A Happy Relationship After a Midlife Crisis
There’s no word I come across as often as the word happiness. A word that raises quite a few questions for a lot of people. Because when are you actually truly happy? And how do you reach that state? That happiness keeps us busy is clear from the flood of “how to become happier in love / at work / in your body” books flying off the shelves these days, and from the huge number of happiness gurus our country currently has in abundance. You could say the happiness industry is thriving.
In the old days, happiness was simply normal
How different life was for our grandparents, who, in my view, didn’t see happiness as something you’re entitled to. They filled their days with hard work, feeding mouths, and doing what was expected of them by the church or the community. That we’re even able to occupy ourselves with the question of whether we’re happy shows, in my opinion, that virtually all our basic needs are covered and that there’s a certain prosperity all around.
Making choices
I’m a real advocate of people doing what makes them happy and consciously choosing that. It helps people mature. At the same time, I also notice a downside: pursuing happiness and staring blindly at it makes you dead tired and insecure. After all, there will always be worse days, there will always be someone who’s slimmer, has more money, and is in an apparently more fun relationship. One glance at social media — the shop window for happiness — and you know enough.
A world that can be shaped
Here in the West, many people think that life can be shaped however you want. Whoever believes that will rarely settle for mediocrity, because they’re after a grand, sweeping life. After all, it’s in your own hands. The question keeps arising: how do I become as happy as possible? What do I want with my life? Thanks to the internet, we have the whole globe at our disposal and can literally go in any direction. Which option will contribute most to your happiness — you can barely see the forest for the trees. Do you pride yourself on your career, do you want to start a family, or do you take a sabbatical to discover yourself, go surfing in Zanzibar, or do volunteer work at a kibbutz in Israel, or…
Midlife crisis
Despite all those choices and opportunities, the midlife crisis remarkably keeps arriving earlier and earlier. At an ever younger age, people wonder whether they’re really happy. Couples who have everything — a good job, healthy children, a house, a camper — but one day look at each other and say: “We have everything, but is this all there is?” When they share this with each other and can talk about what they’re missing, it’s often not yet a lost cause.
Lightning rod
Unfortunately it often goes differently, and one of the partners doesn’t seek their salvation within the relationship or within themselves, but outside it, in the form of a third person who provides tension and distraction and can serve as a lightning rod for the routine and mediocrity they feel they’ve ended up in. When I ask the unfaithful party during a session what was missing that justified this misstep, I often get the answer that things had simply become a bit dull and routine.
New tension
The excitement of something new was missed, and the fact that their life had become so predictable was experienced as bothersome; everything — from their morning routine to their lovemaking — could be flawlessly predicted. One of the things I advise couples who’ve dealt with infidelity — after everything has been talked through — is to try to breathe new life into the relationship by setting new goals on the horizon together and making beautiful new plans for the future again, but also by appreciating the ordinary side of a long-term relationship a bit more.
Moments of happiness
Few things in life are self-evident; the past corona years have certainly taught us that. Add up all the little moments of happiness — from working in the garden together, spooning, watching a film leaning against each other on the couch, or having a cup of coffee together — and then try to feel just how enormous that ordinary, so nearby happiness really is!
Bio
Jacqueline Evers is a relationship therapist who helps couples build a loving, fulfilling relationship instead of a bitter and costly divorce. Over the past 18 years, she has helped more than 1,450 people through individual and relationship therapy. 80% of relationships improve. With her book ‘Cheating. Moving Forward Together in 5 Steps’, she offers couples affected by infidelity a new way of loving. She works from her practice in Almere and online, and is regularly heard on NPO1 radio. Check out the Loveworkx YouTube channel too, and subscribe to receive regular practical tips to make your relationship better. The Loveworkx podcasts can be heard on Spotify, among other platforms.