The Middle-Age Family

The Middle Age Family – Part 1
The Muddle In The Middle

“We rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.” Nehemiah 4:6

“The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot build.” Nehemiah 4:10

Until mid-life, life is a pretty straight-forward proposition. It might not be easy, but it isn’t all that complicated. You are born, grow up, forge your identity, differentiate that identity from your family, head out into the world to find a life-path and a mate, get married, forge a career and lifestyle, have children, grow them up to the launching phase of young adulthood – and then it all catches up with you.

The Book of Nehemiah provides a wonderful metaphor for life, especially family life, as it tells the story of rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall and the spiritual rebirth of the Jewish nation. I recommend reading it as a study of change and growth from a spiritual perspective. The sub-title could be, “When Life’s A Mess, Start A Building Project.” Chapters 1-3 of Nehemiah represent the forming stages of family life: the marriage, new parent, pre-school, school-age, adolescent and young-adult stages. But chapter 4 contains a turning point that relates directly to the topic of this article.

First we have the affirmation of how well things are going: “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart” (Neh. 4:6 NIV). Then comes the reverse: “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall” (Neh. 4:10). What happened? In the middle of the project, the workers’ strength began to fade, and so much rubble accumulated that the project stalled.

So it is often with marriages in mid-life. Energy is dwindling, resolve is dissolving and we have generated so much stress (rubble) – inside ourselves as persons, between ourselves as partners, and outside ourselves as parents – that we feel overwhelmed. In many ways we experience the truth of the old adage: “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s too late to remember that your goal was to drain the swamp.”

Building a Christian home is relatively easy at the beginning when we have energy, hopes and dreams, but in the middle years it’s tough to keep our focus and sustain our drive. It is then that we experience the “muddle in the middle” represented by the “rubble.” In this regard, the questions we’ll explore in two articles are: does God have resources for mid-life, and does the spiritual part of life get muddled too?

The Marks Of Middle Age

Middle age has been identified as that phase of life during which we must make two difficult decisions: when to start being middle aged, and when to stop. The first decision is affected by our tendency to hang on to our youth with its marks of boundless energy and life; the second is prompted by our tendency to avoid the reality of the aging process and the inevitable depletion of our physical, mental and emotional capabilities. In terms of family dynamics, the parental middle years are associated with the period of time between the last child leaving home (empty nest) and retirement. However, the onset of this period in many marriages is as unpredictable as the weather.

Some of the common scenarios that affect the onset of the parental middle years are:

Quasi-Home-Leaving: Young adult children go off to college or other adventures but return home during vacations or in between ventures, creating adjustment issues related to their coming and going.

Revolving Door Syndrome: Young adult children leave home, but then return due to a setbacks such as the loss of a job, breakup of a marriage or economic woes (eg: Lk. 15, the prodigal son).

Appropriating Adult Status: Often adolescents still at home strive to acquire all the privileges of their older siblings, wreaking havoc with the family developmental process and prompting parents to want to speed up the launching process.

Sandwich-Generation Dynamics: Middle-aged couples may often be sandwiched between the needs of their young adult children and their own aging parents, making it difficult to plot their own clear course.

Scars of Leaving: Sometimes the launching process in the family leaves emotional scars on both parents and young adult children that impede adjustment in the next phase (eg: Gen. 27-28, the launching of Jacob).

Scorched-Parent Syndrome: Sometimes the cost of raising children through the young adult years leaves parents emotionally, physically, and financially depleted of the resources needed to function effectively in the parental middle years (eg: Jud. 13-16, the life of Samson).

Mid-Life Longevity: Due to increased life expectancy, the parental middle years have become one of the longest stages of married life, making it a new frontier for developmental problems, issues and tasks that, two or three generations ago, did not affect most mid-life couples.

Given all these factors, it is not surprising that historians refer to the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages, a somewhat apt label for mid-life marriages as well. When the dust clears, and the couple is finally on their own again, the dynamics, issues and problems are numerous. Let’s explore some of the factors that create this “muddle in the middle.”

Christians In Mid-Life

Marriage in mid-life is the time when couples realize the truth of the aphorism that “marriage is the experience of being married to many different persons, not because you change partners, but because your partner changes.” Men and women tend to move in different directions than they did prior to middle age. This is associated with the “interiority-exteriority” continuum relative to life inside and outside the family.

Up until mid-life men tend to be oriented toward life outside the family and marriage (exteriority) concentrating on a career, on being a provider, and on personal interests that take time and energy. These interests may include commitments to service in the church. When middle age hits, he then begins to think about relationships, connectedness and emotional needs for closeness. He turns toward home (interiority) to get these needs met, only to find his wife and children heading out the door (exteriority) to get their needs met in the world where he has been investing his time and effort.

Women on the other hand, tend to focus on relationships within the family and engage in nurturing activities as a priority (interiority). The typical woman follows one of three paths: The Traditional Path – marry, have children, and when they are grown turn to individual interests outside the home; The Contemporary Path – invest in a career, marry but not have children until later, and then do both career and nurturing until children are grown; The Super-Woman Path – marry, have children and a career all at once. Regardless of the path, in mid-life, especially after menopause, women are energized to make more of a mark outside the family.

Consequently, mid-life couples may find themselves at odds because the man is interested in investing in relationships with his wife and grown children, while the woman is interested in investing in a career or achievements outside the home. When this happens, they may make one of three mistakes in an attempt to resolve their differences. They may “turn on each other,” making their differences the source of strife in the marriage. They may “turn away from each other,” seeking separate lifestyles where each can get their needs met apart from the marriage relationship. Or they may “turn to others,” seeking relationships with others which undermine the emotional ties of the marriage. Each mistake produces problems which add to the “rubble” that makes building a resilient marriage in mid-life difficult. Each is counter-productive to the “becoming one” dynamic embedded in the marriage contract (Gen. 2:24).

Preparing For Mid-Life Marriage: A Personal Inventory

One reason we get bogged down like Nehemiah’s workers on the wall in is that we look at the rubble instead of the blueprint for building. We get overwhelmed by all the disappointments, hurts and failures of life and become cynical, skeptical and pessimistic. Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology, said that adult life has three phases: The young-adult phase where a person starts out on a mission to conquer the world; The middle-adult phase where each person realizes that the world is not going to be conquered; The old-adult phase where the issue of how well we did is settled. It is in the middle phase that the stage is set for growing old. As Christians, our focus is to be on those things that will make us resilient, not those things that will impede our growth. Consequently, conducting an inventory – using the criteria in God’s Word rather than our own life experiences – is the best place to begin.

The nature of our personality (the essence of who we are as persons) is as simple as ABC: Affect – the emotions and feelings that express how we experience life; Behavior – the actions we engage in, what we do, and how we live our life; Cognition – the thoughts and beliefs that frame how we think about life. As Christians, we have been given a “new life in Christ” (Rom. 6:1-19), which comes with a blueprint and directions for nurturing our “new nature” (Col. 3:1-10). As we do this, we are transformed as persons (Rom. 12:2). The change is then reflected in our roles as partners and parents. Our focus throughout life, therefore, is to be on the building of our new self, not on the rubble of our old nature. In fact, Paul warns us about promoting our old nature: “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:8-9). What better advice can we get for our efforts as persons in mid-life?

The Holy Spirit, through the inspired writings of Paul and Peter, provides us with three checklists that relate directly to this ABC model. These checklists can be utilized to conduct a self-assessment. One has to do with our Affect, one with our Behavior and one with our Cognition.

Affect: In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Paul gives us an “affect” checklist about the nature of love, which houses all facets of human emotion related to love’s presence, experience or absence. These verses identify three general traits, eight disclaimers and five absolute traits of love. Read them and assess how you are doing as a lover, noting where you need to change.

Behavior: Second Peter 1:3-8 gives us a “behavior” checklist to assess how we are living our lives. After assuring us that God gives us “everything we need for life and godliness,” Peter identifies seven behavioral manifestations of faith that should characterize our life. Use this checklist to identify where you need to direct your energy.

Cognition: Finally, Paul gives us a “cognition” checklist in Philippians 4:4-8 in which he first instructs us as to our attitude toward life, then assures us that “the peace of God will guard our hearts (affect) and minds (cognition) in Christ Jesus,” and finally gives us seven specific items to occupy our thoughts. As you discipline yourself to think on these things you are promised that “the God of peace will be with you.” What greater resource is there for the stress that accompanies the “muddle in the middle”?

Doing It

If you are in a mid-life marriage, I want to encourage you and your partner to conduct separate self-assessments using the above-mentioned resources, and then share the results with each other. This task is designed to get your focus on building your Christian lives, rather than on the rubble that has accumulated around them. Next month’s article, entitled “Clearing The Clutter,” will look at biblical principles related to our roles as persons, partners and parents in middle-age families.

By James P. Trotzer

Look for the conclusion to this two-part article next month.