
Relationship Reset: Reignite, Reconnect, Rebuild
Feeling stuck in your relationship after years together? Relationship Reset is your go-to podcast for busy, high-achieving couples ready to break free from autopilot and rebuild a thriving partnership. Join relationship expert Katie Rössler, LPC for practical tools, real-life stories, and actionable advice to reignite passion, rebuild trust, and reconnect on a deeper level. Whether you’re navigating communication breakdowns, struggling with intimacy, or just feel disconnected, this podcast is here to help you transform your relationship—and create the love you’ve always envisioned.
Perfect for couples who want to reignite their spark and reconnect with purpose. It’s never too late to hit reset.
Relationship Reset: Reignite, Reconnect, Rebuild
The Truth About The Midlife Crisis
Is a midlife crisis just a dramatic Hollywood trope, or could it be a powerful opportunity for growth and transformation? In this final episode of Season 3, we break down what’s really going on when we reach that pivotal midlife phase.
In this episode, I wrap up Season 3 with a reflective discussion on midlife transitions. I dive into my personal experience of turning 40, shedding light on how to navigate and embrace the changes that come with this phase. Tune in to hear me share my insights on redefining what society calls a "midlife crisis."
In this insightful episode, I highlight the midlife phase as a "cocoon" stage where individuals pause to reflect, grow, and redefine themselves and hollywood’s misconceptions about the "midlife crisis" and why it’s more about transition than turmoil. I also delve into the natural process of reevaluating personal goals, career aspirations, and relationships in midlife and my persona reflections on the “awkward puberty” of midlife in a world filled with instability, and why it’s okay to feel uncertain.
In this episode:
- How reframing midlife as a period of growth rather than crisis can help alleviate common anxieties.
- How setting meaningful goals can add purpose to this transformative phase, allowing one to give back and enjoy life’s simple pleasures.
- What is the natural process of reevaluating personal goals, career aspirations, and relationships in midlife?
- Why the midlife transition often involves questioning one’s purpose, career, and relationships.
Resources:
Couples Goal Setting Workbook
Level 10 Relationship Assessment
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Follow Katie Rössler on Instagram
Check out the podcast website
It's surreal to think about. This is the last episode of season 3, and we're about to go into season 4. I think it's the perfect time to have a discussion about the midlife crisis. Why? Well, I just turned forty this July, and let's just say, in my world—those who are around me and even in my clients' world—this is a hot topic right now. I think we need to start to reveal some of the truths about really what happens in our midlife.
Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Rustler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your balance code.
Welcome back to the podcast, guys. So, this is the last episode of season 3, and if you've been listening for a while, then you know that this season I took a break from having individual episodes and did way more interviews to learn from other experts. You know, it's great to have one person that you learn from—I get it—but I'd like to hear from others. I want to hear different perspectives and experiences and not always see things through one pair of eyes, right? Like, I want to be able to better understand the world, and the only way to do that is to ask other people about their perspectives and the way they create balance in their lives and the challenges they faced.
So, I really hope that you enjoyed season 3. Season 4 will be very similar, where we really start to dive a little bit further into some of the complexities of being a high achiever and the challenges that we can face in creating that balance we want in our lives. But onto this episode, we're going to be talking about the term midlife crisis and what's really going on. What's the truth about the midlife crisis?
Well, I remember I was in my—yeah, it was early 20s—finishing up university and taking a class about aging. It was really fascinating to hear about how there was already a transformation in the world psychology of understanding that the midlife crisis is actually more of a transition. In fact, it's a normal transition we all go through, and there are some key aspects to it that can lead to people having more of a crisis experience. That's what we'll talk about today.
Um, but I remember one of our— that particular professor saying we really need to change this mindset of it being a midlife crisis and really discuss it as a midlife transition. And that stuck with me. Like, I don't know why, because obviously at that time I didn't have clients and I was young, so I just kept thinking about this at different times in my career of this midlife crisis mindset that Hollywood, especially, has perpetuated of buying the red sports car, having the affair, running off and creating a second life—right?—and dropping everything. And how unlikely it is that people actually do that, right? It's not very common, and when people do, they are called out big time for it because, again, Hollywood has made it this big thing.
And two, a lot of us just silently suffer.
We're not going out and doing big things to show that we're feeling like we're in a crisis. It's an identity crisis—it's a big transition and change. And so, we're not all going and doing those things.
So, that was a big thing that I, um, when I started working with people who were going into midlife, that I talked about from the get-go was, you know, I know it feels like a crisis, but this is a transition. Let's talk about what it means to have a transition, right? Anytime we transition jobs, transition places we live—right? Any change, transition is a change. It comes with growing pains; it comes with a change of who you are—um—becoming wiser, better, hopefully, right? It's starting to understand things differently or learning more things.
All of the changes that we go through in our lives tend to feel a little more natural, right? Like we just, you know, leaving university and getting your first job—if that happened easily, then you've got this, like, "Oh, you know, I did that," and then, like, there was imposter syndrome for a little bit, but then, like, now three months in, I just feel like a normal, right? There's something about this midlife time that isn't just three months. It's not just an easy transition and change.
So, though we're going through a change—a change that has growing pains in it—what's hard about it is it's not like past changes we've been through that, again, have a shorter lifespan of uncomfortability. The midlife time really has a longer period of uncertainty, of questioning, of discovery, right? If we get curious about ourselves, it's really a time of self-discovery.
So, I think if we can start to shift out of this panic mode of midlife and start to see it as this beautiful phase of being, like in this cocoon where we get to go, "Okay, so the first, you know, 40, 45, 50 years of our life, this is what we learned and experienced," right? And now we're in this cocoon of growing and understanding and integrating everything we learned, and so that we can blossom and really go into our 50’s and 60’s at this whole new sense of self and identity—just really this empowerment.
Like, think! That experience feels much more fulfilling and purposeful than, "I got into my 40’s, and I started questioning everything. I wanted to quit my job. I wanted to stop doing this, you know? I questioned my relationship. I kept questioning everything, and I just felt like I was all alone."
I have yet to meet someone—and I don't just mean in my office, but also friends, acquaintances—who, when we start talking about the midlife experience, don't go through the things that I'm going to share today, right? We're all going through it. We all have a sense of questioning: Who am I? Am I doing things that I want to be doing, or am I just living the way I'm supposed to live?
It felt like you hit midlife and you're like, "I don't need to show up for anybody else but myself now." Am I even happy to show up? Is this the life I want? Is this a career I want? Have I formulated all of these goals and all the drives I've had within me? Are they still there? Like, have I formulated them on, you know, solid foundations or just on sand? Where is this going to fall apart?
I think it's crucial to have these questions. I think it's crucial to face these questions rather than allow them to haunt us—to be going on in the background while we're trying to act like everything's okay. Because it's okay to be in the cocoon phase; it's okay to feel uncertain.
I know I've taught you guys this analogy before, but the cocoon phase for a caterpillar is what we would define as really uncomfortable because they go from a solid structure of a caterpillar, and they form this cocoon around them, right? Then they turn to mush because a hormone is released that breaks them apart. It breaks down their body; it eats itself, basically, turns to mush, and then, from there, enzymes release that help them start to shift, and platelets start to form.
And there we go, we've got a leg, and we've got a body, and we've got a wing. And there's another wing, and there's more legs, right? You know, so it is an uncomfortable phase of a cocoon, and I realize I'm not selling this midlife experience very well.
Am I? But what I'm saying is, you're in a cocoon, right? As long as you don't try to rip out of that cocoon, try to get out faster than you're supposed to, you're gonna get through it, and you're going to be stronger and better.
We love the idea of the butterfly, right? We love the idea of the transformation and being that butterfly. But the only way to get there—and we know this as high achievers—is we have to go through the process. We have to go through the journey. And this is a phase you cannot sprint through. This is a phase you cannot sprint through. You don't want to sprint through it. Let's be honest; you don't want to sprint through it because then you will struggle and suffer for years to come.
I say that with confidence because I've seen it in my clients. If you try to sprint out of this, right? Try to get out of the cocoon too fast. You are not a butterfly; you're still mush with maybe a leg and a half of a wing, right? Like, you are not ready. It is crucial that we allow this phase.
And whether you're in your late 30’s and you're already starting to feel it—because I felt the tinges of it—then you're in your 40’s already, or you're coming out of it, right? You're in your 50’s and you're like, "Wow, like yep, I can really dodge for like..." As you start to move from your 50’s into your 60’s, there's this transformation. It's the butterfly; it's the budding of the blossom, right? Like, whatever it might be, however you want to describe it, it's happening.
You can reflect on where you are in that cycle, where you are in that phase, and what it feels like. And if you tried to sprint through it—if you're listening to this and you're like, "I tried to sprint through it. I tried to avoid it. I tried to hide it, and now I am struggling. I'm now trying to figure out all those things I wish I had figured out five, six, seven, ten years ago," right? It's so important that we allow ourselves to stay in the cocoon phase.
Now, here are some lies we tell ourselves about the cocoon phase: "I won't be successful in this phase. I will have to burn it all down, like my relationship will end because of it." Absolutely not! When I talk about a cocoon phase, I'm not saying isolate yourself in the world. A cocoon phase is stop pushing, start listening. Pay attention to the things that you've learned about; reflect on your life, reflect over the goals you've set, reflect over the healing you've done or the healing you haven't done yet.
What layers of the onion have you peeled back, and what layers are still there? This is like diving into the best journal and being able to read half of it, already going, "I already know this half," and then saying, "Now, in this middle section, I really get to write out what I want this second half to look like." That's what midlife is.
And yet, so many of us feel the identity crisis of, "Who am I? What's my purpose? Is this really the life I want to live?" Oh my gosh, I feel like I've just been doing everything for everyone else, or whatever plays through our minds, right? Maybe I want to change careers, but I'm scared too—all the things we... we just go into fear mode. Because if we question our reality, if we question how we've been doing things, it makes us question a lot of other stuff, and that's scary, right?
We all want to feel confidence and trust in what we believe in, in our values, in the why's we've had in the past. But I know that my why in my 20’s was different than my why in my 30’s, and sure as heck is different than my why right now, entering into my 40’s. And it's okay to question those and to say, "Oh, my ego was driving some of those things in my 20’s," and in my 30’s, it might have been more people-pleasing than it was of now, right?
So, being able to understand that the midlife transition is a really beautiful phase that will be uncomfortable—you guys know it. I've had so many people say, "Katie, I'm so grateful you don't lie to us." About how difficult these things are, like you're very point-blank, but you also give us hope we can get through it. Absolutely, it is a challenging transition. What makes it challenging is how much you fight it. What makes it challenging is how much you're afraid of it.
You know, I truly believe that suffering occurs because of our own belief systems about something, right? Mental and emotional sufferings often come from our own belief systems about how it's supposed to be, what it is supposed to look like, how resilient we are, how strong we are, and we cause our own suffering often instead of getting curious and approaching this phase of our lives with, "What am I gonna learn? What am I gonna gain from this? What is that section of the journal gonna have written in it that I get to read 10 years from now?" Like, that's empowering; that feels hopeful. That feels like a sense of greatness to come, right? That visionary in us that wants to set goals and dreams still gets to do that without feeling like they have to be silenced because they have to keep following the dreams that they used to have.
I shared with my husband recently that sometimes it feels like, as we get older, there's obviously more responsibilities, right? There's more things—more and more and more—and like we're really the type who like to try to live simply, and it just doesn't seem realistic at this phase in our lives. I said, "I think instead of trying to fight it, we need to get stronger shoulders to carry it." What I meant and what I shared with him is just, it's like we need to build our resilience.
And what's so funny is I literally physically started to do more muscle-building work because I was like, "I'm physically gonna build up my resistance, my resilience," but I'm gonna physically be able to handle this weight that's coming on. And that is just a representation of the work I'm doing, even emotionally and mentally, to start to hold more of the weight of what is to come. Because there are many who will tell you when they look back at their 40s and early 50s, it was the time of bad news, right? It was the time of people getting divorced; it was the time of parents dying, right? Or the time where you're taking care of both your kids and your parents. It's the time of layoffs at work, the time of health issues, that often we end up bonding more on the negatives that are happening in our lives than the positives.
Knowing that this is a phase where people tend to go into a more negative mindset and share more about that or to face those challenges—again, we're in a midlife transition, so we're gonna turn to mush. It's gonna be uncomfortable, and it's gonna show up in different ways. Knowing that I am working personally on my resilience of being able to hold and handle around me emotional and mental pressure and uncomfortability, and also physical pressure and uncomfortability.
Obviously not in the negative sense, but in the sense of like your body feels all the stuff that you're compounding on it. Now, with all of that, I'm trying to be really mindful about my work-life balance. I'm trying to take more time to do puzzles with my children, to go for walks with my family, to just take walks by myself and journal. I'm trying to be more mindful that I have to build my resilience not always by doing more, like adding more to my plate, but by doing things that fill my cup, that relax me—going to bed early, taking a bath, and stretching before bed so my body can actually relax when I go to sleep.
I had a friend joke, "Welcome to your 40’s; you're gonna wake up in pain every day." And I'm not gonna say she's right, but I don't know; I'm gonna say it's something like that. There are things that I didn't want to believe that my 40’s would bring, so I just ignored them. And yes, I'm just a couple of months into my 40’s, so it seems so silly; it seems absolutely ridiculous and bizarre. And a part of me is like, "Am I creating this in my head?" I don't know, but I do ache. It's so—I don't think it's that.
But again, what I've noticed is I have to work on my health and my resilience, or I will go through this transition, and it will become a crisis. Because it is the time where I will face—and the people around me will face—more challenges, and it is the time where I will ask more questions that are hard to face. "Am I really happy? Is this really what I want to be doing? Is this the life that I want to be living?"
And in my relationship, we get to come together and ask those questions together because we worked on bringing us together. But there are many couples, and a lot of the couples I work with, who did not start to have these discussions early. Our goals: Is this what we want versus my goal and your goal, and we just figure it out later on? Many couples didn't realize that every seven to ten years, that itch, that whatever uncomfortable feeling is a time to rebuild the relationship, not a time to pull away further. And it takes both of you wanting to rebuild, which is crucial.
So knowing that this is a time to come even closer to each other, to build our resilience in our relationship, because a lot of things are gonna be coming, right? A lot of things are gonna be affecting us. And I think just, if we look at things on a global stance—right? This is November 3rd as I'm recording this, and when this comes out, it will be the day after the American election, and there'll be results, hopefully—we'll see. There are a lot of things happening in the world, and it's not just in America.
We know there are wars occurring in multiple places; there are horrible things happening, and it seems like every couple of months, it's another thing, right? So, building our resilience to what will continue to come, because this time is a time of transition in the world. For those of us in midlife, for entering into midlife, for coming out, it's still a transition.
So imagine you're going through your own awkward puberty stage, right? Like pimples and braces and trying to figure out yourself, but the whole world is going through it at the same time, and there's chaos. You know, it's gonna get ugly and awkward, and that's kind of like what it's like going to your midlife right now and watching what's happening in the world. We're all going through our awkward, ugly stage together in different ways.
So I just—I do wanna end with encouragement. I don't wanna end with that; I wanna end with encouragement. If you're going through this phase, if you are about to enter into it and are nervous about turning forty and above, dreading that, I would just stop and ask yourself why. What are you so scared of? What is it that feels uncomfortable about entering into your 40’s and into the time of midlife? What is it that you have been told, right, that you're like, "I don't wanna have that; I don't wanna experience that"? What have you seen people go through? What did your parents go through in those ages?
Because even though we don't consciously go, "Oh, I was this age when my parents were in their 40’s," we still witnessed and experienced their own transition and potentially crisis time. I know it was a big impact in my parents' marriage, and a lot of things came out in that phase. So it's easy for me to look back and be like, "It's definitely a crisis," but it's not. That's how they chose to live it.
So it's reminding ourselves that we need to get curious about why we might have a negative view about midlife. Also, challenge the stereotypes that are out there. I think so many people are doing a great job of doing that—not even somewhat in Hollywood—and you're seeing people, you know, who are older still being strong, powerful, and out there, empowered, and fighting the ages. And that's out there, but I think it's important for us to do that within ourselves.
What are the stereotypes we've held? What are the things that we believed that have now impacted us as we enter into this phase? How would we like this to look different than the people around us? Knowing that it is a transition, it is a cocoon kind of decade. It is a time for us to go inward and to make a little more space for reflection—to go for those walks, to do the journaling, to find that friend you can talk to, to go finally hire a counselor, a coach, and get out some of the things you've been mulling over by yourself but really want to speak out loud.
You know, there's a reason why many people go through career transitions in this decade, right, in the 40’s to 50’s, and even 50’s to 60’s after they get out of it. There is absolutely a reason for this. There's also a reason that many people in their relationships during this time—and, you know, I wanna speak to real briefly, though this may be a whole episode later on—that there's a lot of research showing right now that many women who get divorced during the time of perimenopause say...That a contributing factor to them getting divorced was going through perimenopause. Now, is that the hormones? Is that the—you know, we take a lot of time to be introspective and know, “What do I want? What do I not want?” And maybe then we realize we don't want the relationship we're in. I don't know; I'm not gonna speculate. The research, of course, goes to what they believe, but I'm always really cautious to say this is fact.
But I will just say that the statistics are quite high for divorces during this time, and it's not always because of an affair, and it's not always because of bad financial decisions. It is also because we're changing. Whether it's just hormonal, whether it's just your brain, whatever you want to call it, I just say it's a time of transition, and all of you is changing. And it actually doesn't matter what gender you are; both are changing.
So, being able to question those things, starting to understand that the questions are healthy and good, especially in your relationship, and finding a safe space to ask those questions and find your own answers. Nobody really needs to give you answers for those things; you get to decide those things.
That's why I love working with my clients, 'cause often they'll come to me like, “Well, what do you think?” and I'm like, “It doesn't matter what I think. You have to wake up each day and look yourself in the mirror. What are you comfortable waking up to? You know, what decisions are you comfortable standing up against? Other people saying that was wrong or bad.”
It doesn't matter what anyone else tells you you should be doing; you really have to empower yourself and say, “Okay, during this phase, I realize I want a career transition. What will that change look like? You know, what are the consequences of it? Am I willing to stand up to what other people think or feel because of it?”
Yeah, 'cause if I really want this change, okay, more power to you! Do it. Find your tribe. Find the people around you who are gonna support you, even if it's one or two people, and then make that change. But again, be empowered in this phase and be empowered in the fact that it is normal—that it's a challenge.
'Cause sometimes when we actually know it's going to be a challenge, we go into it with, like, our fighter spirit, right? Phoenix rising from the ashes! I am ready! I don't like that it's gonna get uncomfortable, but I will make the shower cold at the end; whatever I'm supposed to do, right? Like, "We will—okay, as long as you tell me that this is normal and it will end, I will do it!"
And it's not like it's a continual suffering phase. Again, we cause the suffering; we cause the challenges. It is that life will bring us things, and we will need to reflect on how we want to respond. And the best way to do that is to take a deep breath before you say or do anything and go, “How do I want to respond? What is the wise adult in me, who is now in midlife? How do they want to respond?”
'Cause I'm not that—you know, puberty kid who can't get a word out, and I'm not in my 20’s or 30’s where I might have been impulsive. Now I get to think and be wise and make decisions based off of that, and then actually take charge and take a step forward rather than just sit and be scared.
I will end with this: for my birthday in July, I was really always loved celebrating birthdays. We always, in my family, celebrated birthdays. Like, I would start months in advance planning my birthday; my kids did the same thing now, and I think you get it, honestly.
But this birthday, which I thought I would be so excited about, I wasn't. And it wasn't about turning 40 for me. It wasn't about the age; I always joke with my friends, it's like finally I'm in street cred! When you always look young, anytime you can hit people with, like, “I’m 40,” and they're like, “What? You look 35!” You're like, “Thanks! But I'm 40, which means I'm wise and I have a lot of experience.”
But I was happy about the age; that doesn't bother me. It was realizing that I was coming to a phase in my life, in a new decade, and my mom wasn't here. And knowing that I was about to go through this transition and kind of going like, “Okay, I don't have her to bounce these ideas off of or to talk about her own experience. I can only remember it,” right? I can only take it from my point of view as a teenager of what she was going through, and that was really hard for me.
I shared with a friend a couple of weeks before my birthday that I was really struggling with the idea of celebrating, and I kind of just thought I want to do something on my own. Even though I know it was big, I needed to. And she said—a friend of mine told me that, you know, your 20’s and 30’s are finding the partner, you know, building the career, starting the family, finding the home that you want to be in, right? Like, it's always about building, building, building, building.
And she said, “Then you get to your 40’s, and you finally get to just enjoy it.” And she said that, and something clicked in me that it was like, I finally get to just stop and be present for all of it. I don't have to keep adding to it and trying for more, more, more. I have the things now; it's about learning how to enjoy them more.
And that felt like a decade—a decade of celebration, right? As much as it's gonna be integrating, part of what it's integrating is learning how to let go of the need to do and to be more present in the now and enjoying that more than the next thing or reflecting on the past or, you know, the constant go, go, go.
It's like, how do we play tricks on our mind and allow time to stand still? That, to me, is what this decade is about: how can I play tricks with my mind and allow time to stand still? Have you ever been, you know, out at— I was thinking about, like, beach trips with my friends when I was younger, or you're out in the mountains, or you're at a great dinner with friends, and it's like time just hops because you're just enjoying it? Time could go on forever or stop, whichever, right? Like, their time does not exist in a way that it does when we're in our busy workday or picking up the kids or having to get to here and, “Oh my god, it's like what time is it? I need to go to bed.”
When we can create more moments like that, where it feels like time stopped, I think that that's my ultimate goal for this next decade. So, I'll end with that—that this decade doesn't have to be just a time of turning the mush; it can be a really beautiful time of learning some cool lessons that you decide you want to learn for yourself and to start to put them into practice.
And you have basically a whole decade to figure that out and to enjoy the process of getting curious and learning more about yourself. To ask, “Who do I want to be for this next half of my life?” in the sense of, “What do I want to achieve or not achieve anymore? How do I take better care of myself so I'm around for a lot longer?”
You know, one of the things that I want to start doing to give back and build a legacy—these are beautiful questions we get to ask ourselves. And then, how do I start stretching more so I don't feel so achy in the morning when I wake up? Thank you, friend, for warning me about that. I get it. No, I get it; you were joking.
Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope it's given you some hope as you go through this transition time. For those of you who are far from it, hopefully, it gives you some positive reflections and a better understanding of those around you who may be going through it. And for those of you who are coming out of it, continue to think good thoughts for those of us in it, reminding us that it is a beautiful phase of transition and not a crisis.
So this wraps up our Season 3, and I do want to end real quickly with just to let you guys know, because it is the end of the year again—it's November 3rd—I have my couples goal-setting workbook for you guys. And this year I beefed it up, and I put an 8-part audio series that teaches you how to deal with the challenges that come with setting goals with your partner. You know what I mean? Like, the crying and getting frustrated and upset when they feel like they discount what you say or when you feel like it's just you leading with the goals, and you think, “Do you have any goals for us?” right?
It kind of goes back and forth, so each of the audios are there to be able to support you and give you tools in the moment as you're working on the workbook together. So, I’d love for you to grab that! Make sure you grab it; some of the show notes, uh, it'll be there through November, December, and January. You can get it and start setting goals with your partner for 2025.
Well, I can't wait to hear what you learned from this episode and what phase of your own cycles and life you are in, so feel free to reach out at Katie at katieresser.com and let me know. Make sure you grab that couples goal-setting workbook, and here's to moving towards Season 4, guys! Can't believe we're here!
Here's to finding our balance code. Thank you for listening to today's episode; I hope you enjoyed it. Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. That helps other listeners just like you to find this podcast too.
Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below. Discovering your balance code doesn't have to be a one-person journey; you can have a team, and I'd love to support you. So, here's to finding our balance code!