Пользователи Reddit делятся шокирующими историями о кризисе среднего возраста

Recently, Reddit user Yogospiracy asked, "What is the cringiest midlife crisis you've witnessed?" and lord, are these stories bad. Read on to feel better about your newly acquired birdwatching hobby, or bookmark this so you have some reminders of what NOT to do when you hit your 40s. We also used replies from this thread. NOTE: There are mentions of grooming and suicide. 1. "A divorced 44-year-old father fell in love with his son's 22-year-old girlfriend. They got married, and 10 years later, they are still together with two children. The son still does not speak to them and has recently moved to another country." 2. "He left his second wife (who was an au pair for the first wife’s children) for the au pair. His third wife did not get an au pair for their kids." 3. "My uncle left his stable corporate job, spent his savings on crypto, and started a 'mindset and finance' podcast in his garage. He has 12 listeners, but he talks and dresses like he’s Patrick Bateman." "I knew a 36-year-old with two daughters in high school who left an engineering job to work as a janitor to have time to get a podcast going. Ever heard of the NGBN network? It was a whole group of middle-aged men doing podcasts with 12 viewers. They all got sucked in by a lifestyle coach who convinced them all to pay into this network or podcasts they’d be a part of. They all interviewed each other and called themselves ‘community leaders.’ It was all that 'believe, conceive, achieve' bullshit where they just need the right mindset, a growth mindset, and everything would just fall into place. It was sad to watch." 4. "A 45-year-old man with ALS paralysis cheated and left his long-time loving and fun wife for his home health aide. Aide got bored after six months and left him. Now he is on his own, living in a facility. His ex-wife met someone new and is getting remarried." 5. "My ex-husband left our kids and me because I wouldn't let him quit his job to start a podcasting business (level of experience? Zero). He 'came out' as polyamorous with all the pomp and circumstance that someone comes out as gay with (posting all over social media about his truth), and now he is an almost-50-year-old dude with no job whose four kids think he's a knob. He was fired from two jobs in rapid succession, too. He rants and raves to the kids about how he's going to sue the last boss for wrongful termination, but all he really wants is an apology because he 'wasn't respected.'" 6. "Where are they getting this idea? My dad did the same thing, backed away from his business to start a 'mindset and finance' podcast. He has also spent over $250,000 on life coaches over the last four years. The worst part is that one of his coaches has ingrained in his mind that it's not drive or hard work that gets you to where you want to be: It's 'letting go of your worries' and 'letting the energy from the universe guide you to where you want to be.' It pisses me off so much. I have to try to bring him back to reality, like, 'No, Dad, if I just let go of all my worries, the universe is not going to buy me a house next week.'" 7. "My coworker, who used to be addicted to drugs and alcohol, left his wife of 30 years for a 22-year-old. A girl the same age as his youngest daughter. He met the girl in AA, and she had a 1-year-old kid with *another* guy in recovery — who wouldn't even admit to being the father — that she wasn't allowed to see without supervision. The baby lived with Grandma. He damn near lost his job because he kept bringing this girl around the job site, and he ended up living in his trailer. He has been smoking and drinking for the past six years while still being off and on with that girl (who now has *another* kid by another guy and has OD'ed multiple times)." "And he wonders why his daughters didn't invite him to their weddings..." 8. "A guy I used to work with enrolled in a part-time master's degree course, where he mainly did night classes, so far so good. He then joined the university's skydiving club, which he'd never done in his life, mainly so he could go out drinking with the younger students and try to get with the 18-year-old girls. Then he dropped out of his master's course, stayed in the skydiving club, and was out almost every night with students. He was in his 40s and married with two kids!" 9. "My former boss embezzled money from the company to pay for who knows what, and ended up owing me and all my coworkers money (I took him to small claims court and won, but have yet to see a cent because he has no money). So he ruined his business and his good relationships with all of us. All of this, his wife stood by him. How does he repay her? BY SENDING NUDES TO CAMGIRLS AND NOW HE'S BEING BLACKMAILED. He literally ruined his ENTIRE life." 10. "My coworker in his late 40s dumped his wife of 20 years, bought a bright red sports car, started dating a 22‑year‑old barista, and got a huge tribal sleeve tattoo. He also began posting cringey motivational 'alpha male' reels every single day. The whole office watched it unfold." 11. "My ex-wife (wife at the time) had an affair with our female babysitter, 14 years her junior (she was 21, ex was 35)." 12. "I have two friends that quit stable jobs to become full-time Disney influencers in their 40s. And they barely have any followers, but they keep pushing out content, trying to make something happen." 13. "My friend (56) got divorced from his wife (also 56) 30 years ago. Their son is now in his early 30s. About 10 years ago, they found out she was seeing one of the boys with whom their son went to school." 14. "My sister's friend was married to a successful and wealthy husband and had two teenagers. They lived a very comfy life. Then he knocked up their much younger nanny AND knocked up another woman at the same time. Needless to say, they are now divorced, and he is raising a baby with one of the other women." 15. "Very recently, the father of one of my nephews' friends decided that being a suburban dad wasn't what he wanted. He left his wife, moved into an apartment over a wine shop, sold his SUV, bought a Mustang, got on the apps trying to date younger women, quit his white-collar job, and decided to be a lifestyle influencer. Now, he stands alone at school pickup because he can't understand why the other parents don't want to associate with him. He's also upset with his ex-wife because she's pursuing child support based on the income he voluntarily abandoned, and it's screwing up his new plans." 16. "I knew a guy who was extremely wealthy. He was a hardcore wife guy. She died of an illness; he was there the whole time and did everything for her (including paying for a lot of extremely expensive treatments which kept her alive for years), and the second she was gone, he abandoned all his kids and completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Years later, they found him because someone anonymously mailed them his blog. They found out that he changed his name to something ridiculous, became a hardcore biker, and that he spends all his time motorcycling in faraway countries with a group of other older rich guys. They tried contacting him, and he wants nothing to do with them and let them know they're all cut from the will." "So they get zero inheritance. It's been almost 20 years since then, and the kids are all in their 30s and 40s now, and they all have grandchildren, and he hasn't met any of them and apparently doesn't care to." 17. "I know of a man who became a doula to meet women. Not even kidding." 18. "I know a man who blew up his marriage, business, and friendships to pursue a single mother with the intelligence of a junebug. She was after his money, but he truly believed she wanted him. She was hedging her bets and sleeping with someone her own age at the same time. His wife was willing to take him back and work on their marriage. Then she discovered she had cancer and underwent major surgery and treatment. He promised he'd be there for whatever she needed. He lied." "He alienated everyone who cared about him and doubled down. When his girlfriend eventually gets tired of his old butt, he'll have nothing." 19. "I'm an MMA coach and had a lad mid-40s join the club. This happens a lot, but most of them just want to train and not try to compete at a high level. This lad was sorta shite, and, other than having a bit of muscle, wasn't at all athletic. He got tattoos of our club and MMA quotes within the first month, and kept pushing me to get him a fight even though he had learned basically nothing. I caved in after six months just to shut him up. He made 100s of posts on social media leading up to the fight and invited everyone he ever met. The day of the fight comes, he's absolutely shitting himself as he may have sparred a handful of times despite my trying to sort him out with more. First punch that connected with him in the fight, he absolutely broke down." "He kept turning his back on who he was fighting, and the ref called it off after a minute. My 7-year-old niece would have done better. I never saw him in the club again afterward. He still has the profile picture of the square off of the fight seconds before he got an absolute kicking in front of everyone he knows, though." 20. "An ex-friend decided to ditch his wife and start trying to date one of my baristas (I owned a cafe). I think she was having fun until he started taking her seriously. Watching him implode and move in with 20-something roommates was just sad. I had to ban him when he started arguing with my female staff that 40-somethings should totally be allowed to hit on college girls and they were wrong for thinking he was wrong... He is also a college professor." 21. "My dad has a small but relatively successful business. He was draining it to give all of the money to young women." "I had a business partner do this. The idiot fell in love with a 20-year-old Brazilian girl and was constantly asking for disbursements from our operating account. We put an end to it when we learned he was building her a restaurant. We ended up buying him out (for pennies on the dollar, but still a substantial sum) because it got so contentious. Less than a year later, his cleaning lady found him dead on his sofa. The autopsy revealed a **.8** blood alcohol level. That is *not* a typo. Turns out he'd spent every dime he had, including bankrupting his own, separate, formerly successful business. His wife was very upset when she found out. Even more so when she learned the restaurant was in the girlfriend's name." 22. "A guy who never went to college, but ended up being quite successful and basically retired at 40, decided he wanted to go to college. He wanted the full college experience, so he moved into the dorm. That really creeped out a bunch of parents, having a 40-year-old man living with their 18-year-old sons and daughters, since it was a co-ed dorm." 23. "The mum of an old high school friend started dating one of his friends (this was a mid-40s woman dating an 18-year-old). She was grooming and feeding all these young guys drugs, became obsessed with ayahuasca, and ended up a shaman in South America for a few years. She had to return because of the pandemic. Now, I think she is a music teacher." 24. "I think there is an ayahuasca flavor of midlife crisis, my friend had it, too. She went from being a sorority girl, painting cups and planning parties, to doing ayahuasca monthly. She began wearing only white flowy clothes, called herself a shaman, put feathers in her hair, and married a white dude who hosts sweats in a moldy hut in his backyard. Together they make anti-western medicine podcasts on Spotify and are trying to start a commune in the middle of a field." 25. "Someone in my extended circles left his wife of 20 years, who is absolutely amazing. Truly, one of the coolest people I've ever known, and even by his own report, they had an incredible marriage (and two wonderful children). He struggled with his employment; he was a teacher for a few years, worked at a nonprofit for a few years, was unemployed quite a bit, etc. She supported them all and bought a lovely house, and on top of everything else, it is unbelievably beautiful. He met a drug addicted semi-professional cheerleader (cocaine and occasionally meth), less than half his age, who flirted with him constantly and told him they would only get together if he left his wife. Well, he did." "Now he's broke, living in a crappy apartment he can afford, and they only dated a few weeks because she is young and not interested in settling down. That was about 10 years ago. He says it was the biggest mistake of his life, and he has begged his ex-wife to get back together many times. She is honestly still heartbroken and does all kinds of stuff to support their kids and even him, but she absolutely refuses to get back together. The only bullet he dodged was the addict ex-girlfriend had a baby with the next guy she dated. Now he's nearly 50 and looks 60. Meanwhile, his ex-wife is nearly 50 and looks 35." 26. "I caught my mom having an affair with some guy who owned a bunch of car repair places. She used some inheritance money from an aunt to buy a BMW convertible, moved out, and got an apartment on the water. Meanwhile, my dad started drinking heavily and partying with younger dudes he met through the gym, but the entire time, he still wanted her back. After about two years, she finally moved back. Coincidentally, this was right around the time my dad was talking to a lawyer and was about to cut off the monthly money he’d still been giving her. They got back together and somehow just carried on like none of it ever happened. That was 15 years ago, and they're still together. 😂" 27. "A friend of a friend went full-on midlife crisis. He left his wife and two children because of 'all the other women he could get,' went to Turkey to get his hair and teeth done, get a whole new wardrobe at Brown Thomas [Editor's note: an Irish luxury department store], and bought a convertible AND a motorcycle. Fast-forward five years, and he is single, living in a two-bedroom rental place with a broken-down car, trying to make the five-year-old clothes last. His wife, however, is living her best life, best thing that ever happened to her she reckons, her career has taken off, and having agreed week on week off custody of the children means she has a lot more time on her hands than she ever had before." 28. "A guy I used to work with had a midlife crisis and started day trading during work hours. He started making decent money from it and was phoning in his day job and really not putting in much effort. He eventually went to Turkey and got his hair and teeth done, dumped his rich, gorgeous trophy wife (he'd been living off her money for years and she even floated him when he started his own business, which he later sold for a tidy profit) and started living the single life, drinking with lads half his age and partying like he was some sort of superstar..." "He's now living single and makes money, but he's lonely, and his gorgeous ex-wife is happy with a new man who probably can't believe his luck at finding a beautiful, rich, independent woman in her mid-40s." 29. "I had a boss one time, a super normal dude that decided to get heavily into doing coke and hanging around criminals. He ended up losing his job, his wife and kids, and all his money on bad or dodgy investments. Last I heard, he went to prison for a bit for doing some sort of fraud and had to go back to living with his mother." 30. "My dad, in his mid-40s (early 2000s), went from fun-loving, laid-back comic to extreme evangelical redneck. He started sucking up all the energy in the room. Satanism, women's rights/health, taxes, and Gen Z are out to get him. He stocks ammunition and canned food for when communism takes over. I miss my old dad." "It happened to my dad, too, and I blame the onset of the Facebook algorithm. He was completely unable to process the algorithm that was feeding him this stuff. He used to be a normal person with a mix of opinions across the spectrum that could be changed and updated with new information. Now he just sits with his iPad and falls deeper into the rabbit hole. When I talk to him about anything, he can't handle it unless the conversation centers around something terrible he saw on Facebook. Shit needs to be illegal, yesterday." 31. "My dad started cheating on my mum, found a new 20-something-year-old girlfriend, and spent all his money on her. Bought her a Jaguar, a new set of boobs, a cafe, to name a few. Started committing fraud to pay for all of the things, went to prison for three years, and then took his own life after he came out. I'd deffo describe that as cringe to say the least." "He was a scumbag tbh. He was a solicitor, and the guy he defrauded was heavily disabled, and he had power of attorney over him. So he got what was coming to him." 32. "Divorce, younger girlfriend, bought a 1200cc sports motorbike. All the standard things. The real cringe, though, was that he got the house in the divorce and decided to put down bright red carpet in every single room because his wife wouldn't let him have red carpet in their bedroom. I've never seen anything like it." 33. "He developed a gambling addiction and left his pregnant wife and two young kids for a secretary half his age, who dumped him about as soon as she discovered he was broke (due to said gambling addiction). Ex-wife couldn't even sue him for much, given that he'd drained all his finances and then some. She got an abortion and moved back in with her parents." "He was such a 'respectable' young man when I first met him, too. Good student; graduated with a high GPA in a lucrative field; got a great job straight outta grad. He even went to church regularly and was active in his local community. I felt plumb awful for his ex-wife. He really blew both their lives right apart. Now she's rebuilding, and he's just a deadbeat, broke-ass dad and general laughingstock." 34. "A dude that I was friends with left his wife of about 15 years to be with his 19-year-old girlfriend (he was 38). The surprising twist came a few months later, after the girlfriend left him, when he was arrested for getting naked and attacking other people's cars, and then the police, with a machete." 35. "I have a friend who was in a bad marriage and decided that the one thing that would fix everything was to have a kid. Except her husband was in his 50s, and it wasn't working. So she fucked strangers with no protection and got pregnant. She claimed it was the husband's since it was his 'dream' to have a child. After having the kid, none of the problems were fixed. Her husband, who never cleaned or did anything, didn't want to do all the infant-related stuff, so she just became a sex worker to deal with the bills and to get laid." 36. "My aunt left her husband, her home, and her teenage daughter to live in a trailer with some biker guy she met. Drugs became a BIG part of the scene, which was unfortunate because her teen daughter moved into the trailer with her and the biker guy. One thing led to another, and they lost the trailer. They ended up living in a school bus in the woods and all three — including the teen daughter — got hooked on very, very hard drugs. The teen daughter's dad eventually got back custody of her (against her will, I think, because...drugs), and my aunt left biker guy and moved in with her aging parents to 'help' them." "I'm not saying her husband was a great, blameless guy, but damn, she blew up her whole life for that one." 37. "My biological father ran away with the circus, married a woman my age, and then eventually escaped to South America, where he attempted to fake his death to get out of paying child support for my half-sibling (I'm assuming because he had kids with another woman my age and needed the money for them). I guess at least he didn't buy a motorcycle." 38. "My dad's second marriage. Met her Sept. 1, moved her and her young daughter in Oct. 1, married her Nov. 1, and by Christmas, they could not stand each other. Filed for divorce on March 1. On May 1, she took every single stick of furniture and piece of everything else out of my father's house and moved in with her next mark. Turned out he was husband #5. That was fun." Finally, we'll end on a few that are actually happy (or cringe without being sad). 39. "My husband's former landlord was the manager of a very high-end fine dining restaurant. Clean cut, knew his clairet from his Beaujolais. The very model of a modern gentleman. Then his mother fell terminally ill with breast cancer. He got on a plane to his home country, but she passed away while he was still in the air. After he came back, he quit his job, sold his house, took off to Mexico, and got a job harvesting grapes in a vineyard. He settled the land and built a new cluster of careers making wine, leading motorcycle tours, and hosting ayahuasca retreats for New Age hippie folks. He also got married, and they just had a baby. He's living his best life, and we're very happy for him." 40. "My grandpa had a late-life crisis after my grandmother passed away. He wrote and self-published a book of erotic stories. He passed out signed copies to everyone in the family. When he handed the book to my dad, he said, 'This might help spice things up in the bedroom,' and I watched as my parents' souls left their bodies due to the cringe. It was funny and horrible to witness. For what it’s worth, my grandpa wasn’t senile at this point. The man was as sharp as a tack. But he was also an accomplished troll. With that in mind, I don't know if this counts as cringey. Maybe just funny, lol." 41. "Come to think of it...my dad and mom. Dad was a Catholic priest, and Mom was a nun. Both of them applied to be released from their vows to get married, and two years later, I came along (dad was 43, mom was 39). So I guess I was the result of the midlife crisis!" 42. "I was part of a crew at a festival about 10 years ago, and someone brought her dad. He had such a transformative experience that he quit his job, got divorced, and decided to bounce around the country to different festivals in tricked-out school buses with a traveling live butterfly exhibit." "I imagine his ex-wife has different sentiments about it, but from my vantage point, he truly found his bliss. I stayed connected with him and continued to see him at festivals for a long time; he always struck me as extremely happy and humble." 43. And lastly... "I don't even really know if I consider it cringe anymore, but my dad turned into a furry." "His ‘furtype’ is a badger. He also has his own band with fellow furries. Just to clarify, I love my dad, my mum loves him, and everyone in my family does. Life would be boring without him." What's the worst midlife crisis you've seen? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form. Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.