Is My Husband Having a Mid-Life Crisis?
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Thanks for listening to my Call of the Day podcast. You can hear my live radio program Monday through Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius XM Triumph 111. Teresa, welcome to the program. Hi, Dr. Laura. Hi. I just have a question. I don't quite know how to feel about it. I'll just jump right in. I'm 68 and my husband's

We've been married 25 years. It's our second marriage. And he currently has a new hobby. He loves rockabilly. Oh, really?

for the last year and it evolved with liking cars and we both like antique cars together, classic cars, but there was a few times I couldn't go with him last year and

He stumbled upon this rockabilly culture, and he really loves it. And I don't have a problem with it, except that there's a lot of pinup girls, and they do contests, and they're nice people, and nothing wrong with that. Everybody do their own thing. But he likes to take pictures of them.

um with them on you know on a car in various positions and they're like mostly in their 40s and he likes to hang with them and he's online with with them he likes their pictures and a lot of their pictures are garter belts and they're not overly nude but he does like that and

I'm telling him I don't feel comfortable with it. I don't think it respects me. And I just don't know what to think about it. If I should just drop it and let him do his hobby. But me being 68, I have nothing in common with these 40-ish-year-old women in garter belts and tattoos. It's a whole culture of that with rockabilly music, which I love. The music's good. But anyway, I don't know how to think about it. If I should just drop it.

I'm sorry, what are your options? What do you think your options are? Well, he would rather that I not micromanage him, as he says. And I don't want to micromanage him. Okay, but Teresa, that wasn't my question. I appreciate he doesn't want you bugging him. All men say that. Nonetheless, my question for you is, what are your options? What are we choosing from?

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I'm choosing to either stay home and let him go out there and take pictures and mingle with all the pinup girls, or I don't think I... I just really want to know if I am sane and not being... Don't ask a silly question. I don't abide by silly questions, whether you're sane. Stop it. Come on. That's silly.

One option is to just let it happen and stay home and wait for him to come home. What are your other options? I just want to know what else you're thinking. If you're going to make a choice of how to handle it, I want to know what the options are. Well, if he chooses to continue to do it no matter what I feel, I don't think I can hang in there with that. If you're going to give somebody an ultimatum, you have to have clarity. It's not a threat.

It's not to scare or manipulate them. It's the truth. So one is to just shut up and stay married and deal with it. The second, a second, is to give him an ultimatum. If you continue to do this, which I find unsavory for a married man to do when you know it hurts me, I'm leaving. And then you have to be ready to leave. You can't say that just to see how he'll handle it. You actually have to be ready to go, which means you have to have a game plan. Where are you going to go? Right.

You have to think about the checkbooks and the credit cards and what you're going to take with you and where you're going to go. Are you going to get yourself a little apartment? Are you going to stay at a hotel? Are you going to stay at a friend's or a relative's house? So you have to have all of this planned in your brain before you give an ultimatum because you have to mean it. Or when you say something like that and you don't follow through, then you're dead water, in dead water. That's it.

Then he knows he doesn't have to listen to you at all. Nothing's going to happen. So then if you give him an ultimatum, he has to think, what's more important to me? Keeping my woman and my family together or having the freedom to do this stuff. And he will then think what's important to him. Okay. So you say make a decision, stick with it, follow through, depending on what he chooses. Yeah.

Right. And then you'll know who he cares about more, you and the life you have together and have had together, or his freedom to be silly. Because I guarantee those women are looking at him and laughing at him. Absolutely. He's got a little potbelly and all bald. Yeah. He doesn't care about that. He's living through his fantasy. So you either just ignore this and get on with your life. I don't know quite how, but...

That's it. Or ultimatum, but you must be ready to go. All right. What's it called when old geezers want to be young? You think he's going through that? No. Oh, okay. I think he's just old and being a jerk. Okay. I think so, too. That's my diagnosis, okay? You're very welcome, sweetheart. Thank you.

Appreciate it. I hope you let me know. I appreciate it, too. And I hope you let me know what your decision is. My number, 1-800-375-2872.

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Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Whole Almonds makes for a wholly amazing, wholly delicious experience that's, well, wholly Hershey's. Everyone should get to experience the satisfying surprise of a whole almond tucked inside creamy Hershey's chocolate. So don't wait your whole life to try Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Whole Almonds. And if you've already had it, then chances are you're already a lifelong fan of this confectionery delight. Find Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Whole Almonds wherever candy is sold.