What Can You Blame On Midlife Crisis?

Among recent behavior blamed on midlife crisis:

• A Brisbane, Australia businessman "suffering a mid-life crisis sold drugs to fund his own addiction amid mounting debts and a broken marriage," according to News.com.au. Despite a history of drug problems extending back at least a decade and convictions (for unspecified offenses) as early as 1989, the judge called George Richard Tarbey, 45, a "mid-life depressive" and noted his "devastating marital and business losses in ... mid-life."




• According to the UK's Telegraph, there are simple reasons why a married leader of the UK's Liberal Democrat party had an affair with a male prostitute: "Going bald and a mid-life crisis." Mark Oaten's actual mea culpa was somewhat more sophisticated, but in that explanation for the Sunday Times,he wrote that the "pressure of work and turning 40" were key factors in his extramarital dalliance.

Before buying these "midlife crisis" explanations, I'd use these tests: was the behavior unique to midlife, or could it have happened at any time? Was it triggered by concern over one's own mortality, or by other stresses?

My superficial reading of the news stories makes me think that in both cases, the causes predate middle age. But the facile explanation seems to have found willing audiences in Tarbey's judge (he received a one year sentence of what sounds like probation) and Oaten's wife (they are still together). So expect "midlife crisis" to take the blame for more bad behavior in coming months.