaintance.

It could be argued that I myself am an exercise addict to the extent that I train 6 days a week for 1 hour, sometimes 2, rather than 5 or 6!, which is not uncommon to many.

Most of the men in question are single – always single – principally because there is no room for anything – or anyone – else.

Even pets.

Exercise releases endorphins and the hormone Serotonin, which one tends to get used to – or addicted to – as the case may be.

Eventually the highs take over one’s life and everything else becomes meaningless.

Just ask anyone at AA what it feels like not to have drugs at their disposal.

~~~

John [not his real name] is 58 years of age and prides himself on his ability to run 5 miles before hitting the gym, where he performs hand stand push-ups and double-under jumping jacks to the amazement of everyone around him.

In this sense, he’s his own circus act.

His thin, muscular frame, and gymnastic abilities, earn him the respect and admiration of his peers, which is all he needs to side-step existential pain.

For a little while he can forget about his aging wife, his kids, his financial obligations.

In essence, he becomes someone else.

But eventually he has to go back to the “other” reality.

For some the transition is seamless.

For others, it’s like that classic Twilight Zone episode where the old woman lives through television re-runs of herself as a beautiful young actress, imagining that nothing has changed.

A married man with a family doesn’t have that luxury.

Now visualize a single man with time on his hands, and exercise addiction become a full-blown psychosis.

No wonder I see the same anorexics, bulimics and exercise addicts appear at my gym day after day, year after year; until one day they show up on crutches after a hip replacement – or just disappear altogether.

When people inquire as to their whereabouts, the refrain is always the same:

“They died doing what they loved.”

I guess one could say the same of heroin addicts.

Every addict has an excuse for dying, though they don’t couch it that way.

In the end, there is a razor thin line between exceptional fitness and clinical addiction.

ARE YOU AN EXERCISE ADDICT?

Seven factors are assessed and it’s something for you fitness junkies to consider:

Tolerance: Do you need more and more to achieve the same effects?

Withdrawal: Do you experience increased agitation, fatigue, and tension if you don’t exercise?

Intention Effect: Do you exercise for longer than intended on most trips to the gym?

Lack of Control: Do you have difficulty scaling back the duration and intensity of exercise?

TimeSpent: Do you spend huge amounts of time on fitness related activities?

Reduction of Other Pursuits: Is exercising too much affecting other parts of your life? (social, work, relationships)?

Continuance Despite Injury: Do you train even when you are injured?

Final Notes:

It’s been my experience that all exercise addicts my age would answer yes to all of the above.

Adding fuel to the fire, they “supplement” their fitness regimes with testosterone injections, HGH and anabolic steroids when the effects of aging begin to present.

This helps perpetuate the cycle long after nature fails them.

But longevity isn’t the name of the game in this world.

Escape is.

~~~

A few highlights from the article that all of us who have, at one time or another, crossed the line into exercise addiction know well:

1] We are often sick, injured or depressed.

2] We define our happiness by our bodies and level of fitness.

3] Our relationships suffer [or don’t exist at all]

4] We train like pros, but aren’t [so why?]

Training in proper measure is one of life’s most rewarding [and sensible] choices.

It’s not easy, and it does require major adjustments in lifestyle habits, but it must be balanced against everything else in life.

From personal experience, I can attest to the fact that if you don’t keep an eye on BALANCE, your life will get smaller and smaller and smaller until it’s just you and a bunch of codependent addicts enabling the cycle of addiction as the world passes you by.

Then again, if you can afford to run down the clock without having to worry about friends, family, spouses [or even a dog], we’ll all just do what we always do, which is use you as examples of what exercise addiction looks like, and why therapy is a better alternative.

The Truth About Online Dating at Middle Age

If you think delusion was rampant among adolescents, try this!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-martin/online-dating-profile_b_7524482.html

I talk to older men all the time about their online dating exploits and its never pretty, mostly because the women in question bear no resemblance to the ones in the profiles.

As for older women, they seem to have a better time of it – at least in the short run – because while the men are generally polite and attentive, they tend to disappear after the check’s signed.

So what’s up?

As I enumerate, ad nausea, in my new book, Urban Dystrophy [Amazon], expectations always supersede reality.

The article cites a pet peeves of men, the usual suspects:

1] Too many pets.

2] Photoshopped images.

3] Looking for perfection.

4] Claim to be athletic, but aren’t.

5] Presenting boudoir shots while demanding respect.

6] Complaining about men.

~~~

Let’s break this down:

1] Many women acquire pets when men fail to live up to their expectations.

After enough defeated expectations, many women turn to animals and call it a family.

I’ve dated a few of these, and believe me when I tell you, it’s a nightmare for any man. Not only does he have to deal one manifestation of her PTSD, but he’s also dealing with her “kids.”

So why does she want a man when she already has animals?

2] Photoshopping is a pandemic not unlike the black plague, but with a higher emotional kill rate.

Women Photoshop-to-death virtually every image they post of themselves after the age of 40.

By the time they hit 45, their skin looks like Barbie’s molded rubber face.

Men know all about this, which is why they should demand a driver’s license number and birth certificate.

Women set themselves up for disaster knowing full well that men see with their eyes first before they consider anything else, including everything else.

3] Prince Charming does not exist at this juncture in life.

Now you’re balancing commodities, one against another. If the plus column is bigger than the minus column, consider yourself lucky.

I know it sounds weird, but most men had lives before they met you.

Now they have mortgages, therapy bills and a bipolar ex or two lurking just around the corner.

No matter what they look like, just know that what you see is rarely what you get.

On a final note, they have the same expectations in their heads and are ten times more likely to pay for what they can find on the Internet.

4] “Athletic and toned” is the buzz-phrase for every woman who wants a man, any man.

Here’s a quote on this topic from my new book:

“…a woman who runs five miles a day may think she’s in great shape, in spite of the fact that she doesn’t have great shape. Athletic accomplishments don’t balance emaciation, stretch marks, and sun damage no matter how you spin it.”

I always suggest to women that they ignore what men tell them about how perfect their bodies are, and instead, focus their attention on whether or not the phone rings after the first date.

5] Boudoir shots against a backdrop of “I want a serious relationship” are a contradiction in strategy.

Men see half naked shots as an open invitation to exploit what appears to be an Internet sex addiction, not meet a woman who’s open-minded in the bedroom.

Keep in mind that shots posted on the internet are, in fact, on the internet! Not in a scrapbook! Does any man with a reputation to uphold want those shots of you all over cyberspace?

6] Bitching about men is like telling everyone your best days are behind you.

We’ve all had bad break-ups, crappy dates, defeated expectations.

But any kid will tell you that the one thing that reveals a person’s age more than anything else is the constant bitching.

Young people don’t bitch because they’re young. Old people do bitch because they’re old.

Got it?

Bottom line, nobody wants to inherit your toxic waste anymore than they want to care for your parakeets.

SUMMARY

Older men already know that older women who post online profiles are probably in deep water.

When a woman is in her early 30’s its fine because many are steeped in their careers and have little time to meet and mingle.

But once a woman hits her mid 40’s, think of it as a suspect line-up.

This is why the best policy for older women trawling the internet for dates is as follows:

1] State your age [fudging 1 or 2 years is fine. 10 should constitute a class-1 felony.

2] State your education, including degrees from online institutions.

3] State any clinical diagnosis, including personality disorders.

4] State the number of marriages that have failed.

5] State the number of children you have, and don’t state that they’re the “love of your life” or the guy will run away from what he perceives to be an already established family.

6] State your financial situation [i.e., I’m broke and looking for a job, or I’m currently unemployed].

What an older man wants to hear from an older woman is something along the lines of “I have my own business and don’t need you to pay my mortgage.”

7] If you are fit as you state, he’ll see it in your photos. So make sure they are close-up…and crystal clear.

If you attempt to overly indulge in Photoshop, he’ll see that too.

8] Many women state very specific age preferences, which is about as ludicrous as it sounds, given the fact that what they have to barter is less than what most successful older men have to tolerate.

Of course, if you’re Madonna, you can find a gold-digger who’ll love you for who you are.

Get real.

We all have to after a certain point.

Two-Marriage Rule the “Natural” Course Among a Certain Demographic

Today’s testimonial is going to infuriate a lot of people, but what I’m about to tell you is the absolute truth.

In my world, it is commonplace for young men to marry and procreate with their college sweethearts, before divorcing them once the kids are grown, money’s in the bank, and younger women are coming out of the woodwork.

This is where the Two-Marriage Rule comes into play.

~~~

When a man reaches a certain age – and level of achievement – he expects payback.

The translation of “payback” goes something like this:

Scenario One:

“I’ve done it all: Married out of college, had kids, made money…and now what? My kids are gone, I’m semi-retired and what I’m sleeping next to looks nothing like the woman I married. But I don’t want to leave my wife because I still love her, in spite of the fact that I’m not exactly thrilled about the sex. She’s also beginning to make me feel old and irrelevant. What I need is a mistress in order to keep my marriage in tact. Then I’ll have everything.”

Scenario Two:

“I’m leaving my wife for a beautiful young woman I met at an art opening, who makes me feel the way I did when I met my current wife back at Georgetown.”

~~~

In both scenarios, the theme is the same: The man wants what he once had in order to feel the way he once felt.

Neither scenario is exclusive to men, by the way.

Women often have affairs because their own physical and emotional needs are not being met, which brings me to the question of why is everyone so damn bored?

~~~

From the perspective of older men, the reasons are academic:

1] An age-appropriate wife of 50-something is not the same as an age-appropriate wife of 20-something.

In the former, the man begins to visualize tombstones.

In the former, he gets a new lease on life with 1000 times the cash.

From the perspective of older women, the reasons are more complex:

1] While age-appropriate mates in their 50’s don’t trigger existential meltdowns the way they do in men, they do trigger boredom when men begin to take their wives for granted.

SOLUTION

The Two-Marriage Rule

For men who marry and procreate out of college, there should be an agreement between the couple that after 25 or 30 years together, the marriage is null and void.

The couple can then decide to either renew it or walk away without financial consequence, enabling the man to live with a younger woman in relative comfort for the balance of his life [and vice-verse].

SUMMARY

Life kinda’ sucks where marriage is concerned.

No one can be everything to everyone all the time, particularly after enough of it has passed.

People get bored, and because most of us are entitled, we expect more.

On the other hand, there are couples who are willing to age gracefully, allowing time to exact its pound of flesh without a fight.

Their expectations are more balanced, and their lives a linear trajectory that reads like a novel – beginning, middle…end.

Of course, I don’t personally know any of these people, but I’m told they exist.

FINAL NOTE

While older men derive vitality from beautiful young women, older women experience precisely the opposite in the company of young men.

However, women are far better at acceptance, which they encourage in one another through their uncanny ability to bond with other women.

If men were better at this both genders would experience the same longevity, with a slight advantage to men who find young women who aren’t gold-diggers.

I’ll leave you with this article from the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10980731/What-do-young-women-see-in-much-older-men.html

Middle-Aged Married Men and the “Other” Women in Their Lives […and vice-versa]

Houston, we have a problem.

Infidelity is an enormously complicated issue – or an enormously simple one, depending on how you look at it.

Nonetheless, the “faithful” continue to surge.

“…there are almost definitely at least 187,000 faithful spouses who would still vehemently argue that Houston has about 187,000 too many adulterers.”

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/should-the-ashley-madison-hack-have-houstonians-worried-7608927

Want the actual membership numbers across the fruited plain?

Check them out here:

http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/07/02/10-cities-with-the-most-adultery/2/

If you’re interested in knowing where The Impact Team plans to dump the exposed member names, IP addresses, home addresses, and sexual predilections, check here:

http://pastebin.com/Kty5xBiv

~~~

So why did all this happen in the first place?

There’s always been infidelity. It’s not like it suddenly surfaced in the 21st century.

But why has it reached such epidemic proportions?

1] Is marriage, as an institution, dying?

2] Is feminism to blame?

3] Has sexual morality finally reached a point where its considered relative?

4] Have couples who married in their 20’s finally outgrown one another?

5] Has the Internet contributed to cultural addiction to higher highs?

In my view, it’s all of the above.

~~~

If you ask older men why they stray, their responses are usually the same: “I’m no longer attracted to my aging and obese spouse [in so many words].”

If men are programmed to perpetuate and spread their genes, then the go-to female is going to be young, and probably, beautiful.

It kinda sells itself.

But this is also the most infuriating to women as both genders grow old at the same rates, yet women still prefer men within 5 years of their age.

Needless to say, this places them at a distinct disadvantage, as they often find it almost impossible to find suitable mates.

They either choose much younger partners [who usually play the role of gold-digger], or spend the rest of their lives in the company of female friends, traveling the world and finding new avenues of interest.

There are exceptions, but once women pass a certain chronological point, it’s over.

So how exactly do couples prevent this from happening?

They have to keep pace with one another.

When middle-aged men become bored with their middle-aged wives, it’s most often because they have fallen out of shape, and with it, the youthful vitality that attracted the men to them in the first place.

Most men understand – and accept the fact – that both genders age, but in cases I’m most familiar with, the man cannot accept the fact that while he is in the gym every day, she’s on the couch.

The once collegiate volleyball player is now a frumpy matron, which breeds resentment.

“I’ve accomplished so many things in my life and this is what I’m left with???”

He wants the woman he married, albeit a more mature version, while she just wants a place to rest her head.

Clearly, one of them has given up.

Even in cases where neither party was particularly athletic, but one decides at middle age to get in the best shape of his or her life, the expectation is that the other will do the same, rather than wallow in self-pity and divorce papers.

In the end, couples have to grow together…and in the same general direction.

They owe it to one another if the perpetuity of their marriages means anything to them.

But people do change, and sometimes, you just have to accept the fact that the woman you married back at Georgetown is not the same woman today.

This is where couples either sit down and renegotiate the terms of their marriage, or move on.

The rest split apart while staying married for the sake of children, finances, and the passive love one acquires after so many years with the same person.

Marriage, like aging, is not for the faint of heart.

It’s a battle to the finish line both literally and figuratively.

The question you have to ask yourself is…Is it one worth fighting?

Note: “Fighting” does not denote misery.

We do battle every day of our lives, and the suicide rate is still lower than than the murder rate by a wide margin.

~~~

Ashley Madison Website Goes “Public”

A group calling itself, The Impact Team, has purportedly hacked into the infamous cheating site, Ashleymadison.com, stealing millions of private emails and used Id’s they intend to make public unless the site shuts down immediately.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3170243/Families-shattered-dating-website-adulterers.html?ito=social-facebook

Of course, infidelity isn’t the site’s fault.

It simply exists to serve a demand.

Nonetheless, the reason I’m covering this on Urban Dystrophy is because guys my age – particularly the ones who can afford it – often cheat without empathy or remorse, like sociopaths, if you need a quick Law and Order type reference.

Just a quickie here, an anonymous encounter there, and it’s back to the Disney Channel with the wife and kids.

No harm, no foul.

Except that that’s not the way it works.

For everything we do we get something back.

…like blackmail threats, phone calls in the middle of the night, or unintended – and highly embarrassing – public encounters you have to explain away before you’re nailed.

WIFE:

“Honey, have we met her before? How does she know your nickname?”

HUSBAND:

“…Um, she may be a Facebook friend or something. Weird, huh?”

Then there are the ubiquitous STD’s, some of which are capable of killing off an entire family faster than Chernobyl.

But hey, like I said, it’s just a fling.

~~~

So why do so many older men I know, and/or am acquainted with, cheat?

Because they are bored and feel entitled to more.

Like I say in my new book of the same name, #urbandystrophy, they’re driven and ambitious men who’ve been financially successful, and thus, feel deserving of whatever life has to offer, which includes everything.

~~~

Most men I know say that their sex lives are in the toilet.

“Started our great, died. She’s no longer interested.”

The irony is that from her perspective, you’d hear the same damn thing.

COUNTER ARGUMENT

Some claim that affairs are actually good for their marriages, that they help keep them together.

But “marriage” is relative in this context, as it’s already dead.

Thus, Ashleigh Madison’s tag line should change from “life’s too short, why not have an Affair?” to “After a long afternoon in a roadside motel, it’s still nice having someone at home you can lay my head on…”

Midlife Not for the Faint of Heart

“Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars…” Jim Morrison

Yea, no shit.

The following is an excerpt from my new book, Urban Dystrophy, now available on Amazon.

It’s probably a familiar narrative to many of you:

“I’m sitting at a white plastic table in front of a wine bar. It’s one o’clock on a Tuesday morning and an empty parking lot is the only landscape. The streets are deserted. Most guys my age are asleep. Their time came and went, and they let go in that unconscious way most men do when their stories have been told and the end is a long, drawn-out epitaph.

But, I stayed behind, along with the rest of the itinerants of the night. I have no place to go that I haven’t already been, and nothing to do but wait and hope and sometimes pray for mercy that relevance and that one big love will one day redeem me, but it never does. Not really.

We’re beyond salvation. Most of us. There have been exceptions, but the grace is never a hundred percent and you have to make peace with that the best you can. We’re members of the bitten, the damned, the fighters against the forces of time until we no longer can. Most of us are children of narcissists, narcissists who never died because narcissists never do—they’re just recycled and the kids are left to clean up the mess.

I wonder where all the time went. Time is all I have left to make a final stand. I remember my first midlife crisis at 28. The rest is a blur. Decades came and went. Now I can’t even remember yesterday, much less last week.

Urban Dystrophy

http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Dystrophy-Perverse-Truths-Mid-Life-ebook/dp/B00VH3NKGA

Reinventing Yourself in the Middle Years.

We all dream, some bigger than others.

But as life wears on and we find ourselves somewhere between youth and old age, we often wonder if pursuing them isn’t a fool’s errand.

It’s not…as long as you can afford them.

~~~

I can’t count the number of men in my age demographic [58-64] who’ve decided to radically change directions in life.

1] Some changed wives.

2] Some changed careers.

3] Some went fly fishing.

But all of them had the financial resources to do all of it without fear of ending up under a bridge.

Their backs weren’t against a wall. Change wasn’t something they had to face.

When it is, I’m sorry and good luck. You’ll need it.

With this in mind, the first consideration when making the decision to reinvent oneself is MONEY.

It doesn’t have to be a lot.

But if you feel more secure having that income from computer programming in Florida than whatever you’d earn as a trail guide and wildlife photographer in Seattle, you might want to reconsider the move.

You’re no longer a kid.

Landing on your feet this time around will be a lot harder than it used to be.

I know this isn’t the stuff of fantasy, but fantasy this time around is a lot more expensive.

Using MONEY as the template for reinventing oneself, let’s take a look at the 3 possibilities mentioned above.

1] Some changed wives.

Many middle aged men find themselves in 20-year marriages that feel more like a death sentence.

The sex is dead and/or on life support, and whatever common interests they once shared is a distant memory.

Typical example: Middle-aged man decides to get in the best shape of his life, but his wife prefers sitting on the couch with a pile of history books and a bag of Cheetos.

Now what?

The usual outcome is that he either gets his wife on board with his new lifestyle habits, or he gets a new wife.

Some men buy Harley’s and hit the road with a fanny pack full of pharmaceutical grade testosterone, telling their wives they need time to find themselves.

Others take on a mistress without telling their wives anything at all.

The last group lingers somewhere between action and inaction, which usually ends badly for all parties because they’re forever in transition.

They don’t have the funds to cover the divorce attorneys and mistresses, so live vicariously through others–or sneak off to strip clubs for a few moments of pleasure before returning to hell.

2] Some changed careers.

Most guys I know make lateral moves in their careers.

Retired pro athlete becomes a sportscaster.

Actor becomes producer.

Musician starts his own label.

These moves make a lot of financial sense because they’re lateral.

These men aren’t coming out of lackluster careers in the insurance industry hoping to become rock stars.

However, with enough success under one’s belt, you can play male-believe rock star and people are still happy to take your credit cards.

Again, it’s a pragmatic approach to life that one must consider after enough years have passed.

3] Some went fly fishing.

Some guys don’t have a particular passion in life, so they do what they enjoy doing and call it a day.

While sitting on a beach in Jamaica for the rest of ones life may not be enough to fulfill many of you. But staying “relevant” in the context of popular culture isn’t for everyone, especially men who coasted through life doing what they were supposed to do because they didn’t know what else to do.

1] They went to school.

2] They got a job, any job.

3] They got married.

4] They had kids.

5] They retired.

You may not know their names, or recognize their faces, but there are tens of millions of them on every continent.

They make up the lion’s share of the world’s population.

Not everyone is an overachiever, not everyone wired for greatness.

If this were the case we’d all kill each other.

In many ways, these guys are among the most fortunate because they don’t need to feel involved in life in order to derive satisfaction from it.

SUMMARY

The men in my demographic do whatever the hell they want to do because they can afford it.

I’m not talking about private jets, homes in Aspen, or presidential suites at the Beverly Wilshire, though many enjoy all three.

I’m talking about comfortable lives in the absence of financial worry.

To be perfectly honest with you, these men are the happiest men I know.

Is there a direct correlation between money and happiness?

Yes.

Is having a tremendous fortune necessary in order to achieve happiness?

No.

Just understand that without enough of it, reinvention is an uphill battle that few men in their late 50’s or 60’s are prepared to face unless the road is already paved.

If you’d like an all-around happy ending to the reinvention debate, check this out from Mail Online:

Shared dreams…and money.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3161069/Tiny-sailors-Caribbean-Meet-extraordinary-water-babies-grown-travelling-world-boat-ocean-loving-parents.html

November 2024
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