…when a 50-year -old man who has worn jeans from Wal-mart and shirts from K-Mart all his life starts wearing Aeropostale…
There’s way more evidence of his MLC, but I’ll spare you for now.
What things have middle-aged men around you done that make you say, ooh, someone’s having a crisis…?
He had an affair, bought a sports car, and generally became a slimebag, which he still is, but I don’t have to put up with his alcoholic ass anymore.
Hope yours has a minor variation. The full-blown one is a bitch to live through! 
The problem isn’t that a 50 year old man is wearing Aeropostale, the problem is that there is someone more than happy to judge him for it.
As far as the typical affair/sportscar/slimebag deal, that’s who he was the whole time, he jsut couldn’t be that person around you. Whether that’s on you or on him I couldn’t begin to say, but prevention of the MLC or rather mitigation of it, starts with communication. If you can’t do that effectively, odds are not good.
I’m so damned boring. Instead of the stereotypical red sports car and trophy wife, I lost 100 lbs and became a fireman/EMT.
My partner is almost 50 and so far hasn’t shown any sign of it but a good friend is going through it with her husband. After 20 years of sitting on the couch he decided that he wanted to go on an extreme sports adventure vacation. The damn fool almost killed himself and spent the next month whining about how much his body hurt. At this point she wishes he would just go and buy a sportscar they can’t afford and get it over with.
So wait. Is there something wrong with the shirts from Wal-mart, or the jeans from K-Mart?
I mean, I for one am way too lazy to go to two stores that as far as I’m concerned carry similar clothes.
I’m a male in my mid forties, is this what I have to look forward to?
My uncle brought a brand-new red Mustang for his 42nd birthday this year.
And he’s getting divorced (but that’s a good thing).
I think what the OP is saying is that it is out of character for this particular individual. As in, for years he bought plain, functional, cheap boring clothing from Walmart, etc but now all of a sudden he is going for trendy fashions.
I grew a beard when I was 38 (four years back) - I claimed that that was my MLC
This year I dropped the beard and 25kg (55 pounds). A second MLC?
I’d love to form a MLC rock band…
Si
I think I am my husband’s midlife crisis, we got married when he was 39.
My midlife crisis so far is involving a complete career change. I’d much rather a sports car and chicks in bikinis, but what are you gonna do?
This.
What’s up kittenblue? Is there more to the story than someone making some changes? Is there an age at which people are supposed to have their desires figured out and stop changing? If that age is 50, then that means they’ve had 30 adult years to observe and experiment. So the next 30 adult years is to be spent…doing nothing? May as well die at 50 and save the resources for the young.
I think the MLC is unjustly demonized. Society pressures us to choose an established identity that others can depend on, but how long are we supposed to live with that identity if we discover that it doesn’t fit? My wife went through that and it hurt me. But I figured out that I got hurt because I was expecting her to be someone she wasn’t. When I understood that, I was able to look into myownself and make changes that have made me infinitely happier. Yeah we got divorced. Kindest thing we’d done for each other in years.
I was teasing one of my guys at work about having a MLC-mobile. It’s a shiny red Honda. 
I think it happens to both sexes, but only guys get shit about it. That’s not fair or nice. I could relate things about my husband’s supposed MLC, but I dump on him enough here. Suffice to say that I think women (including myself) go through it as well, but it manifests itself differently per gender. I know I don’t want to spend the remaining 30 years of my life the way I’ve spent the past 20 or so.
I think one of the surest signs of a “midlife” crisis is being 50-something and still referring to it as midlife. The odds of living past 100 are about 1 in 10,000.
I was at Hearst Castle a couple weeks ago with friends and at the beginning of the tour the docent explains that we’re only supposed to touch the handrails and stay on the carpet, et cetera. Then, as if addressing a group of second graders, she asks, “What else can we touch?” Mid-Life Crisis Guy (late fourties, untucked shirt and pre-worn dungarees, half-goatee with soul patch, pretty twenty-something statuesque girlfriend in tow) speaks up and says, “My girlfriend!”
Yes, bub, we get it…you have a hot young girlfriend. The funniest bit is that she pretty much stayed on the other side of the group from him for the entire tour. I got a few shots of her in the background while shooting members of my our party and she has the same prim, slightly exasperated expression on her face through the entire tour. Yeah, I don’t think he needed to pull out the Viagra that night.
Stranger
I’m putting off my mid-life crisis until later so that I’ll live longer.
There’s changing because you want things to be different in the now and the future, and then there’s changing because you panic that you lost out in the past. Same actions, perhaps, but very different motivations. Improving yourself isn’t a midlife crisis. Trying to recreate your youth in irresponsible ways you can’t afford is.
My dad must be one of the early birds, he had his at around 40. He bought a 1955 Ford Falcon.
Well, yes.
“Trying to recreate your youth…” is like asking for a do-over and is denial.
“…in irresponsible ways you can’t afford” however, is a bit nebulous. At some point you really can’t afford NOT to change irrespective of the financial cost. It’s a matter of cutting losses. You can’t put a $ on happiness, and forcing others (childrent/spouse) to live with you being unhappy may be more costly to them than simply breaking free.
There’s a lot of gray area, and I just am cautious about poking fun at so-and-so going through a MLC without knowing their whole story. I’m a slightly overweight, early 40s, recently divorced, balding guy who drives a little red sports car and has a hot tall, blonde, considerably younger girlfriend. If you don’t know me it’s easy assume the worst about my character.
I’ve not yet had mine - AFAIK. I keep saying that I’ll get a fast car one day, but when I think about it, I’d rather spend the money on something else.