Why Relationships Matter

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In my previous post, I discussed what I call “the f*ck it fifties,” a time in a woman’s life when what we need and where we want to put our attention simply changes. Sometimes it happens when our domestic nest empties out, when our usual roles, responsibilities, and identity shift, and our daily structure is lost. But sometimes this internal transformation has no identifiable cause. It’s that time in the life cycle, a rite of passage, when what interests and nourishes us, and brings meaning and purpose, transforms. It’s an in-between chapter in life, when we look the same on the outside, and we’re still surrounded by the same people and activities as we always were, but we are not that person anymore, the one who designed and wanted that life, and for whom it felt so critically important and authentic. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that old life; it just doesn’t seem to belong to us any longer. Who we are has changed and moved on.

As women, we blame ourselves for this natural shift in priorities. We create a narrative that the fact that our interests have changed means that we were faking our old life all along. If we derive less meaning from what used to matter, then what used to matter couldn’t have been real. We’re conditioned to believe that who we are is either this or that, a fixed and knowable thing, rather than what it is—an ever-changing unknowable process that’s constantly transforming and often surprising us. In order to make sense of this midlife transformation, we tell ourselves that our old life must have been inauthentic; we are impostors and never actually cared about those people and roles we played in the past. Our mind does what it does best—it steps in and creates a logical thread-line between the past and present versions of ourselves. In devaluing our earlier life, we resolve the cognitive dissonance that arises in realizing that we were indeed that person who wholeheartedly wanted that previous life… and now we’re not. Now we’re someone who wants and needs something else (even if we don’t know what it is yet).

Simultaneously, women blame themselves for not being able to enjoy and feel satisfied with their previous tasks and roles, to make the things that used to matter still feel important. We judge ourselves for no longer feeling compelled to take care of everyone else’s needs or assume responsibility for everyone else’s happiness.

Women berate themselves for what we perceive as our choice to stop wanting the same things throughout our life cycle. We assume that this internal reorganization that happens naturally in our life journey is a failure—further evidence of our not-enough-ness and the signal that we need to, yet again, try harder. In the story we write in our head, we should be able to change our priorities back to what they used to be, and if we can’t, then we’re broken, which is good news because we can get back to the business of fixing ourselves—our favorite task. Fixing ourselves then might keep us busy for another decade, trying to be that old version of ourselves and blaming ourselves for not being her. As a result, we miss out on what is in fact an incredible opportunity for growth and change, a gift included in our incarnation, our own natural metamorphosis that, like the caterpillar’s, can allow us to take flight.

Given that this midlife transformation directly impacts what we want and need and where we choose to put our attention, it seems obvious that it would also have to affect our relationship. Specifically, that our relationship would need to evolve and change—to keep up with our own changing nature. And yet, we reject this evolution when it comes to our relationship. The fact that we want to spend our time in different ways, and often more time alone, to listen to different struggles and ask different questions, to experience ourselves in different ways, is viewed as something wrong—wrong with us or wrong with the relationship. A failure. But our marriage, like ourselves, is also an alive process and not a fixed entity. It also needs to evolve and grow. If it doesn’t, it dies, or we die in the static-ness. When we see this natural evolution in our partnership as a good thing, and something that’s based in reality rather than fantasy or fiction, then we have the opportunity to make use of it. It means that we can grow our relationship into something that’s continually fresh and truly aligned with who we are, throughout the many stages of our life.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that we should feel exactly the same about our partner and that the relationship should function in exactly the same ways as it always did over our entire lifetime. As a society, we idealize relationships and marriages that last—“till death do us part.” We all clap like trained seals when a couple shares that they’re going on their 40th or 50th year together. And indeed, a long relationship is an accomplishment and admirable in its own way. As anyone who’s ever been in a relationship for more than an evening knows, any length of time spent “together” indicates strength, commitment, and often patience and wisdom as well. But length of time is only one model or gauge for a successful relationship.

When we undergo this midlife shift, it’s normal to feel differently toward our partner. Some relationships survive it, and some don’t. Some relationships are forever, and some are not. Neither is a success or failure. A relationship that naturally evolves out of itself is its own success, even if it’s not what we want to happen. And, one that changes and transforms according to each partner’s changing needs is also a success. What is certain, however, is that the only way to give ourselves a chance for a real and lasting relationship, over time, is to honestly consider who we’ve become and are becoming, what we want now, and what feeds and stretches us and helps us keep growing on our life journey. If we want an authentic relationship, we need to bring our partnership into reality and out of some magical version of what it should be.

Why Relationships Matter

Take our Can You Spot Red Flags In A Relationship?

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