My Story – Why I Needed a Midlife Restart
If you’ve come here from the home page, this is the fuller version of the story I hinted at there – how my own midlife crisis led to creating Master Midlife and my work in midlife coaching for men.
There was a time in my life when I thought I had everything sorted out.
I was married with two young daughters. I was working in a role I loved with plenty of challenge and opportunity. I enjoyed financial security, kept myself in great physical shape, and had a strong spiritual life. I was surrounded by friendships I believed were deep, loyal and unconditional.
I felt blessed. Life felt full of promise.
Over time, though, cracks started to appear. Trust in my marriage was damaged in a way that cut deeply. What had felt solid and safe suddenly felt uncertain and painful. I went from “having it all” to feeling completely broken.
We stayed together for several more years, trying to repair things, but the trust never really returned. Eventually I had to admit to myself that the relationship, at least in its current form, wasn’t something I could keep living in. When I finally expressed this, it led to a very difficult separation and, in time, divorce.
At that stage our daughters were teenagers. They were devastated and struggled to make sense of what was happening between their Mum and Dad. Despite my best efforts to shield them, the separation was messy and they were exposed to some very confronting situations.
I found myself parenting largely on my own while still working full-time and trying to hold everything together. It was an extremely demanding season, and I’m deeply grateful for the colleagues, friends and family who helped me get through it. At the same time, some long-term friendships, especially around Church, became strained or faded away.
That whole chapter took a real toll on my health, my finances and my relationships. It was humbling to realise that, despite all my efforts to be a “good man”, I had arrived at a point where I needed a genuine midlife restart.
As is often the way, love found me when I wasn’t looking for it.
Some time after the separation, I met an incredible woman – smart, courageous, kind, and with her own story of pain and rebuilding. She has played a huge part in helping me learn to trust again. We married in 2022 and later welcomed a beautiful daughter into our family.
Looking back, I can see that the difficulties of separation, divorce, property settlement and some very dark moments were made bearable because of my faith, my daughters, my close family and the woman who chose to walk beside me. But they still left their mark. They changed me. And they brought me face-to-face with the reality that I couldn’t just “push on” – I needed to consciously reset my life in midlife.
That’s really where the heart of Master Midlife was born: out of my own need for a reset, and now, a desire to help other men in their 40s and 50s turn a midlife crisis into a midlife reset instead of a breakdown.
Why I'm remaining anonymous (for now).
Before I move on, I want to explain why I’m choosing to keep my name off this site for the time being.
I’ve thought long and hard about attaching my full identity to this story. In the end, out of respect for my teenage children and my ex-wife, I’ve decided to remain anonymous for now. There are friends and family who could probably recognise me from this story, and that’s okay – but I don’t feel it’s right to broadcast everyone’s personal details to the wider world.
My hope is that you can still relate to what I’m sharing, even without knowing my full name. I’m just a man in midlife who’s been knocked down, made mistakes, walked through some very hard things, and realised he needs a restart.
If you’re in a similar place, you’re not alone. This is my starting point. From here, my work – and this site – are about helping you start your own midlife reset too.