I went through mine relatively early in life (37). I was in nursing school and my world was expanding, while my husband's was the same as it had always been. I got bored and restless, wondering if I should try to find a new and more exciting love before it was too late. We almost split up; thank God we were too poor to maintain separate households, so we had no choice but to stay and fight it out.

A little later on in life, I looked back on this phase and realized how foolish I'd been to blame my mate for my midlife growing pains. But by that time we'd fallen back in love, so no harm done.