The Surprising Reasons Midlife Women Have Emotional Affairs and the Relationship to the Rise in Grey Divorce

In this week's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, Laurie is discussing the rise in grey divorce, emotional affairs in midlife, and whether it's time to cut and run. You'll discover that a staggering 92% of women have been involved in emotional affairs, but their reasons for doing so just may surprise you.

Laurie covers the latest statistics, introduces you to a common workplace scenario, and even gives some pointers to salvage your marriage.

Whether you decide or stay or go, this episode will make you think, and perhaps, help you understand you are not alone in the feelings you're having.

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Transcript

0:00

Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the School of Midlife podcast. I am your host, Laurie Reynoldson and I am thrilled to have you here today. Um, Real talk. As I sit down to record today's episode. A couple of things going on. One. We are scheduled to leave on our European vacation a week from today. And. I'm very excited about it because we had to cancel it last year because Mike's mom had a series of falls and ended up having to have surgery. And when a 90 year old has to have surgery, you're not really sure how that's going to go. So we had to cancel last year's trip. And we are right on the verge of canceling this year's trip because his father is. Doing his best to. Die. We're not going to mince words anymore on this podcast. It's interesting because for a long time, When I would sit down to record an episode, I was like, I had two ideas of how to approach the podcast in my head. One was. How I actually talk and what I really wanted to say about it. And then the other one was a more tempered version. Where. Everything was. Edited. And I, you know, I'm thinking about how do I want to say that? So I don't offend people and honestly, now I just don't even give a shit. So if you're still here, that must mean that, you know, we, I can talk. With you like we are old friends. And give it to you straight. So the straight part about it is. My father-in-law may not make it through the week. And if he doesn't. Then, We're not going to Europe. Pretty bummed about that, honestly. And I know that that sounds. Like a total asshole thing to do. Like don't, you ruin my vacation for me for the second year in a row. But, um, It's true. I mean, I'm, I'm super bummed about it because we canceled all of our travel last year and we have, we, we did fit in a trip to Mexico in the spring, but. Best life, Laurie she is a traveler. She doesn't stay home much. And this. Transition period that we find ourselves in where Mike's parents are. Elderly. Suffering from dementia. It's just a heavy go. And there's really no way to get around it. That is a long way of introducing the fact that when I sit down to record today's podcast, I'm just feeling a little, sorry for myself. And I'm feeling a little down and low and. Nothing bad, but also. I also think it's important that people understand that. Your life. Isn't always going to be roses and, you know, happy, shiny family, all that good stuff that there are trials and things that you go through that. Just, you know, Sometimes. Things just aren't going the way you planned. And that's kind of where I am today. And because that's where I'm at today. It occurred to me that there are two ways that I could go about this one. I could. Put together an episode, write a script or an outline, riff on whatever the topic was. Do that, and I'm sure it would be another great episode. But I'm choosing to go in the second route. And that is, I am going to. Link one of the highest rated most listened to episodes on the School of Midlife. Since we started the podcast. It's about the rise of gray divorce. And why so many couples over 50 are deciding to split the sheets to go their separate ways. In that episode, we also talk about why midlife women have affairs. And towards the end of the episode, I share a couple of shifts that Mike and I have used in our own marriage to stay together for over 20 years. And. I'm choosing to do that because a couple of weeks ago, You might remember that we were talking about. What can you do in your marriage to not ruin intimacy when you get like all Menno ragey and all you want to do is scream, or, you know, you don't want your partner to touch you at all. Well, this kind of plays into. That topic, right? It's it's all related. It's it's what happens when we get to midlife and our relationships just aren't. Giving us. What we need from that many more. And I'm not saying that everyone should go out and get divorced. That's not it at all. As we talked about in the episode, Two or three weeks ago. You know, comes down to having open communication and understanding. Each other's needs. But some of us might. Have outgrown our long-term relationships. Some of us might be ready to move on. And. These topics are related. And because we like to keep it real here on the School of Midlife podcast and talk about not only the ways that you can make midlife your best life. Which is always the end game, but sometimes, you know, we've got to take a step back and honor where we are and understand that there is a little bit of struggle involved and sometimes maybe we have. Matured beyond our long-term relationship, or maybe we have grown in ways that our partner has not, and it's time to make. Uh, decision to go in a different direction. All perfectly reasonable, perfectly normal. Options. As always, I'll be interested to hear what you think about. Today's topic and I will be back next week. With a brand new episode when I have moved out of my funk and I'm not feeling a whole poor Laurie anymore. So without further ado, let's dive into the episode. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life

Laurie: 6:13

Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the School of Midlife podcast. We're going to get a little saucier, a little sexier on today's episode. we are talking about midlife relationships from a couple of different angles. Incidentally today's episode is based on a couple of questions I received, um, from podcast listeners. Yes. You can email me, questions or topics you'd like to hear about. My email link is in the show notes. No, I won't use your name unless you want to come on the podcast and we'll have a discussion about it then. Cool. So today, midlife relationships, and we're going to be looking at them from a couple of different angles. Specifically this concept of gray divorce. divorce rates are actually rising among couples that are over 50 years old. They call that gray divorce. And we're going to also be looking at why midlife women have affairs. It's interesting that they're having them in about the same numbers as men. But usually we only hear about what happens when a man has an affair. we're going to end with some things to think about before you call it quits. with that, let's go ahead and get started. I think maybe first though. here's a little caveat. I am not a marriage counselor or an expert in relationships. I like on all mid-life topics, I read a lot about these topics. I certainly have seen. these things that I'm going to talk about, play out in a lot of relationships around me. maybe we'll call it more of an opinion piece it's it's things that I've researched and my opinions about midlife divorce and midlife women having affairs. I will say if you want to hear from an expert in this field, let me know. And I'll certainly bring someone on to answer your specific questions. That has more, uh, experience in the field. Shall we say? So why don't we start out by talking about a couple of statistics, because I think that they're fascinating. It's still in the U S about 50% of marriages end in divorce. And it used to be once you made it past the first five or 10 years, you were pretty good. Um, most marriages, if they were going to fail would happen in the first five to 10 years. What's so interesting about divorce rates now is this thing that they refer to as grey divorce, which is couples that are getting divorced after 50 years old. Grey divorce rates have doubled in the last 20 years. Grey divorce now makes up almost 40% of all the divorces. So 50% of marriages end in divorce, 35 to 40% of those are grey divorces. Isn't that bananas. And we're not talking about, you know, people that get married in their fifties, because if we're talking about second, third, fourth, marriages, those divorce rates are significantly higher than the 50%. We're talking about marriages that people have been in for sometimes 20 years, sometimes 30 years, plenty of years. And then they decide, you know, what I don't want to be married anymore. I want to talk a little bit about the reasons why, uh, experts think that grey divorce is becoming more prevalent. Let's switch gears real quickly and talk about some statistics as it relates to affairs. And what I have found is those statistics vary widely. if women have had affairs. They don't, a lot of times don't even admit it to their friends. They certainly don't want admitted to their families. The latest numbers are showing that approximately 40% of married midlife women have had affairs. That's just slightly lower than the percentage of men admitting to affairs. what we're talking about, there are physical affairs. But what gets interesting are the emotional affairs, the sending a sexy text, the, the kind of flirtation, the hiding the conversation from your spouse. The, even if you're not having sex so no physical piece of it, but you are sort of having this emotional affair, this connection with somebody that's not your spouse. If we look at emotional affairs, a staggering 91.6% of married women have admitted to having emotional affairs at some point in their marriage. So if you're one of those women who feel like you're suffering in silence, that you've got this big secret. I've got some good news for you. You are not the only one. And we're going to dig into why emotional affairs happen. So why don't we start there? Why do married women have affairs? For most of the women that are interviewed on this topic, they say that the spark has gone. They feel like they are just, you know, they're married to their brother. Their they've kind of adopted this brother or sister relationship. Like it all is just feeling a little too transactional for them. But bottom line is they're looking, they want to feel something different, right? A lot of them have been in very long-term relationships. Um, some of them were high school sweethearts, others met in college. Some of them met in their twenties and they've been married for a long time. because they've been in these long-term relationships, oftentimes, they had very limited sexual experience when they first got married. And that's that whole, you know, be a good girl kind of thing, where it's a badge of honor for a guy to know his number. That's not the case for women and certainly not. I mean, I would say sex outside of marriage. Sex outside long-term commitments is more and more prevalent than it was when my generation was coming of age. I mean, sex before marriage happened a lot more than it did my generation than even the generation before me. But it still wasn't something where, you know, you could just go to the bar and to go home with somebody and like people didn't judge you for that, that you wanted your number to be low. It was still this whole idea of let's be a good girl. And because you're trying to be a good girl, you maybe didn't know how to ask for what you wanted sexually. you weren't supposed to know what felt good; right. you're a good girl. You don't have a lot of experience. So you get into this routine in the bedroom. That is just what you have always done with your spouse. And that's that's okay. But a lot of women get to the point where they want something different. They look outside of their marriage for some sort of awakening, Somebody to see them other than a wife or a mother. they just want to feel something different. They don't want to feel like they're, they're just a mom or they're just a wife. It's kind of like that, uh, Pina colada song, right? Um, gosh, what did the, uh, me and my old lady had fallen into the same old dull routine. Also can we just agree that that song is bullshit? I mean, I, if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the song. Where a guy is in bed with his, he calls her my, uh, Me and my old lady we'd fallen into the same old dull routine. And so he. Takes out a personal classified ad, which it's kind of funny because I mean, obviously none of us really well, that doesn't happen anymore. You know, now you would just go on an app if you wanted to find somebody to hook up with, but he takes an ad out in the newspaper. They write back and forth to each other. They decide they're going to meet at a bar. And they both show up at the same bar. With the intention of having an affair, right. Because he's he's put out this ad. She has responded to it. They decided to meet up at this bar and then the song goes on to say, and we laughed for a moment and I said, I never knew that you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain and the feel of the ocean and the taste of champagne, something like that. But really? You saw your spouse walking into a bar. And you laughed for a moment, like you thought it was kind of funny that, that your spouse was showing up to have an affair with somebody else. I mean, you didn't go crazy that you literally just caught your spouse in a bar. Waiting for another woman. I mean, I guess. Technically, the woman is also trying to hook up in a bar with another man, but that whole, and we laughed for a moment now. I just, I, I don't buy that that's how that plays out in real life. I'm not, I'm not bagging on the song. I like the song. I just think that the lyrics, like, it's it, it's not really based in reality. Right? I mean, can we agree on that? But I just don't think that. That you're going to just laugh for a moment and play it off and then have this beautiful relationship. No, I think you go home and you actually, you talk about so why is it that I caught you waiting to cheat on me in a bar? Anyway. Most women have affairs because they want to feel something different. Let's see how this would play out. Um, let's say Chad in Accounting says something to you at work and for the record, because I know that people try and figure this stuff out. I don't know a Chad in Accounting. Chad in Accounting is totally made up. I don't know why I call him Chad in Accounting, but every time I talk about this, This is the example I use. So don't be trying to figure out, you know, like if you worked with me at some point, Who Chad in Accounting is. He's literally a figment of my imagination. He is an amalgamation of all the different people that you might see in your office. So Chad in Accounting says something to you one day, like maybe he comments on your new haircut or he notices that you've been hitting the gym and tells you that your legs look beautiful in that skirt, or, he can tell that you've lost weight. I don't know what it is, but he sees you. He says something, whatever he says makes you feel good. Like you like what he just said to you and it's a feeling that you haven't had in awhile, Somebody is finally seeing you in a different light. And that little zing you feel. Well, that's dopamine. and dopamine is a feel good hormone. It's a it's that neuro-transmitter part of the brain's reward system. And it helps us feel pleasure. And you not only get that little dopamine hit when he first says something to you. But it's the same dopamine hit that you get when you get a text that little texting goes off, right? And would you believe that that's the same dopamine hit as cocaine or, if you win big at gambling or you have an orgasm or you go shopping and buy something expensive. It's it's that same feel good. It's that same brain rewarding you. So it starts with Chad in Accounting starts innocently enough. he says something you like the attention? Maybe you find yourself walking by his desk a little bit more often. Maybe you find yourself in the closet, getting ready for work in the morning, thinking about what you think Chad in Accounting would like to see you wearing? I mean, last time you wore a skirt, he commented on your legs. So maybe, maybe you'll put on a skirt today. Maybe there are just some, they feel like very innocuous text messages. They go back and forth with Chad in Accounting. But you find yourself deleting those texts. Or maybe deleting the entire text stream. Because you don't, you know, you don't really feel like you're doing anything wrong. I mean, there's nothing physical, certainly, but you also don't feel like that's something that you would want your spouse to know about. So you delete the text messages. Maybe you don't even talk to your friends about it because it's kind of this secret that you and Chad from Accounting have. It's that, you know, there's something about the the sneaking around the secretiveness to that, that women talk about. They like that feeling. we'll talk about how that's interesting because there's an emotional side on the one hand and then they feel bad on the other side. But again, it all starts very innocently. but then the next thing, you know, without really understanding how you got there, you're literally in an emotional affair. And again, you're one of 91.6% of women who admit to finding themselves and in an emotional affair. A lot of us have been there. Like I said, it starts very innocently. And then you. Find yourself spending more and more time with Chad in Accounting. And there are one of two ways that this is going to go. One. It's just going to stay emotional. Or 50 to 70% of emotional affairs become physical. what I find most fascinating about the statistics is most women that end up having affairs don't want to talk to their friends about it because they feel so much shame around it. They feel like they're the only ones who have done this. I mean, on the one hand, there's the shame. And then on the other hand, they feel guilty, right? Because they don't want to disturb the family. They, they feel like they have betrayed their spouse. They've betrayed their families. Um, they don't feel worthy of love from their family, from their friends. They're really caught in this highly emotional middle, because on the one hand, they love that dopamine hit from the affair and they like the way that they feel in the moment. But on the other hand, they hate what they're doing to their family. They, they don't like the fact that they are sneaky around that they can't trust anybody with what they're feeling, they're carrying around all this guilt and shame. Additionally, they report trouble sleeping high stress levels because they're trying to keep up all the appearances in all of the areas of their life. Right. When they're at home, they want everybody at home to think that they're okay. When they're at work, they don't want to focus on work or what's happening at home. They want to only focus on Chad in Accounting. The other thing that I find very interesting is most midlife women having affairs don't end their marriage. For whatever reason, they get to a point and they figure out that what they are getting from the affair they either need to start asking for that emotionally inside their marriage. Or maybe they just got it out of their system. She realizes that everything she wants is actually at home. And there's probably other reasons too. I read an interesting article that women would continue in the affair, but the man cut it off. Or the man left his wife and then all of a sudden she was faced with a decision on holy shit. What am I going to do now? And, and she decided to stay. In almost every instance though, she doesn't end up with Chad and accounting. It's like, there is some realization that Chad in Accounting is only seeing part of her life that he doesn't actually represent the savior, he doesn't represent what she's looking for to fill the void. Interestingly based on the research, the void that she's trying to fill is probably related to a past trauma in her childhood about worthiness or, being taken care of or worthy of love something along those lines. But for whatever reason, almost across the board, the affair ends and Chad in Accounting is no longer part of her future. And because most midlife women who have been involved in an affair don't end up ending their marriage, that begs the question then, why so much gray divorce?. And there seem to be two reasons why gray divorce is on the rise. One, the couple feels like they have grown apart. They've lost the spark. They feel like they're different people. Or two, people are living longer, right? So they have this idea that they want to do retirement in a different way. And they don't think that this is the right partner for them too spend retirement with, they've got a lot of life to live and this is not the person they want to hang out with. let's look at number one, this whole idea that people grow apart. They lose the spark. They're just different people than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago when they got married and that is not unrealistic. It's not unreasonable. I mean, think back. God. I think if I would have married the guy I thought I was really into in high school. or the people that I thought I was in love with and college, I mean, my life would be much different. there is no question in my mind. I would be divorced by now. Just because I have done so much work personally I am a much different person than I was in my twenties. Hell. I'm a different person than I was in my thirties and probably in my forties. But. Think about it. I mean, most women that are in long-term relationships, they coupled up a very long time ago. And you know, we talked about high school sweethearts. We talked about people that met in college, but. You're just, you grow and mature so much in your thirties and forties, you actually realize who you are, what you want, what you will settle for, what you won't settle for. And those are much different things then when you were younger. I mean the are you even the same person that you were five years ago. So imagine. I just think back on everything that has changed for you in the last 20, 30, 40 years. So it's, it's very easy to see how people could grow apart that, you know, all of a sudden they feel like they're different people. A lot of times this comes to a head when couples become empty nesters. I will say for Mike and me, we don't, we don't have kids. So when there have been struggles in our marriage, it's very obvious, right. Because we don't have anything to direct that attention to. We don't have any kids to like, make sure they stay alive. If we're not communicating or it feels like we're being distant, it's very obvious just because there's, there's not that buffer. But most couples, especially if they have kids, these issues come to a head when the kids get ready to leave for college, or they go to technical school or they join the military or whatever, but they leave the house. And then all of that attention that they have been putting on keeping those humans alive and providing for all of their, their needs and their wants. I mean, That's no longer there. And what they realize is that, you know, they've skipped date nights to go to soccer games or that they, went to the school auction instead of going out and celebrating an anniversary. The only thing that they had in common for the last 20, 30 years of their marriage was raising kids. And now the kids are gone. And all the sudden they don't have any thing in common anymore. So, not only are they grown apart, but the reason that they were staying together and sometimes the reason that they got together in the beginning, They don't have that reason anymore. So the idea that they're going to continue this relationship when they don't have anything in common, it doesn't make sense. we talked about, um, are you a different person than, than you were when you first got married? Uh, a lot of times too, with grey divorce. You'll see that one partner is very focused on self-improvement and personal development and the other is not. So complacency becomes an issue, right? Where one partner, usually the woman uh, because most grey divorce is initiated by women to the tune of almost 75% of gray divorces are filed by women. But the one partner is tired of doing the heavy lifting in the marriage. I mean, if we really think about it, Women don't need men anymore. I mean, We make our own money. We can buy our own house. We don't need a husband signature to buy property like we once did. we can make our own money. we have good jobs. We bring home good salaries. We don't need somebody to give us an allowance so that we can go buy something pretty for ourselves. Right. We don't need that anymore. I mean, hell if you want to have a baby. you don't even need a guy to do that. You can go to a sperm bank and buy some sperm to have your own baby. because you make your own money, you can raise that child by yourself and you can live in a house that you bought. So. Women. are figuring out that the men in their life, they better bring something pretty good to the table. Because we don't necessarily need somebody at the house to follow around and pick up for, or make dinner for, or we don't need that person to just take up space in our life. They actually should be making it better in some way. And guys, if you're not then. There, there may come a time where your wife is like, Um, I'm going to do this on my own. Beyond growing apart, losing the spark. Becoming different people. The second, most common reason for grey divorce is this idea that people are living longer after retirement. And along with the we're different people. We've grown apart. They're finding that maybe their interests do not align when it comes to how they want to spend their retirement. maybe your husband wants to move somewhere sunny so that he can golf every day, the week. And you want to live in the mountains. Maybe you want to have a place in the south of France and your husband doesn't want to leave the U S in fact wants to stay exactly where he is right now, because. that's where all his friends are. He has no interest in traveling. But you can pretty quickly see how if you have very divergent views on how you want to spend your retirement, maybe this isn't the person you want to spend your retirement with because if you're doing it right, if you retire, say in your fifties, or maybe even early sixties, hopefully you'll have 20, 30, 40 years of retirement. So. Spend it how you want. Right. Cause you've worked a long time, too get to the point where you have earned retirement. And certainly we'll talk in another episode about retiring early and not waiting till retirement to do what it is you want to do all those things that you want to do, but suffice it to say that because people are living longer and because the retirement is longer, that is a leading cause of divorce in midlife, just because they have the couple has different views on how they want to spend the retirement. We talked about affairs. We talked about divorce. I want to just give you a couple of ideas of things you could do before ending your marriage. Say you find yourself in midlife. you feel like we've grown apart. We don't have anything in common anymore. And, and you're, you're trying to figure out, do I stay or do I go. Again, remember, I am not a therapist. I'm not a couples counselor. But here are three things that I think you could do. At least try them before ending your marriage. One. Revive communication. Do you remember when you first started dating. And you would talk for hours and hours and hours. I mean, probably on the telephone. Remember when you used to, to sit on the telephone and have long conversations. maybe it was, after studying in a library on campus. maybe you went out to dinner and then you decided to go have a drink. And the next thing you know, it's three or four o'clock in the morning and you're still having a conversation with somebody. But remember you used to talk for hours when you were just, when you started dating, you were learning something about the other person. And you were having these real conversations about what are your hopes and your dreams, and you were excited to share something with this person, right? Because you were just getting to know them. And that deep conversation over the years has really morphed into how was your day at work what's going on with the kids? Have you made the dinner reservation for your mom's birthday next week? Who's gonna schedule the air conditioning repairman to come out and fix the air conditioning so it's not 93 degrees inside. But you're just talking about everyday nothing. Right? Nothing deep, nothing emotional. It's become very transactional. If you find yourself in that position, I would challenge you to start communicating again. Start having those deep talks again, you know, even if you're not going to couples therapy, which I totally believe in. I absolutely think that is very good to do. But you don't have to be in therapy to actually talk about things that matter between the two of you. Because your kids are going to leave eventually. And ultimately it will only, be the two of you. Be brave enough to have those conversations and those uncomfortable conversations in particular with your husband. Start talking to him again. Talk to him and commit to listening for the sake of listening. not just to respond, right. Not just to make a point or win an argument, but actually talk to each other again. Start by reviving that communication. That leads to my second tip and that is resetting expectations. I think this is partly Hollywood's fault. Well, I'll just start by saying that. Because we see all of these romcoms and they have set these expectations that our husband will be our best friend and our biggest cheerleader and our best baby daddy. And red hot lover and always be showering us with compliments and just this deep thinker who provides for us and the best conversationalist, I mean, all the things all the time. Right? And I just don't think it's realistic that one person is going to have all of those parts and pieces. I don't believe that there is only one person for each of us. You can at me about that if you want. But I really believe that there might be the right person for each of us at different times in our life. And as you change, if that person doesn't change as well, then you're going to feel like you're out of sync or that you've grown apart. But part of that is also understanding that one person can't be all these things to you. I mean, Mike and I even had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, because I've been noticing this whole trend on social media when it's your anniversary and a lot of women posts and they say, thank God, I'm married to my best friend. And if you're married your best friend. That's awesome. Um, but Mike and I, we were talking I asked him. I said, what'd you say on your best friend? And I knew the answer because I know his best friend, his best friend was the best man at our wedding, but I was interested to hear what he had to say about it. So I asked him, would you say on your best friend? And he said, no. And, and he knows that he's not my best friend, but again, if, if you're married to your best friend, Awesome. Just know that a lot of people aren't. And if you're under the impression that your husband needs to be your best friend and your go-to shoulder to cry on, and the one who listens when you need to bitch about a work thing, and the person that makes your toes curl in the bedroom. Just know that your expectations might be a little out of whack. And again, I blame Hollywood on that. But I also understand when we're talking about expectations that you've been together so long that you think your husband should know you by now. I totally understand that. Like you shouldn't have to remind him about what you want or what you need that you, you like to hear him say, you look beautiful, or I love you. You shouldn't have to remind him after 28 years of marriage, or however many long that your favorite flower is the tulips because he never gets it right. Or, you know, you've told them that you've got this big work presentation coming up and he, he knows it's on this one day. And he sees you working really hard to prepare for it. And it means a lot to you. And then he doesn't think to follow up afterwards and ask you how it went. what that signals to you on some level is that. Your just not important to him. That, what's going on in your life is not important to him. And I can totally admit I do this too. Like how many times do I need to tell you this? How many times are we going to have this conversation? You should already know this. But it has helped me tremendously when a couple of years ago. And so we will, we'll be married 20 years. Next month actually. 20 years of may. And, I literally just figured this out a couple of years ago that Mike is not privy to the conversations the two of us have in my mind. And what I mean by that is oftentimes when something is weighing on me, I do this role-play conversation or argument in my head. I replay it over and over again before I even have it just so I can be prepared. Like, if he says this, then I'm going to say that kind of thing. Right. Anyone else do that. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about here? But a couple of years ago, I finally realized that while I maybe have been sitting with this for hours, or sometimes days, he hasn't. And he can't read my mind. Resetting expectations, not only letting him know what I want and I need. But also going back to that communication piece, which is sometimes I need to remind him what's important to me and what I need from him. And sometimes that conversation looks like: look, I don't need you to fix this for me. I just need you to listen. Sometimes it looks like I need some help figuring out how to approach this. Sometimes it looks like you have pissed me off, and I just need you to hear this. And I don't want a response. I just need to get this off my chest. But this all ties back to communicating, it's ties back to being very clear with your expectations of the other person. Which segues nicely to the third thing And that is refocusing on what's important. What I mean by that is this idea that whatever it is you're looking for, you will find. It's the way you're the reticular activator system works in your brain. Um, that is the filter that filters out every little. I mean, there's so much information that's coming at us from all angles and we tell our reticular activator system, what is important to us at any given time. So if we tell our brain my spouse is doing everything wrong. They are pissing me off. if we're telling our brain we're mad at the husband, the brain is going to find every bit of evidence to prove that what we're thinking is right. If you're only looking for what your husband is doing wrong. Trust me. you will find an infinite number of ways that they are pissing you off every single day. And you'll start this running tally in your head of the things that they're doing wrong or messed up on or pissed you off or how they let you down. And again, it's going to be easy. You will find a whole host of ways your spouse isn't showing up for you. I will say that what you are finding doesn't necessarily conflate with a bad marriage. You might be in a bad marriage for sure. But it's also possible that you're just focusing on the wrong things. Here's what I mean by that. If you flip the script and instead of focusing on the way that your spouse is letting you down, if you try refocusing on what's going right, all the sudden start seeing things that before, because you told your brain, you were more interested in finding the things that were going wrong, all of a sudden though, you're going to be finding that there are plenty of things going right. And I would challenge you to keep a list, literally, start by writing five things a day for a week. Start making a list, an actual list of what your partner is doing right. I would urge you to look and notice the small things, the little moments of surprise or delight. Things that are there just small little good things, right? he texted you before an important meeting, just to say good luck, or just to say he was thinking about you. showed up to your kid's soccer game with your favorite coffee order. He vacuumed the house before company came over. He took out the trash without having you to remind him. picked up the kids from lacrosse practice so you could go meet friends for happy hour. Little tiny things. It can be grand gestures as well. But where the gold is, is when you start finding the small little moments, the small little things that surprise and delight you. Write them down. At least five a day for at least a week. And then. what's even better is if you can tie this list. this refocusing with the communication piece. And when they do something you like. Tell them. Thank them. Maybe even share the list with them because this really cool thing happens when you do that. When you tell them what you like and you thank them for doing it they're going to do it more. Because they want to make you happy? I mean, although it feels like, there's this struggle and this angst between the two of you, maybe even more often than not. Most of the time your spouse wants to make you happy. They're not trying to do things just to piss you off. So if, if you got that text randomly and it meant a lot to you, thank them for sending it. If they took the initiative to plan something where you're usually the one that's relied on to make all the plans, thank them for that. When you tell them, you like something that they did, you thank them for it. They're going to do it again. And it's this beautiful. They do something good. Something meaningful to you. You thank them for it. They do it again and it just, it round and around it goes I wanted to record this episode, though, for those of you who think you might be alone in having these feelings about your marriage. I hope that just by listening to this, you realize that you're not alone. These issues are pervasive. I mean, almost 92% of women have had, or are having emotional affairs. Almost 40% of them have acted on it physically. So you're not alone. These, these issues are pervasive, even if no one is talking about it. Certainly, I think it's always a good idea to try couples therapy. Go sit down, talk with a therapist, talk through some of these issues. At the very least think about taking yourself to therapy. Talk about what you're feeling, relieve yourself of the guilt and the shame that you're feeling. Talk to your husband. I mean, open the lines of communication again. And I know that this, this is going to sound a little simple, but start dating your spouse again, have those deep conversations about the hopes and the dreams that you have for this next part of your life. But do it in the way that you did, like when you first started dating. When, when everything was new and exciting and get to know him again. I'm not saying that by doing these things, that it's all gonna work out the way you want. And that's that's okay too. But I will say of the people and you know, I'm going to include myself in this, of the people that I know have had challenges in their marriage and they decided to work on it. Even if they didn't ultimately stay together, I don't know any of those couples that regret, not trying to have worked through it. The couples I do know that maybe wish they would've done something different or the ones that just decide to cut and run the ones that don't try and put the effort in to see if there is something to salvage there, see if they can't make something different for the future. I always go back to this. There's a reason that you got together to begin with. And maybe it was because of the kids. But there's a reason you got together to begin with and before you just decide that everything is irreparable irretrievable, and it's time to move on. I would just challenge you to do the work. Just, just see. And again, it might not work out and that's okay. No problem. But you don't want to live with regrets. You don't want to wish that you would've tried a little harder or tried it all right. I mean, You've got so much living in midlife to do, and you you're working on making midlife your best life. Let's not start by having regrets.

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Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. Until then take good care.