Broadcaster Matt Heath discussed the issues with being a middle-aged male in his new book A Life Less Punishing, 13 Ways To Love the Life You've Got. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Do you know a middle-aged man in your life who seems a bit down on himself, yet doesn’t want to open up about what’s wrong?
Then he might be going through “male menopause”.
While not a clinical term, this “diagnosis” term has emerged in recent years as one way of describing the mood swings, depression and other emotional and physical symptoms that men go through when they reach a certain age – usually their late 40s or early 50s.
Dougal Sutherland, a clinical psychologist and CE of Umbrella Wellbeing, told Francesca Rudkin and Louise Ayrey on their NZ Herald podcast The Little Things that while it is not on the same level as female perimenopause or menopause and the biological changes that occur through that, he said there is definitely a phase of life men reach where things seem to have changed.
“I think you emerge from the woods and the muck of raising kids ... you just emerge from the fact that, ‘hang on a minute, I’ve had my head down, I’ve been busy at my work, I’ve been busy with family, I’ve been busy with this buying a house and doing everything, and now some of that starts to drift away’.
“The kids are older, they don’t need you as much, maybe you’re in a settled or reasonably clear trajectory with work, and then it’s all of a sudden – it’s almost like a dawning – but this is a whole new phase of life, isn’t it?”
He said there are definite emotions that come up for men during this time that they should pay attention to.
“There’s anger and dissatisfaction and loneliness and we should pay attention to those emotions and go, what is this trying to tell me?
“And that it doesn’t mean that that will be a wonderful process full of lollipop roses. It might be painful, it might be uncomfortable. And that’s okay. That’s how it is. Lots of bits of life are painful and uncomfortable and we don’t need to shy away from those.”
Broadcaster Matt Heath wrote about his issues of being a middle-aged man in his book A Life Less Punishing, 13 Ways To Love the Life You’ve Got. He told The Little Things that there’s a definite issue of modern-day men talking about their issues, particularly when it comes to ageing.
“I think we are becoming more and more isolated. And I think a lot of the old structures that used to be there are gone. So I think there’s been a real push to, you know, things I speak at seem to be about men kind of coming together and forming communities and not being as punishing.”
Heath said that men often put the emotional baggage on their partners and “outsource” that process onto them.
He said that men need to be better at reaching out to their friends and having honest conversations,
“Men are pretty good at banter, like abusing each other, we compliment each other by insulting each other. But it’s not real friendship until you take it to another level and I think that’s the thing that men were struggling to do and now there’s a real push to go, well, ask how your mate is for real rather than just say that his pants look stupid.”
Listen to the full episode of The Little Things for more about the issues facing middle-aged men, how they can open up, and how their partners can help draw this out of them.
The Little Things is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The series is hosted by broadcaster Francesca Rudkin and health researcher Louise Ayrey. New episodes are available every Saturday.
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