Is this a midlife crisis?? 37 and feel like a teenager

[Blushingatthispost]

Married and with my gorgeous DH since 14 years , we have a lovely son and life. I was out with my girlfriends last week and for the first time in years a guy was hitting on me and it caused something like a wobble - i suddenly got this overwhelming urge to hug, kiss, you name it. I obviously didn't (and the interaction/ talk was less than 5 mins and totally innocent) but why am I feeling like this suddenly?? Help!

Drunk?

Not really to be honest! Slightly tipsy at best. I just felt like suddenly I realised there's this whole big world out there again....

It happens… and your reaction is healthy. You need to reconnect with dh.

How often do you go out for a night out with friends?

Sounds to me like you got over excited

Life with young kids is hard. This was an escape. Not reality.

You were just flattered by the attention. That's normal I think.

Now give your head a wobble and don't be silly and muck your life up by making bad decisions.

and for the first time in years a guy was hitting on me

what made you think this if the chat was totally innocent?

Definitely got over excited 😆

Thank you. This is what I needed to hear I think!

Well he was flirty but it was a very brief interaction that lasted less than a couple of minutes and nobody did anything untoward

You go out very rarely?

And it resulted in you realising there was a big world out there? And having a wobble??

OP, you need to introduce some more fun and frivolity into your life. With your DH maybe.

For drinks and music with group of friends maybe every 6 to 9 weeks, but more often to the pub with DH for just a couple,or with the school mums. Is that often in the grand scheme?

Yes, probably. I'll work on that!

A 2 minute totally innocent chat with a man has led you to see there’s a big world out there…. Do you mean - other men besides your DH? What do you mean by “big world”

Why is everyone so scathing of the OP? Does it matter how long the chat was, or what happened? We all get realisations about our lives from the smallest interactions - or we should, anyway, if we pay any attention to the world around us.

Actually I experienced something similar earlier in the year... I confess it was exciting to feel like I might still be desirable to someone, and I am ashamed that I wasted a good few weeks thinking about said person and walking around grinning, with a spring in my step. But I did not allow it to escalate to anything else, and as predicted I soon forgot about him and how he had made me feel attractive for the first time in many years. I knew how silly it was at the time to have a crush, so just kept it to myself and let it pass. I do think it's natural that very occasionally you will meet people other than your spouse who you instantly have chemistry with, it's just important not to get carried away. I would be mortified if anyone in real life knew that I had been mooning over another man, however fleetingly, and would never do anything to deliberately hurt my family.

Freud* said that the problem with choice is not what we choose, but what we don't choose. Because we come to know what it's like to live the life we choose, but we can never know what it's like to live the life we decide against.

You've just had a glimpse of what you decided against, the life you might have had. It doesn't mean you chose the wrong thing. It's just a kind of existential flashcard of another you that might have been.

What that usefully tells you about your life nobody but you can say.

*May not have been Freud. May have been Jung. Or Jimmy Carr.

Yep OP, there's probably loads of crap men out there who would happily shag you. My advice is stick with what you've got, it sounds a lot better.

Just don't forget there is a 'you' beyond 'you and dh'.

Thank you..I think this is exactly what I needed to hear this morning!

Don't do it. It's only natural that you will feel like that at time to time, it's nature doing its thing. But ask yourself this - what is the purpose of that base natural urge? It's so that you find a mate to settle down with and procreate! You've already achieved that, you have absolutely no need to go and start all over again. This is one of those times that your brain HAS to kick in and remind you to ignore the flirty little devil sitting on your shoulder.

Unless you are in an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage, of course. And then it would be more about reassessing whether this base urge is about telling you to go and settle down with someone else INSTEAD for the rest of your life. In which case the better thing to do would be to go home and start making arrangements to separate so you end up single again to find yourself a replacement mate without all the heartache that an affair would bring.

To me it sounds like you're in the former camp. Just enjoy the attention and have a little flirt and let it go no further. You've got the satisfaction that other men still find you attractive, and you've got the knowledge that you're still a sexual being too, and that should be satisfaction enough.

Thank you so much for your kind reply. That's exactly what I think it was.....my DH is a wonderful man and I can't imagine anyone better than him. I think I was a bit taken aback with how powerful the feeling was!