Is It Better To Feel Needed or Wanted?

I’m 98% certain that I’m having a mid-life crisis — at 45 I think I’m about due.

The remaining 2% of doubt is a margin for error, because — you know — Covid. I’m pretty sure it’s a crisis though; Covid just made things worse.

I used to feel appreciated, wanted and needed by those around me — like I had a place and a purpose in my family unit. It no longer feels that way, or at least not to the same extent.

Is it me, or them? Probably me…

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Unconventional origins

We’re an unconventional bunch, a blended family of six forged in the founding of my second marriage. She had two kids from her first marriage, I had two from mine.

I’ve raised mine equally with my ex-wife, demanding that I lived with my daughters for alternate weeks and away from my wife and step-kids. It was a regular week-on, week-off arrangement — while disjointed and unusual it worked.

It was that way when we met, and it remained that way for years after we married. But life changes, people change.

My kids have now grown up.

The eldest has left home and next year her younger sister will too. Both are far more interested in socialising and chronicling their lives on social media than in spending time with their Dad.

I get it. I’d likely feel the same in their shoes but it still hurts.

And without the need to be with my daughters one week and my wife the next — I’m finally living in one place all the time, at home with my wife and younger step-kids.

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Taken for granted?

It should be a welcome reprieve after living out of a suitcase for 15 years but instead it feels like some of the magic has been lost from life. I was expecting stability but instead, life feels stale and stagnant — like my permanent presence is an occasional annoyance to those who were used to having space from me for half the time.

The years lived between homes, balancing and juggling competing demands and priorities kept me on my toes and yes, it made me feel wanted — I felt needed.

Now I just feel like I’m here — waiting to be called-upon when some problem or issue needs resolving.

To pay the next unexpected bill.
To clean up the mess that nobody else could be bothered with.
To resolve other people’s gripes and grievances when they need me, and to fade into the background when they don’t.

I’m wanted when it’s convenient and beneficial for them to want me, rather than genuinely being appreciated.

I’m tolerated instead of valued.

I’m taken for granted — and I hate that.

I’m quite certain as I read back my gripes and dissatisfactions — my wallowing sorrow-fest, my pity-party for one — that the issue here is me, not them.

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Fear of an empty nest?

Maybe my mental-malaise is an early case of empty nest syndrome. I thought I’d got more time with my youngest before she turned 18 and left home. It feels like we’ve drifted apart since Covid put-paid to our alternate weeks together and she isolated for months with her Mum instead of me.

Then she decided to stay with her mum full-time; no surprise there I guess.

I’d never stand in the way of her choices but the changes have compounded upon each other. I sense that she’s drifting away from me, if she’s not already gone.

My elder daughter has finished university and is making her way in the world as an adult. I’m fighting to find a new role in her life — something more than the bank of Dad, on-demand troubleshooter and occasional dispenser of fatherly wisdom.

I don’t want to just be called upon when she needs to borrow money or have me solve some dilemma or to resolve and argument between her and her sister or her mum. I want to be supportive without just being on call when problems or dramas arise. I’m trying to hold back the unsolicited advice and to just be an adult with her.

It’s unbelievably hard. When I became a parent I was convinced the hard bit would be the sleepless nights and the tantrums of the early years. Turns out that as they get older, things just evolve — with plentiful challenges for the conscientious parent to deal with.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

It was unconventional to live apart from my wife for alternate weeks but for its faults, it worked. Now I’m no longer needed (or wanted?) by my daughters I’m home with my wife full-time.

I worry that our marriage was made exciting, happy and tenable by the regular space and time we had from each other. Now I’m a permanent fixture in the marital home, I feel at times like I’m encroaching on her space. I worry that we’ll we run out of things to talk about.

Now we’re together all the time will we recognize a lack of common-ground that wasn’t apparent when our time together was novel and punctuated with weeks spent apart?

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Fear of the unknown

My suspicions of an impending mid-life crisis are heightened by the bizarre instincts and interests I’ve developed in recent months.

I’m obsessed with the likelihood of a collapse of society, and of large-scale cyber attacks combining to redefine how we are forced to live. Most bizarrely I don’t even find these notions scary, but rather they seem like probable outcomes that can be prepared for and dealt with, unlike the challenges I face with my kids which seem insurmountable. Weird right?

It feels ridiculously easier to contemplate becoming a prepper because I can get organised for a worst case scenario better than I can adapt to deal with uncertainty on the hoof.

I can cope with worst-case. I cope less well with ever-changing.

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Live to work?

The side-hustles and so-called entrepreneurial endeavours that used to occupy my free time are no longer as necessary as they once were. Back when I was filling multiple roles and trying to support a family of six, a few dollars extra was welcome in making our family economy stack up.

Now, as kids become adults and fly the nest, there’s less pressure on the purse-strings. Yet I feel more compelled to make these projects work.

I find little joy or relaxation in weekends and vacations. My identity and sense of worth has become reliant on making productive use of my time. Inner peace depends on seeing some quantifiable output from time. Rather than my projects bringing me joy, I just feel less-miserable when I’m working than when I’m not.

Who would admit they aspire to a life less-miserable?

I suspect that these shifts too are down to the lost sense of worth and status at home and in my wider life — it signals a need to redress the balance and find a new way of living, not just existing for the benefit of others.

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To be needed and to be wanted

In his song, The Wichita Lineman Glenn Campbell sang:

I need you more than want you — and I want you for all time

What was he really saying? It seems to me that his definition of desire was based on both need and want — craving and reliance.

I know that while my daughters seem mostly ambivalent towards me right now, they still love me. I’m still wanted by them, even if that mainly comes across when they want something from me.

I know that I’m wanted and needed by my wife. It will just take us time to find a new rhythm in our home life. What was once structured around regular time apart will evolve to us being together full-time. And we’ll find ways of protecting our individual space and independence in new ways.

I know I’ll adapt my approach to work and leisure such that there’s more balance. There must be a reason why mid-life crises are a prompt for new hobbies and pastimes that have been put off due to time or resources being scarce?

And contrary to what might be taken from my complaining throughout this piece — I revel in being relied-upon by those I love and care about. I want to help them with their problems, to guide them through dramas and dilemmas. It’s what I’m best at, and I know I’m valued for that.

I just don’t want that to be all that they want me for. It’d be nice to see occasional signs that I’m wanted and needed for who I am, not just for what I do.

I have to trust that it’ll come.

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This post was previously published on Tobyhazlewood.medium.com.

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Photo credit: Alex Iby on Unsplash