September 20, 2024 • 50 mins
The Little Things usually talks about the issues facing women of a certain age - but sometimes, those issues can be caused by their husbands or partners.
So today, Francesca and Louise are turning their attention on middle-aged men - why do men get so down as they get older, how can they open up, and is 'male menopause' really a thing?
To discuss this, their joinged by broadcaster and A Life Less Punishing author, Matt Heath, and clinical psychologist Dr Dougal Sutherland.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Aria. We hope
you're enjoying season three of our New Zealand here podcast
The Little Things We Certainly Are Now. This is a
podcast where we talk to experts and find out all
the little things you need to know to improve all
areas of your life and cut through the confusion and
overload of information out there and normally here on the
Little Things, we talk a lot about ourselves, and when
(00:29):
I say ourselves, I mean women in middle aged women
in particular. But we felt that it was time for
some love and concern towards the men in our lives
who too might be finding that aging comes with some challenges.
You know, this is a topic that has come up
for a suggestion for this podcast a few times. And
I was talking to a work colleague and I said,
would you like to hear next? And she just said,
(00:51):
can you talk about why my husband seems well, i'll
put it nicely, less flexible with age? And she wasn't
talking about as muscles, mindset. He's just a bit grumpy.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
So it's not just women who find themselves challenged in
middle age. I mean as a society we sort of
led to believe that mental pausal women, you know, own
grumpiness and anger and irritabability and things like that.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
But we don't.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
No, we don't, And I guess you know they're going
to be changing. They're going to be the hormonial changes
for men as they age, a drop off in testosterone,
as I understand, and we all know, their body shake
can change. And they've tried to make dadbod fashionable. That
doesn't mean that everybody feels good about getting moves or
a little bit of a pop belly or whatever. They
might feel overlooked at work, or they may wonder where
(01:38):
their relationship with their children has sort of gone since,
you know, since they were the light and shining armor
that the kids would run into their arms when they
got home, you know. And they are prone to mental
health challenges at the stage of life. So what we're
going to do with this podcast today is talk about
what happens to men when they hit middle age. Is
there really such a thing as the grumpy or irritable
(01:58):
man syndrome? But better still, we want to know how
we can support our men better. And I do wonder
whether one of the ways will be to suggest that
they just have a little listen to this podcast when
they're got a moment. I really hope. So I do
think that our guests today will encapsulate what we need
to know, not everything we need to know. You know,
(02:20):
there's a book you can read, but yeah, just to
help us get along with our partners a little better.
So today, clinical psychologist Googles Sutherland, he's going to join
us to talk about what middle aged men are going
through and how to deal with this so we can
all enjoy better relationships. But first up, Radio Holadaki Breakfast hosts,
an author of a Life Less Punishing, Matt Heath, joins
(02:41):
us to talk about how he got himself out of
a rut and changed his approach to life.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Matt, welcome, great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
It's very common that we find ourselves in a rut
at times. Let's talk about your rut, little verse. You
went through a marriage breakup and you lost your mother,
and I would suggest they are both very good reasons
as to why you might find yourself feeling a bit sad.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Also a friend pass away at the same time as well,
so I don't know if that was there was just
that time my life here briefly, I'm sure exactly when
that was. I think it might have been two thousand. Yeah,
who knows.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Oh, we can't put there is no such thing as
time at any more time and not anymore time. Yeah,
kind of very hard to put a finger on. Anyway.
A few years ago, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I found myself in a bit of a bit of
a rat which is quite surprising for me because I'd
always been sort of a happy, go lucky type.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And then I was like, ah, this is weird.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So did you recognize it straight away or did it
take a bit.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Of it took ages to realize what was going on.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I was like everything, I wasn't enjoying anything, and was
walking around going and then and then at some point, I, ah,
this is what other people have talked about.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I like the fact that when you're in that place,
you were looking around at other people who quite frankly
lives were really really bad. We're dealing with life sort
of three situations, And even then you still couldn't go, yeah, OK, mat,
I've got it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I felt bad because I because I was feeling bad,
and then other people that I knew were going through
really really bad stuff, and You're like, well, also, if
I can't feel good, because my life's pretty blessed, you know,
like my kids were healthy and you know, got a
good job and enough to eat and roof over my
head and all those kind of things and great friends.
So I was thinking, jeez, if I can't be enjoying
this life, then what hope to other people have?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I, yeah, yeah, decided to try and work out
how to and enjoy my life a bit more, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Much like anything else. I don't think sadness is something
we should compere or contrast because it can happen to
anybody under any circumstances. Did nobody else point out that
you're not quite yourself?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh yeah, yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Some friends dead and they were like, you should start running,
And I was like, yeah, it's a good idea, and
I did. And then and then those friends of my
we went down to Queenstown to run down there in a
unofficial marathon type situation. So yeah, I mean, I think
it took a long time before my bunch of friends. I'
lucky to have great friends as well. You know, a
lot of people don't have that kind of that kind
of support to just go, hey, Matt, you don't seem
(05:07):
great at the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Do you want to do? You want to go for
a run?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
When I was a teenager, all my friends' parents or dads,
when they had a bit of a mid life crisis,
they were doing triathlons was the thing in the nineties,
early nineties, late eighties and nineties. They order trythlons, and
it is a little bit of a midlife crisis kind
of thing to do, going, I'm going to go and
run a marathon. It's a good thing to do. Did
the running work you did a half?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, that's roll man, go after that.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
But oh, you intended to do the fall and you
did it half.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was building up to doing the fall.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, did the running work?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I think it does. I think it will. It gets
you into it. But I think it's kind of complicated
because at some point you can't even do that, you know.
So when you when you start doing the running thing,
you've already decided to try and make yourself feel better.
But like I think, there are times when you just
don't even want to try.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
If you get to in a position where you want
to try something, you know what I mean, which could
probably just be even a walk, like doing something rather
than nothing, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know, and having something to do it with. I
think too, Yeah, yeah, someone to keep your accountable.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Well that's what you know. I'm not sure if this
is the same for a woman, but for men. We
struggle to go to our mates, do you want to
go for a walk? They're like to the pub, No,
just like a walk, And they're like, could go for a.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Run, because then when you can play golf book a walk?
I don't think so. I think I don't think that's
the kind of thing we'd want to do.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I'm just imagining, Yeah, you're walking. What else are we
going to do? We're going to have to talk to
each other.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Where we're going.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Oliver Berkman who wrote this great book called Four Thousand Weeks.
He talks about the futility of going for a walk
and why it's because you when you go for a
walking up where you started, and that most the most efficient.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Thing for going for a walk is to not leave.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
But he's saying the meaning is in the walk, so
it's a wider metaphor for what it is trying to say.
But it's like, you could you could argue that a
walk is pointless, but because you end up where you start,
and if you just stood still, then you be more efficient.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But that's quite beautiful, isn't it. You end ut where
you start, but you've you've had to process something on
the way. Did you actually go for that Warah?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, if you inject meaning into the actual walk as
opposed to the destination.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So how did you get rid of that unshakable sadness
that you had for a while there?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Well, you know, as I say in the book, I
decided that I was thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And my mum had always.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Been really into philosophy, and it always been sharing lots
of philosophy with me, and she wrote her PhD and
and the parallels between Greek and Indian thoughts. So she
was always talking about, you know, ancient Greeks and ancient
Roman and stuff, and so I thought, maybe i'll you know,
and sometimes your mum talks and you listen, but you
don't really take anything in, you know, you know, you
(07:43):
know that she's probably right, but you know, and so
I just thought, seeing as she passed away, I thought
I'd lean into some of that stuff. So I just
started reading. I bought a history of philosophy book from
Time Out bookstore. It was a big book of all
philosophy and you know, like a rundown of you know,
philosopher and it's obviously not all of it. And the
(08:05):
woman behind the counter said that looks like an exciting read,
and I was like, I was looking at going this
facebook's pretty punishing actually, But yeah, I started just reading
phiosophy because I figured that people must have sorted it out,
that stuff out before, you know, and cut back on
the drinking a little bit as well. There was a
few things I did to start getting out of the situation,
(08:27):
but it was quite a but I reckon that. This
is my theory, is like I was not feeling good,
and I felt better enough to start doing exercise, and
then from the exercise, I felt better enough to think
about things in a wider way, you know what I mean, Like,
because it's really hard to say someone that's really depressed,
and I've tried to talk to people that are really
depressed and they're just no energy, no motivation, don't even
(08:47):
want to make things better, And so it's very easy
to say to someone like that, oh, just get a
PA history of Philosophy book and read some stuff, you'll
be fine, and I'll be like I'm not doing that,
you know, like I don't want to feel better like
you can be to say, well, you just don't want
to feel better, you don't have the energy to feel better,
or you don't you know. That's so yeah, I'm not
sure if what I did would be would be the
plan for everyone.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, but what you did with that was was write
a really excellent book that.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
People thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I try to think of too many men who would
get stuck into philosophy, although they do savy men thinks
about the Roman Empire, so maybe.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I mean when I read that study, you know that
that big since that thing came out about men thinking
about the Roman Empire all the time, I was like,
should I think about the Roman part? I really do
fascinating But my mom my mum was a Latin teacher
and such classics as well, so there was always like
Roman stuff around our house. So I thought maybe that's
why I was that And you know, I love the
movie Gladiator, so maybe I thought that was when I say,
(09:45):
oh no, it is the thing that's more than just
people whose mums were Latin teachers.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No, I've got a daughter studying classics, so it's a
little bit in our in our will. But I do
not spend a lot of time thinking about the Roman Empire.
I have a different Roman Empire, or do you. I
don't know what it is, probably nutrition and next society.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That's your rumin in book.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
You just mentioned alcohol there, and that is unfortunately, lou
and I are coming to the conclusion as meaning so
many people who have been trying to get into our skulls.
Alcohol is not a friend to middle aged menipools or
perimeniples or women. What about men?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
I think the biggest problem with alcohol is how much
it ruins you're sleeping. And I think sleeping is like
a really important thing. So I mean, I never drink
during the week, so I'm a terrible binge drinker. You know,
I just stopped having glasses of wine, you know, with dinner,
and then another one with you know, sitting down front
of the TV. And then before you know it, you've
had like you know, you've opened a bottle and you're
going for another one, and you're like, no, no, no,
(10:42):
I don't do that. But I still will have a
drink on the weekend watching sport or whatever. But it's
just so bad for your sleep, that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I didn't know it was bad for men's sleep. I mean,
I know it's bad for women's sleep, so men get
the two o'clock waking up catastrophizing too.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, and just just so much energy. You're so tired,
and you go to sleep and you wake up at
two thirty. Explain to me why that is. Why you
can testify it when you first wake up, because it's
like all you're getting is the primitive part of your
brain firing up, the terrified you know, they're amignaler and
that kind of stuff firing up before the other part
of your brain comes on because that, you know, the
prefront of cortex. All that stuff has been shut down.
So you wake up and you're like, oh my god,
(11:15):
there's nothing good in the world, Like you're just searching
for fears in the dark, and because you're in the dark,
there's no other stimulus to move you on. But that's
I mean, that's not great as that when you wake
up like that. I mean I woke up last night
like that. I hadn't been drinking, but I'd been dreaming
about It's really horrific situation with literally stupid dream about
(11:36):
zombies and you know, and smashing on the windows, you know,
oh dear, And I wake up going my.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Text texas like something that like text and I was like,
I've done my Texas? What I have?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
I did you get the GST right? And yeah, ah,
there's searching around in the dark for somebody be scared of.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So knowing the physiology of it, you can calm yourself
down and you just accept that sleep will come back.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I think knowing all that stuff is like can. Before
I wrote this book, I always thought that if you
were ahead, and I didn't think about it really, but
if you start an emotion, you just had to go
until it burnt out.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Like a fire.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I didn't realize that you could go. Well, you wake
up and you're cantestrophizing, that you can go hang them minute.
I'm catestrophizing, and then you know, do some breaths. I'm
big on breathing breathing techniques. And then you're like, it's
actually not a zombie apocalypse. And I did do my
taxes and it's all very good. I really just needed
a week.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It always creaks me up in the morning. It always
creaks me up in the morning when you go that
we was so random? Why did I say that? I
don't think, you know, the rational brain just kicks in
and you're just like, that was crazy, What a waste
of time?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, And then you've often come up with a solution
to the issue, or you can just go check you
did your GST, double check for yourself to sleep better
the next night. But it's not it's not rational, and
a lot of this isn't necessarily rational. And I think
men have for a long time made the assumption that
they are the rational gender, and so admitting any of
those issues is quite hard, well, recognizing them.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
They might have pretended that they are, but I don't think.
I mean, you know, my book starts with that quote
from throw like most men of lives a quiet desperation.
So I think inside everyone's always known that things are
in turmoil. But I think maybe outwardly, because that's the
weird thing when you start talking to people that say, oh,
everyone's because we all walk around and we go, why
(13:23):
am I so crazy? Everyone else seems quite normal? It's
because you're the only one in your head. Yeah, this
is philosophy. Call the headless way, which actually won't go
into it annoys people. But the idea is that you
don't have a head. Everyone else does because you can't
see your head. So you walk around and it's as
you'll take too long to explain it.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
But when you start, when you get, when you.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Get your head round it, it is it's like we look
out of this huge hole at everyone else and they've
got their heads and they seem to be doing it
dealing with your life. Okay, but you're the one inside.
You're you know, everything that's going on in your head
and not what's going on other people's heads.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Another way of explaining perspective, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, You've got one big hole you look out of
and you don't even the parameters of it, and someone
else is just a head and some what they communicate
with you.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Are you seeing other men sort of struggling with life
a little bit as they reach middle age, or talking
more about the struggles that they're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I think it's definitely become a thing over the last
week while for men to.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Really push that.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I think we are becoming more and more isolated, and
I think a lot of the other old structures that
used to be there are sort of gone. So I
think there's been a real push to to you know,
things I speak at seem to be about men kind
of coming together and forming communities and not being as punishing.
Because there's a thing where I was reading this book
(14:42):
by this guy called Max Dickens called Billy No Mates,
and he's talking about the male condition, and you're saying
that often we put the emotional bag at the emotional
hard work on our partners.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So we just shut up shop and then we go.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
They organize who we're going to dinner with, and they
organize the times when we talk about our emotions and stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
And he's just writing about that's kind of a strange
thing that we do. We just off we outsource.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It, and we've done podcasts on this. It's called the
mental load. Yeah, but I didn't know how. I didn't
know that. I didn't think about that part of it,
that maybe it is a little bit of the brain
is full or can't proceed some of these things. So
they are in I mean, I'm just trying to be
sympathetic here that they are offloading that to get on
with the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Well, yeah, he saw it as being a bad thing
and that you need to be that for your you know,
he calls it being a shirper for everyone to your friends,
like reaching out and you know, like me and are
pretty good at banter, like abusing each other. You know,
we compliment each other by insulting each other. But it's
(15:47):
not a real friendship until you take it to another level.
And I think that's the thing that men were struggling
to do. And now there's a real push to go, well,
you know, ask your mate is for real rather than
just say that his pants look stupid.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You know here that banter things really interesting, isn't it.
And it is just practiced too. I think, you know,
we all have to practice our relationships with people, partners,
our friends, our colleagues, everyone. Sometimes I listened to you know,
Oscar and as mates and they're talking for a bit
and I just think, you guys really could be saving
the world instead of having this inane conversation. So it
starts young, doesn't it. The Genta the book is all
(16:20):
about being dissatisfied that you've rushen about in things. Why
are men dissatisfied?
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well, I think we are taking it right back. Humans
evolved to be dissatisfied. I think the idea that we're
just going to be naturally in a state of happiness,
because as I say in the book, the person that
was satisfied got eaten by a tiger about fifteen seconds later,
whereas the person that was sitting there going oh god,
oh this isn't a great place to sit. Oh no,
(16:50):
this is terrible. I'm useless. I've built a terrible fence.
I suck bad. Person survived to reproduce. And so I
think we are no matter what position we are in
in life, no matter how good it gets. It's like
that thing where you go, oh, when we buy a house,
we're going to own our own house, and then we're
going to feel amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
We're going to be satisfied. It's like you're not.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You get there and you find something else that you're
dissatisfied about. And so I think that's a thing to
realize that we're evolved to be dissatisfied. But we've got
so we've got got this wiring, we've got this wiring
for the savannah when we're not going to get attacked
by tiger, Like I'm going to be very unfortunate. A
tiger came in here, in at us. So I think
that's something to know and then go, well, when you're
aware of that, you can do things to make yourself
(17:33):
more satisfied. And you know what a lot of the
philosophers I talk to from around the world we're talking
about you do that with framing, you know, like, so
if you're dissatisfied with your kitchen, instead of thinking looking
through a catalog of the most amazing kitchens, you go,
I'm going to think about the people that have to
carry their water from a river on their heads back
to their house that's a kilometer away. You know, we
(17:55):
look the wrong way to find our satisfaction. Like, as
they say, happy doesn't come from getting more things, it's
learning to enjoy the things you have. Gratitude, yeah, yeah,
gratitude so yeah. But so the first thing is we
are evolved to be dissatisfied, but we can actually deal
with it just not you know, they talk about their
hedonic treadmark just always. And then we get into the
(18:18):
state where you think that life never quite begins because
you know, when I get this, life's going to be good,
then I get this, life's going to be good.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
When I retire, life's going to be good and then
you retire and you look around.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
You haven't spend any time with your kids and you're like, hey,
you guys want to hang out And they're like, well no,
because you didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Create a relationship or whatever.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
So yeah, I think you've just got to work out
to understand that you're dissatisfied and that's fine, just deal
with it.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
On a way to work it out.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
In this podcast, we talk a lot about women and
aging and dealing with it and things. Men how do
they cope with aging? You know that their bodies change
as well, their physicality changes. They suddenly can't do quite
as much. Does it have an impact on them?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
It was interesting because I had this experience. I was
talking at.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
This event in Hawks Bay and I was talking about
this thing where I set myself on fire to doing
the stunt when I was working in London and I
was dressed up in a monkey suit and I set
myself on fire and I was well, I got set
on fire and I was running around doing the stunt
in this TV studio and they were like.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
What were you thinking then?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And I thought I was thinking, oh, that I'll get
paid two thousand pounds to do this is what I
was thinking. But now you wouldn't able to pay me
enough money to do that, And I thought that is
a huge difference because they're like, why would you do that?
And it's like I thought, because the situation was we
were shooting this thing and they were going to pay
the stunt in two thousand pounds and I was like,
for what, you know, he's just been set on fire.
(19:41):
That's nothing. And now I look back and I go,
that's insane. But at the time, you know, that's the change.
That's the change. It's like, you go, I just wouldn't
do that. Now I can't even get my head around
the guy that would do that.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I have that thought when i'm you know, you're at
the beach. He used to go and he used to
just leap off the top of the say you have
to get down to the beach. I have that just
with that lit alone, sketching myself on fire. But it's
all those little things, isn't it that our brain is
just kind of going, hang on a minute. We lose
a little bit, it's sensible, but we also lose a
little bit of faith in ourselves.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess also, you know, if
you've got more things to protect. You know, it's be
terrible for a lot more people than just me if
I badly injured myself.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
What do you reckon? Women should know about men as
they age. Are they sensitive to maybe getting a pop value?
Are they sensitive to the fact that they're getting grumpy or.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
I don't think people need to get grumpy. That's lazy,
becoming grumpy, I reckon, So I think they need to
be pointed out that. But I think men, I don't know,
like we have, well I do and my friends have.
There some huge amount of pride and being able to
provide for your family right that means a lot. I'm
not sure why, but it does. So what our problems
(20:57):
is when we start getting to a position we expect
people to be great for what you've done.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Wondy about that? More grateful? No, I know.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I think I think men need to not expect to
be thanked all the time, you know, just do your
thing for because it's the right thing to do. It's
a mindset that we need to get into to do
things because the right thing to do not for what
you get back from it, you know, and then you
have your happiness and that this is where you did it,
because if you do something, you know, if you bring
up your kids because you want them to thank you
(21:25):
for it, then you haven't really done anything.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well you're being headless again, don't you.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, yeah, you're going, well, why did I do that?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
No?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I did it because it was the right thing to do,
to be a good father rather than.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
But there is also power and a thank you. And
in season one we spoke about this and a psychologisty
to us just occasionally say thank you, and so we started.
I started saying thank you in the house and then
all of a sudden, a couple of weeks later, I
realized that everyone was thinking everybody all the time, and
it almost kind of got quo lost the power of it.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Accept it as well, Like if you can learn to
accept to thank you or a compliment rather than kicking
it to touched, just going, you know, thank you, and then.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You go, of course I did.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Expected to whatever you just go oh thanks, But yeah,
but I mean, like people could thank you and that
would make you feel good. But you can't walk around
expecting to be thinking.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
No, no, absolutely right, what about rigid thinking? Do you think?
Obviously you've got a pretty flexible outlook on life. You've
went and read the books and so forth, did you
think back on before when you were in a sort
of spiral of sadness, that maybe you'd lost a little
bit of flexibility in you're thinking.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Or Yeah, I think I think that's true. And I
think I was really inflexible and my thinking. I was
just angry about things a lot of the time and
like you know, resentful of where There's something I wrote
in the book about the fantasy life that people think
like they're trying to compete their life as competing with
the life they've made up, and go, I'm doing this,
but there's this other life that I could be living,
(22:54):
but you're just making that life up in the life
you've got can never compete with it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So you get into this really grim stay.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Of thinking about the life you're in as inferior to
something that you're making up, and the thing that you're
making up is always going to be a lot better.
So I think I was in the rigid in my
thinking about where I should be in life, what I
should have achieved, what constitutes success, you know. And then
and then that's the problem with dissatisfied, because you when
you're in a position where you've achieved everything that you
imagined as a twenty year old is making you happy,
(23:22):
which is just something to eat and somewhere to sleep,
you know, and having a girlfriend. You're there and you
and you're not enjoying it because there's some better thing
out there that you're making up.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You would have thought wad to learn by now, after
COVID and everything else in the state of the world,
that you know something, a lot of that stuff is
just out of our control.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, yeah, oh, I mean that's that's the cliche that's
always going around on Instagram and obviously a stoic idea,
but the idea that just, you know, stopped spinning your
mental energy on things that you can't control, because what's
the point.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Thank you so much for your time today and for
the book. Are Life Less Punishing. I think it's perfect
for anyone, but in particular men, as you say, if
they kind of getting to a point where they're worrying
or their stressed, or they're angry, or they're wondering, criking,
what the hell's going on. So it's a great resource,
Thank you very much. Even before yeah, and I gave
it to your what was he at the time, twenty
(24:15):
twenty year old son.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, oh that's good. Oh well, thank you so
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You're listening to the Little Things And that was Halaki.
Breakfast host and author of a Life Less Punishing Matt
Heath up next to clinical psychologist Google Southerland joins us
to talk about middle aged men and aging and if
you've got a grumpy, irritable one, how to deal with
them and keep our relationships on track. We'll be back shortly.
(24:41):
Welcome back. This is the Little Things, and joining us
now is clinical psychologist and CE of Umbrella Well Being
Google Sutherland. Google is also an adjunct teaching fellow at
Victoria University and he contributes to the training of the
next generation of clinical psychologists. It's great to have you
with us, Doogle, You're a nice to be with you
dogging you were a grumpy middle aged man.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Oh I have been. I have been until probably a
turning point in my life, maybe two years ago. I
think when my family refers to it as old Google
and new Doogle, and so new Google is markedly less grumpy,
I believe from based on popular report.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But how good is that that there is an old
doggle in a new doogle.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, well I think so, and the people around
me seem to appreciate it too. It wasn't the most
It was one of those experiences that wouldn't necessarily want
to go through again. But I think we've come out
on the right side of things.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Was it a painful metamorphisis?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Yeah? There were some home truths spoken, shall we say,
and some things brought to my attention that I wasn't
really kind of aware of, if you get what I mean.
I was just doing my thing. I was just being
me and living life and not perhaps aware of the
expectations and the standards that I was throwing out to
(26:06):
other people, particularly in my family. And so yeah, it was.
It wasn't pleasant. As I say, there were some hard
home truths spoken to me by those around me.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So I suppose my question here is what advice do
you give to other people when all of a sudden
those home truths are sort of thrown at you?
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I think, and this comes from Matt's book as well,
I think, is that ability to stop and reflect and
take some time to acknowledge that what other people are
saying about you, or what you think to yourself about
you could be true, So don't get defensive about it.
Be open to feedback, and be open to being aware
(26:49):
that the way you've done things might not be the
best way of doing things as you go into the
future that might be. But being able to I think
that ability to stop and pause and step out of
yourself for a moment and go ah. I wonder if
there's any truth in what they say, and maybe there is.
That's the starting really is. That's ability to stop and reflect.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
And that could possibly happen at any age, but in particular,
if we're going to be talking about men reaching that
middle aged area, is irritable male syndrome or grampy old
mens syndrome or male menopause andro pause? Is it a
real clinical thing.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Look, I don't think you could put it on the
same level as female menopause and perimenopause, because there isn't
the same biological happenings going on for men as perhaps
there are for women, nor that associated change in view
of yourself and the world because you have gone through it,
(27:46):
because a woman has gone through that particular change. But
I think there's definitely a phase in life for men
when we get to this point, I kind of think
that you kind of emerge from the woods and the
muck and the murk of raising kids. And I think
my kids are about the same age as Matt, So
you just sort of emerge from the fact that.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
Ah, hang on a minute, I've had my head down,
I've been busy at my work, I've been busy with family.
I've been busy with this buying a house and doing everything.
And now some of that starts to drift away. The
kids are older, they don't need you as much. Maybe
you're in a sort of settled or reasonably clear trajectory
with work, and then it's all of a sudden it's like,
oh what if we can't I got It's almost like
(28:25):
a adorning It's.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Like, ah, look, this is a whole new phase of life,
isn't it. Maybe it is. So I think there is
that definite pause or opportunity to pause as you emerge
from that, because when you're stuck with young kids and
building a career, it's not easy to find that time
to sit down and breathe, let alone reflect on yourself.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the pause is really good unless you suddenly stop
and go, oh, is this my life? Is this it.
Then I imagine that could be a little bit trolld
with them.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Yeah, it could be, but that's it's okay. I think
one of the things that Matt's talks a lot about
is the explicitly and iimplestitly at times, is the acceptance
that there are different emotions and you don't have to
steer away from them, Like there's anger and there's dissatisfaction
and there's loneliness, and we should pay attention to those
(29:21):
emotions and go, actually, what is this trying to tell me?
And that it doesn't mean that that will be a
wonderful process full of lollipops and roses that will be wonderful,
feel wonderful. It might be painful, it might be uncomfortable,
and that's okay. That's how it is. Lots of bits
of life are painful and uncomfortable, and we don't need
to shy away from those they might be trying to
(29:43):
tell us something.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So you do you see male patients that you would
say are in this change or this phase or this
pause of life on a regular basis.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah, Actually, I was speaking to somebody just yesterday who
was in a very similar stage of life, sort of
late forty kids were growing up. Business was going well,
and it was like, oh gee, I just don't really
feel satisfied. Had everything that he needed in terms of
(30:13):
material things, but it was like, man, is this what
this doesn't just doesn't feel quite satisfying. And I think,
you know, for some guys, it's that actually the material
things I've got those, I'm satisfied. You know, I've got
those foundations in life. I don't have to worry about
the roof over my head or where the next meal
is coming from. But but maybe life could be more
(30:37):
than this. Maybe getting drunk every Friday night is not
the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I do think though, there is also we are in
a time where there is a lot going on, and
particularly if you are in Wellington, your job could be
compaile or or anywhere else. It's tough time. So is
that a layer of complexity you're seeing of middle age maya.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Particularly in Wellington. I think you're right well although that
the change has sort of radiated out, and I think, yeah,
those times can often for some people that causes a
real kind of shift that's like do I really want
to be doing this? I kind of I almost stumbled
into my career. I sort of you know, finished UNI
and got this job, and then I, you know, I
needed to work another three years before I got to
(31:19):
this level, and then another four years to get to
this level. And then it's like, actually, do I want
to be? Maybe I want to be a Keywi fruit
farmer and tooookie, maybe that's the thing for me. And
so it can it can feel a little bit tripe
to say it's somebody in this situation, but it can
be a bit It can be an exciting opportunity for change,
although when you're in the midst of it, it may not
(31:40):
feel particularly exciting and you might just want to raise
the middle finger and say, it's not exciting at all?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Is it largely because we sort of focus so much
on all these other things we do were it's kind
of like, Okay, we go, we study, we start a career,
we maybe get married, you have a kid, you buy
a house, you renovate the house. You know, like we
sort of had this understanding of what those earlier decades
kind of should look like, and then we almost kind
(32:07):
of think, well, when you get to middle age, what
else is there? And we should actually be thinking really
positively about what you can be achieving in your late forties, fifties, sixties.
You know, it's not like you're just sitting back now
and waiting for retirement. Yeah, you know, we don't. It's
almost like we don't kind of go oh, hang on
a minute, yeah, actually the kids have gone. The kids, right,
(32:28):
this is the moment we've been waiting for. Let's go
live our lives the way you know, and do those
things we want to do. It could be hard to
find the energy to think like that.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Yeah, I wonder so if that's a generational chef, like
maybe not maybe my parents' generation or certainly the generation.
But once you kind of got to forty or fifty,
it was starting to okay, let's just sit back. Now
we've done, we've completed life, and we'll just sit back
wait for retirement. And because we're forty or fifty, so well,
and now it's like, well, forty or fifty, we've still
(32:56):
got lots of energy and we've still got half of
our lives to live. So I think it might be
a newish thing that our generation is experiencing, and therefore
we haven't had lots of guidance in it. It's not
like we can look to our parents or grandparents and
see what they did, because they just sat on the
couch when they were in their slippers and CARDI. By
the time they got to forty and had a pipe
and well listened to the wireless. I was going to say,
(33:19):
watch TV, but you know, probably listened to the ryalists
or watched the one channel that used to be on TV.
So I think it's a new challenge for this generation
to figure out how to cope with.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So what about if you are in a bit of
a negative spiral and feeling irritable about everything, you know,
what is the best way to deal with this?
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Look, I think firstly acknowledging that that's where you are
and not attempting to brush that away. And that might
take a little bit of time. Because who likes sitting
there having a negative emotion? Oh yeah, I love it.
I love sitting there feeling uncomfortable. So oh no, you know,
we do lots of things to avoid negative emotions. So
I think having that ability to start up and notice
(34:00):
and hey, I've been feeling uncomfortable for a while now,
and maybe I need to do something about it. You
can buy Matt's book. That would be a good start.
I think it's a really good handbook for middle aged
men really, so try some things off your own bat
and if that doesn't work well, it doesn't have to
(34:22):
be instead of As well as talk to other people.
I think getting another person's perspective, and whether that's a
friend or family member or you know, you go and
see a psychologist or whatever. I think the key thing
is getting another person's perspective and not just getting stuck
in your own head around. It would be my two
key things. Stopping pausing, getting somebody else's perspective.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I don't want to generalize or anything, but quite often
and maybe your partner or your wife is the person
that might notice that you're not quite right, maybe before you,
you know, recognize it. How should they approach it? How
should they talk to their partner and say, hey, look,
as you know, is everything okay? What's going on? How
do we sort of help them?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Very gently?
Speaker 4 (35:04):
And I think I think it's just noticing. I think
I think this is a bit of a universal truth
that trying to change somebody else is very rarely successful,
and so just occasionally noticing, picking your moments and noticing
or no observing what you've noticed, they have noticed you
(35:26):
for being more quiet recently or more grumpy, and that
maybe all that they need to do. And you'll obviously
have to pick your moments if you're particularly grumpy and
says then somebody says, I've noticed you're being more grumpy.
I have not been. That's ridiculous. So picking your moments
is probably good. And I think creating space for the
(35:47):
person to pick up on that you know, don't don't
fill it with things that you think they should do. Hey,
I think what you should do is get a mountain
bike or buy a new car or go. You know,
during this club will hold off giving any options, just
stopping them then noticing, and it might take time, and
that's frustrating when you're trying to when you wish somebody
(36:08):
else would change or so you can see what's blatantly
wrong with them and if they would only just accept
your common sense, they would change. But doesn't usually happen
that way. So I think just being reflected, you know,
reflecting back, noticing, giving them space to talk about it
and to change in their own time is key.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Because I was also wondering that that midlife slump or
if you're seeing a bit of a midlife crisis and things.
It can actually also indicate depression is something we should
be aware of as well, isn't it It could do.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
But remembering that, you know, majority of people don't get depressed,
I think, and I was thinking about this actually as
I was reading through Matt's book, is that one you know,
one term that that perhaps really could describe this age
or this time and life is the term languishing, which is,
you know, when you're not depressed, you know there's nothing
(37:00):
clinically wrong, but life just kind of sucks.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, it's a good word.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, And for me, that's the languishing is the is
the absence or the low levels of mental health as
opposed to a mental illness like depression. And I use
the term illness and quotes, but you know, on one
side you have mental illnesses or mental disorders or mental
clinical issues like depression. But having mental health isn't simply
(37:30):
the opposite of not being depressed. It's on a different
scale altogether. And so you know, good mental health we
might call flourishing, and poor mental health we might call languishing.
And I think a lot of a lot of people
can find themselves in that kind of languishing zone when
life just feels empty or a bit dull, and it's
like and it could slip into depression for sure, but
(37:52):
it won't be for everybody.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
No, A friend of mine needs to have a term
saying that she'd had a day or two of feeling
like she was swimming through treacle. And the key to
know is, you know, how long have I been swimming
through this trek? Or you know, have I been able
to get out?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Yeah, I agree. I think you know that you don't
languish and left too long can obviously drift down in
towards depression and other things. But everybody, you know, I think,
I think it's useful to recognize and to say, hey,
actually I might be depressed, but I might not. My
life just might kind of suck at the moment without
any particular reason, and I can do things to change it.
(38:26):
It's not like you are a passive victim and all this.
You can do things to change how you feel and
change how you think, and that can be really helpful.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
It's interesting you say, you know, the best way for
a partner to sort of deal with the men in
their life is to do it gently, because we sort
of when we were coming up with this idea for
the podcast, we were sort of talking to a few
people and they they were giving us their thoughts and
opinions on why they were very keen for us to
do this podcast. And one of them has quite blatantly said,
(38:57):
and we'll have to use the beep here, but you
know why the thing? Can't they just do what they're told?
That was what she was referring to to her sort
of you know, stuck in a rut, slightly useless middle
age husband, which is rather to the point to Frank,
and to the point, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (39:13):
It is? And I think obviously men have to take
some responsibility out of it. I think Matt said before
about you know how we kind of we sometimes contract
the emotional side of things out to your partner. It's like, oh,
I love take care of all that kind of stuff.
And you know, men do tend to narrow down their
social circle to focus predominantly and rest on their partners.
(39:37):
But actually we need to take responsibility for our own
thinking and feeling. You can't farm it out, you can't.
You know, there's a sometimes I can't remember her. It
was a wise psychologist said that therapy is a bit
like you know the wheels, So this is talking to
a therapist. You know, the wheels round, but you can't
tell the other person that the wheel's round, and you
(39:58):
can't show them the wheels round. They have to discover
that for themselves. And I think the same is true
in this situation. A partner might be able to see
that you know that the guy is languishing or not
doing well, but they can't change that, and that they
you know, as much as you want to, you can't
do it for another person and it won't have the
(40:18):
same effect. If you're just doing what you're told, you've
got it. It's that you need some sort of internal
motivation to go, Actually, I need to do this. I
need to take on the responsibility. I can't just keep
farming this out to my partner all the time.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
And if they if they don't. I think that's the
other thing too, is that you know, women our age
are dealing with their own menopause and changes in life.
Is that when we, you know, sometimes see things spiraling
into distance in a couple or even separation, divorce, the
great divorce.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Yeah, yeah, I think so, you know, it's it's it's understandable.
You know, you can see how that kind of naturally happens.
And I think you know, patients are the real virtue
on both sides here, giving each other the space to
change and the time to change. And it might not
be in your time frame, and you might wish the
(41:06):
other person was changing sooner, but you know, I guess
i'd say, think back to when you got together and
watch the rationale for you're getting together, and have you
made a commitment to go through? It sounds cliched and
sickness and in health for better or worse?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It should say sickness and health and middle age, shouldn't it?
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Yeah, for richer, for poor or bloody poorer? That's you know,
But yeah, have you made I mean you may not
have made that explicit commitment, but is that actually a
commitment that you've got and and are you in this
relationship for the long haul or just for the good times?
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I think both We always want the partner to be happy, right,
That's what we want for them. But like you're saying,
you can't make that happen, and that might be where
the frustration kind of starts to Similarly.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean it's natural that you know,
if you if somebody you care about, you want them
to feel god and you feel bad when they feel bad.
But you can't changed, and the other person has to change.
And in this situation, men have to take responsibility for
changing themselves. They can't farm it out because that just
won't work. But yeah, that look, I think that patience
(42:12):
are real. And it may feel frustrating because you're like,
come on, I can see what needs to happen, or
come on, We've got the rest of our lives to
live and you're just stuck in this rut of treacle
to pick up on that metaphor, But you know, I
can just be there and empathize. I think too. You know,
empathy is a great thing. That I've been stuck in
this rut of treacle as well, and I'm not sure
to get you out, but I've been here too, and
(42:35):
it sucks, and I'm here to be with you in it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
It's quite interested to hear Matt talk about a man's
need to provide and the importance of it to him
in particular. Is that something you see? I mean, I
think society is changing a lot. There are a lot
of situations where women can out earn their partners. Is
that something that's hard for men to deal with?
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Yeah, that will be my experience talking to other god eyes,
is that there is that It's not always explicitly stated,
but there is that kind of sense of yeah, we're
carrying the loads where and we're doing this, you know,
for the good of everybody else. You know, even if
your partner is the bigger bread winner, it's still that
kind of sense of, ah, yeah, but I do all
these things. I do the gardening, and I take things
(43:17):
to the dump, and I do DIY at home and
other important things to provide. And what would I do
if I wasn't doing that? Well, more to the point,
maybe what's going on here is that you get to
the point where you have provided and everything's provided for now,
and it's like were your job's done, isn't it? Because
you've provided, And it's like, ah, surely there must be.
(43:38):
I've got a house, I've got a car, kids are
just about to grow up or leave home. I've done
all the providing. Now now what the heck? Now what
do I do? And that could be a bit of
a reckoning for lots of because that's a historic along
this historically held view of guys is that got to
be the bread whin. I've got to be the earner,
got to be the provider. Some will gone onto that
(44:01):
a lot more strongly than others.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Could provide me with a holiday would be fine. I
can definitely come up with a list of things that
could make you feel good about providing for It's not
a problem. Sometimes they just provide for themselves and by
an expensive bike and lots of lecraft. So true, Oh dear, looks,
it's a tough one, and I think that I think
that you were mad have both said more than once.
(44:24):
It's about owning those feelings, and I suppose realizing that
this is is a kind of a real thing. It
doesn't matter that it's not exactly the same as women's menopause,
and that as women or as partners we can probably
need to appreciate that for them and for them, they're
not alone.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Yeah, I think that sense of hey, there are other
people going through it, whether that's your partner because she's
going through menopause, or whether it's other men and they're
going through it as well. I think, you know, historically,
at least in recent generations, in recent times, men have
not been good at talking about this kind of stuff.
(45:02):
And you know, Matt talks a lot around banter and
how often men's conversations don't go further than banter. But
to have men inful relations band is a great place
to start, but it needs to go further. And actually,
can I take it further? Can I have a vulnerable
moment done in a sort of a manly way where
I can kind of get some empathy and some support
(45:23):
from other guys around me because they're and realize, oh,
sheish other people are going through this as well. It's
not just me, Jogel.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I just had one more question for you, and that's
about something that happens to all of us as we age,
which are the aches and the pains and the indignities
that come with age. How do men deal with that
kind of loss of physicality when it sort of takes
a hit, when they can't kind of you know, live
their lives at full power and do all the things
that they want to do.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, Look, I think often you'll see men kind of
especially in recent kind of decades, swapping and downgrading and
moving and taking on new you know, maybe they don't
run trasslines anymore. Maybe they but maybe they go mountain
biking or just rode. Like you know, you've seen this
huge increase in sort of people over the age of
(46:09):
forty riding around and like ground on Sunday morning. It's like,
what the hell are you all doing? But so I
think they cope by what you can cope, perhaps by
not giving up and not going, oh well, just can't
do it anymore. I just have to sit at home
and vegetate. I used to run in the mornings and
I was getting terrible sort of knee problems and the
(46:31):
doctor just looked at me and said, men of our age,
we just shouldn't run anymore. He said, try walking instead.
Knowing what walking made me sound like, I was asy.
But you know, I've changed to walking, and now I
sort of do. I would hesitate to say a power
because that sums up terrible image. But I walked briskly
and fast and it's better on my knees and I
(46:54):
don't hear my knee kind of grind, grind and glaunch
when I'm walking now. So I just changed that, and
I think that's a good thing to do.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
You own that power walk. You tell everybody you power walk.
There's nothing wrong with the power walk. It is quite
hard to transition from running to walking, but it probably
does come for us along the end. It's going to
hurt us all. Google. Hey, thank you so much for
your time. I think the reason I have heard the
message here, which is about patients, gentle conversations, empathy, empathy.
(47:24):
We'll give that a whirl for an hour or two
to chat with you. Thanks so much, doogal So what
did you make of that, Francisca. I thought both of
them were really interesting. I love the way Matt said
that grumpiness is just laziness and there's really no need
(47:45):
for it. But I also love the expression that Google
gave us, which is languishing, because I think we can
all relate to that. I think we've all had a
moment in our lives where we just we we feel
like that from twenty two languish, that's for sure. Yeah,
I agree with Matt's comment. I think there is a
point at which you know it gets too hard, Like
(48:08):
if you do languish for too long and you're too
grumpy for too long, then there is that risk of
falling into anxiety or depression. So and then that's not laziness.
You just can't get out of it. So I think
that's the key thing. Isn't it recognizing when things when
you're just not yourself or when your personality has changed
a little bit. One thing I cannot handle is people's
(48:29):
getting to a point and saying, well that's for me,
I'm not going to change anymore. I just think both
Matt and Google have emphasized that it's possible to bring
yourself out of a slump or look up from your
life and go I can do better, I can be happier. Absolutely.
I also took on board what Google said about it
needs to be a gentle approach. It's one that requires
(48:49):
some patience. But I also thought I thought it was
really interesting because I know a lot of women are
genuinely trying to offer solutions and hey, why do you
do this? Or why do you try that? Or why
do you catch up with your mates? Like I think
that's what we do. We kind of try and find
solutions and we offer you know, we're always sort of suggesting, oh,
maybe you could do this, maybe you could do that,
(49:11):
or you know, no, isn't it a beautiful day? You know,
you're trying to force sort of you know, some happiness
and these people. But actually I thought that was really interesting.
Actually just stop. It's a matter of gently and slowly
hopefully prodding that person into having some self reflection and going, yeah,
(49:31):
actually I could be happier in myself, and I could
be happier at what I do, and I could be
happier in this relationship. So yeah, I'll take a moment
and have a think about it. Look, and if you
if you preface a suggestion or you know, just say
look at this is because I really care about you.
I don't know what you need right now, just but
I need you to think about what you need rather
(49:52):
than like you say. And god, I'm the worst offender.
I'm constantly go to the gym into a race decent.
You know, I don't know, go mother, aw do something.
But I think that again the messages men own it. Yeah,
and they also you know, I think it's as we
said at the beginning, there's this sort of societal expectation
(50:14):
that middle aged women own grumpiness and anger and all
these things, and we don't. It's very nice to spread.
While we might be going through different things momonally, we're
actually kind of all going through a similar thing so
so empathy, empathy. Thanks for joining us on our new
Zealand Herald podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you
share this podcast with the women in your life so
(50:34):
we can all live well with the men we love.
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
head to inzid Herald dot co dot inzet and we'll
catch you next time on the Little Things.
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Aria. We hope
you're enjoying season three of our New Zealand here podcast
The Little Things We Certainly Are Now. This is a
podcast where we talk to experts and find out all
the little things you need to know to improve all
areas of your life and cut through the confusion and
overload of information out there and normally here on the
Little Things, we talk a lot about ourselves, and when
(00:29):
I say ourselves, I mean women in middle aged women
in particular. But we felt that it was time for
some love and concern towards the men in our lives
who too might be finding that aging comes with some challenges.
You know, this is a topic that has come up
for a suggestion for this podcast a few times. And
I was talking to a work colleague and I said,
would you like to hear next? And she just said,
(00:51):
can you talk about why my husband seems well, i'll
put it nicely, less flexible with age? And she wasn't
talking about as muscles, mindset. He's just a bit grumpy.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
So it's not just women who find themselves challenged in
middle age. I mean as a society we sort of
led to believe that mental pausal women, you know, own
grumpiness and anger and irritabability and things like that.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
But we don't.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
No, we don't, And I guess you know they're going
to be changing. They're going to be the hormonial changes
for men as they age, a drop off in testosterone,
as I understand, and we all know, their body shake
can change. And they've tried to make dadbod fashionable. That
doesn't mean that everybody feels good about getting moves or
a little bit of a pop belly or whatever. They
might feel overlooked at work, or they may wonder where
(01:38):
their relationship with their children has sort of gone since,
you know, since they were the light and shining armor
that the kids would run into their arms when they
got home, you know. And they are prone to mental
health challenges at the stage of life. So what we're
going to do with this podcast today is talk about
what happens to men when they hit middle age. Is
there really such a thing as the grumpy or irritable
(01:58):
man syndrome? But better still, we want to know how
we can support our men better. And I do wonder
whether one of the ways will be to suggest that
they just have a little listen to this podcast when
they're got a moment. I really hope. So I do
think that our guests today will encapsulate what we need
to know, not everything we need to know. You know,
(02:20):
there's a book you can read, but yeah, just to
help us get along with our partners a little better.
So today, clinical psychologist Googles Sutherland, he's going to join
us to talk about what middle aged men are going
through and how to deal with this so we can
all enjoy better relationships. But first up, Radio Holadaki Breakfast hosts,
an author of a Life Less Punishing, Matt Heath, joins
(02:41):
us to talk about how he got himself out of
a rut and changed his approach to life.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Matt, welcome, great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
It's very common that we find ourselves in a rut
at times. Let's talk about your rut, little verse. You
went through a marriage breakup and you lost your mother,
and I would suggest they are both very good reasons
as to why you might find yourself feeling a bit sad.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Also a friend pass away at the same time as well,
so I don't know if that was there was just
that time my life here briefly, I'm sure exactly when
that was. I think it might have been two thousand. Yeah,
who knows.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Oh, we can't put there is no such thing as
time at any more time and not anymore time. Yeah,
kind of very hard to put a finger on. Anyway.
A few years ago, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I found myself in a bit of a bit of
a rat which is quite surprising for me because I'd
always been sort of a happy, go lucky type.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And then I was like, ah, this is weird.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So did you recognize it straight away or did it
take a bit.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Of it took ages to realize what was going on.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I was like everything, I wasn't enjoying anything, and was
walking around going and then and then at some point, I, ah,
this is what other people have talked about.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I like the fact that when you're in that place,
you were looking around at other people who quite frankly
lives were really really bad. We're dealing with life sort
of three situations, And even then you still couldn't go, yeah, OK, mat,
I've got it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I felt bad because I because I was feeling bad,
and then other people that I knew were going through
really really bad stuff, and You're like, well, also, if
I can't feel good, because my life's pretty blessed, you know,
like my kids were healthy and you know, got a
good job and enough to eat and roof over my
head and all those kind of things and great friends.
So I was thinking, jeez, if I can't be enjoying
this life, then what hope to other people have?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I, yeah, yeah, decided to try and work out
how to and enjoy my life a bit more, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Much like anything else. I don't think sadness is something
we should compere or contrast because it can happen to
anybody under any circumstances. Did nobody else point out that
you're not quite yourself?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh yeah, yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Some friends dead and they were like, you should start running,
And I was like, yeah, it's a good idea, and
I did. And then and then those friends of my
we went down to Queenstown to run down there in a
unofficial marathon type situation. So yeah, I mean, I think
it took a long time before my bunch of friends. I'
lucky to have great friends as well. You know, a
lot of people don't have that kind of that kind
of support to just go, hey, Matt, you don't seem
(05:07):
great at the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Do you want to do? You want to go for
a run?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
When I was a teenager, all my friends' parents or dads,
when they had a bit of a mid life crisis,
they were doing triathlons was the thing in the nineties,
early nineties, late eighties and nineties. They order trythlons, and
it is a little bit of a midlife crisis kind
of thing to do, going, I'm going to go and
run a marathon. It's a good thing to do. Did
the running work you did a half?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, that's roll man, go after that.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
But oh, you intended to do the fall and you
did it half.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was building up to doing the fall.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, did the running work?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I think it does. I think it will. It gets
you into it. But I think it's kind of complicated
because at some point you can't even do that, you know.
So when you when you start doing the running thing,
you've already decided to try and make yourself feel better.
But like I think, there are times when you just
don't even want to try.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
If you get to in a position where you want
to try something, you know what I mean, which could
probably just be even a walk, like doing something rather
than nothing, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know, and having something to do it with. I
think too, Yeah, yeah, someone to keep your accountable.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Well that's what you know. I'm not sure if this
is the same for a woman, but for men. We
struggle to go to our mates, do you want to
go for a walk? They're like to the pub, No,
just like a walk, And they're like, could go for a.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Run, because then when you can play golf book a walk?
I don't think so. I think I don't think that's
the kind of thing we'd want to do.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I'm just imagining, Yeah, you're walking. What else are we
going to do? We're going to have to talk to
each other.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Where we're going.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Oliver Berkman who wrote this great book called Four Thousand Weeks.
He talks about the futility of going for a walk
and why it's because you when you go for a
walking up where you started, and that most the most efficient.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Thing for going for a walk is to not leave.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
But he's saying the meaning is in the walk, so
it's a wider metaphor for what it is trying to say.
But it's like, you could you could argue that a
walk is pointless, but because you end up where you start,
and if you just stood still, then you be more efficient.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But that's quite beautiful, isn't it. You end ut where
you start, but you've you've had to process something on
the way. Did you actually go for that Warah?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, if you inject meaning into the actual walk as
opposed to the destination.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So how did you get rid of that unshakable sadness
that you had for a while there?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Well, you know, as I say in the book, I
decided that I was thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And my mum had always.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Been really into philosophy, and it always been sharing lots
of philosophy with me, and she wrote her PhD and
and the parallels between Greek and Indian thoughts. So she
was always talking about, you know, ancient Greeks and ancient
Roman and stuff, and so I thought, maybe i'll you know,
and sometimes your mum talks and you listen, but you
don't really take anything in, you know, you know, you
(07:43):
know that she's probably right, but you know, and so
I just thought, seeing as she passed away, I thought
I'd lean into some of that stuff. So I just
started reading. I bought a history of philosophy book from
Time Out bookstore. It was a big book of all
philosophy and you know, like a rundown of you know,
philosopher and it's obviously not all of it. And the
(08:05):
woman behind the counter said that looks like an exciting read,
and I was like, I was looking at going this
facebook's pretty punishing actually, But yeah, I started just reading
phiosophy because I figured that people must have sorted it out,
that stuff out before, you know, and cut back on
the drinking a little bit as well. There was a
few things I did to start getting out of the situation,
(08:27):
but it was quite a but I reckon that. This
is my theory, is like I was not feeling good,
and I felt better enough to start doing exercise, and
then from the exercise, I felt better enough to think
about things in a wider way, you know what I mean, Like,
because it's really hard to say someone that's really depressed,
and I've tried to talk to people that are really
depressed and they're just no energy, no motivation, don't even
(08:47):
want to make things better, And so it's very easy
to say to someone like that, oh, just get a
PA history of Philosophy book and read some stuff, you'll
be fine, and I'll be like I'm not doing that,
you know, like I don't want to feel better like
you can be to say, well, you just don't want
to feel better, you don't have the energy to feel better,
or you don't you know. That's so yeah, I'm not
sure if what I did would be would be the
plan for everyone.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, but what you did with that was was write
a really excellent book that.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
People thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I try to think of too many men who would
get stuck into philosophy, although they do savy men thinks
about the Roman Empire, so maybe.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I mean when I read that study, you know that
that big since that thing came out about men thinking
about the Roman Empire all the time, I was like,
should I think about the Roman part? I really do
fascinating But my mom my mum was a Latin teacher
and such classics as well, so there was always like
Roman stuff around our house. So I thought maybe that's
why I was that And you know, I love the
movie Gladiator, so maybe I thought that was when I say,
(09:45):
oh no, it is the thing that's more than just
people whose mums were Latin teachers.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No, I've got a daughter studying classics, so it's a
little bit in our in our will. But I do
not spend a lot of time thinking about the Roman Empire.
I have a different Roman Empire, or do you. I
don't know what it is, probably nutrition and next society.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That's your rumin in book.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
You just mentioned alcohol there, and that is unfortunately, lou
and I are coming to the conclusion as meaning so
many people who have been trying to get into our skulls.
Alcohol is not a friend to middle aged menipools or
perimeniples or women. What about men?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
I think the biggest problem with alcohol is how much
it ruins you're sleeping. And I think sleeping is like
a really important thing. So I mean, I never drink
during the week, so I'm a terrible binge drinker. You know,
I just stopped having glasses of wine, you know, with dinner,
and then another one with you know, sitting down front
of the TV. And then before you know it, you've
had like you know, you've opened a bottle and you're
going for another one, and you're like, no, no, no,
(10:42):
I don't do that. But I still will have a
drink on the weekend watching sport or whatever. But it's
just so bad for your sleep, that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I didn't know it was bad for men's sleep. I mean,
I know it's bad for women's sleep, so men get
the two o'clock waking up catastrophizing too.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, and just just so much energy. You're so tired,
and you go to sleep and you wake up at
two thirty. Explain to me why that is. Why you
can testify it when you first wake up, because it's
like all you're getting is the primitive part of your
brain firing up, the terrified you know, they're amignaler and
that kind of stuff firing up before the other part
of your brain comes on because that, you know, the
prefront of cortex. All that stuff has been shut down.
So you wake up and you're like, oh my god,
(11:15):
there's nothing good in the world, Like you're just searching
for fears in the dark, and because you're in the dark,
there's no other stimulus to move you on. But that's
I mean, that's not great as that when you wake
up like that. I mean I woke up last night
like that. I hadn't been drinking, but I'd been dreaming
about It's really horrific situation with literally stupid dream about
(11:36):
zombies and you know, and smashing on the windows, you know,
oh dear, And I wake up going my.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Text texas like something that like text and I was like,
I've done my Texas? What I have?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
I did you get the GST right? And yeah, ah,
there's searching around in the dark for somebody be scared of.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So knowing the physiology of it, you can calm yourself
down and you just accept that sleep will come back.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I think knowing all that stuff is like can. Before
I wrote this book, I always thought that if you
were ahead, and I didn't think about it really, but
if you start an emotion, you just had to go
until it burnt out.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Like a fire.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I didn't realize that you could go. Well, you wake
up and you're cantestrophizing, that you can go hang them minute.
I'm catestrophizing, and then you know, do some breaths. I'm
big on breathing breathing techniques. And then you're like, it's
actually not a zombie apocalypse. And I did do my
taxes and it's all very good. I really just needed
a week.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It always creaks me up in the morning. It always
creaks me up in the morning when you go that
we was so random? Why did I say that? I
don't think, you know, the rational brain just kicks in
and you're just like, that was crazy, What a waste
of time?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, And then you've often come up with a solution
to the issue, or you can just go check you
did your GST, double check for yourself to sleep better
the next night. But it's not it's not rational, and
a lot of this isn't necessarily rational. And I think
men have for a long time made the assumption that
they are the rational gender, and so admitting any of
those issues is quite hard, well, recognizing them.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
They might have pretended that they are, but I don't think.
I mean, you know, my book starts with that quote
from throw like most men of lives a quiet desperation.
So I think inside everyone's always known that things are
in turmoil. But I think maybe outwardly, because that's the
weird thing when you start talking to people that say, oh,
everyone's because we all walk around and we go, why
(13:23):
am I so crazy? Everyone else seems quite normal? It's
because you're the only one in your head. Yeah, this
is philosophy. Call the headless way, which actually won't go
into it annoys people. But the idea is that you
don't have a head. Everyone else does because you can't
see your head. So you walk around and it's as
you'll take too long to explain it.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
But when you start, when you get, when you.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Get your head round it, it is it's like we look
out of this huge hole at everyone else and they've
got their heads and they seem to be doing it
dealing with your life. Okay, but you're the one inside.
You're you know, everything that's going on in your head
and not what's going on other people's heads.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Another way of explaining perspective, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, You've got one big hole you look out of
and you don't even the parameters of it, and someone
else is just a head and some what they communicate
with you.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Are you seeing other men sort of struggling with life
a little bit as they reach middle age, or talking
more about the struggles that they're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I think it's definitely become a thing over the last
week while for men to.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Really push that.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I think we are becoming more and more isolated, and
I think a lot of the other old structures that
used to be there are sort of gone. So I
think there's been a real push to to you know,
things I speak at seem to be about men kind
of coming together and forming communities and not being as punishing.
Because there's a thing where I was reading this book
(14:42):
by this guy called Max Dickens called Billy No Mates,
and he's talking about the male condition, and you're saying
that often we put the emotional bag at the emotional
hard work on our partners.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So we just shut up shop and then we go.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
They organize who we're going to dinner with, and they
organize the times when we talk about our emotions and stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
And he's just writing about that's kind of a strange
thing that we do. We just off we outsource.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It, and we've done podcasts on this. It's called the
mental load. Yeah, but I didn't know how. I didn't
know that. I didn't think about that part of it,
that maybe it is a little bit of the brain
is full or can't proceed some of these things. So
they are in I mean, I'm just trying to be
sympathetic here that they are offloading that to get on
with the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Well, yeah, he saw it as being a bad thing
and that you need to be that for your you know,
he calls it being a shirper for everyone to your friends,
like reaching out and you know, like me and are
pretty good at banter, like abusing each other. You know,
we compliment each other by insulting each other. But it's
(15:47):
not a real friendship until you take it to another level.
And I think that's the thing that men were struggling
to do. And now there's a real push to go, well,
you know, ask your mate is for real rather than
just say that his pants look stupid.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You know here that banter things really interesting, isn't it.
And it is just practiced too. I think, you know,
we all have to practice our relationships with people, partners,
our friends, our colleagues, everyone. Sometimes I listened to you know,
Oscar and as mates and they're talking for a bit
and I just think, you guys really could be saving
the world instead of having this inane conversation. So it
starts young, doesn't it. The Genta the book is all
(16:20):
about being dissatisfied that you've rushen about in things. Why
are men dissatisfied?
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well, I think we are taking it right back. Humans
evolved to be dissatisfied. I think the idea that we're
just going to be naturally in a state of happiness,
because as I say in the book, the person that
was satisfied got eaten by a tiger about fifteen seconds later,
whereas the person that was sitting there going oh god,
oh this isn't a great place to sit. Oh no,
(16:50):
this is terrible. I'm useless. I've built a terrible fence.
I suck bad. Person survived to reproduce. And so I
think we are no matter what position we are in
in life, no matter how good it gets. It's like
that thing where you go, oh, when we buy a house,
we're going to own our own house, and then we're
going to feel amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
We're going to be satisfied. It's like you're not.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You get there and you find something else that you're
dissatisfied about. And so I think that's a thing to
realize that we're evolved to be dissatisfied. But we've got
so we've got got this wiring, we've got this wiring
for the savannah when we're not going to get attacked
by tiger, Like I'm going to be very unfortunate. A
tiger came in here, in at us. So I think
that's something to know and then go, well, when you're
aware of that, you can do things to make yourself
(17:33):
more satisfied. And you know what a lot of the
philosophers I talk to from around the world we're talking
about you do that with framing, you know, like, so
if you're dissatisfied with your kitchen, instead of thinking looking
through a catalog of the most amazing kitchens, you go,
I'm going to think about the people that have to
carry their water from a river on their heads back
to their house that's a kilometer away. You know, we
(17:55):
look the wrong way to find our satisfaction. Like, as
they say, happy doesn't come from getting more things, it's
learning to enjoy the things you have. Gratitude, yeah, yeah,
gratitude so yeah. But so the first thing is we
are evolved to be dissatisfied, but we can actually deal
with it just not you know, they talk about their
hedonic treadmark just always. And then we get into the
(18:18):
state where you think that life never quite begins because
you know, when I get this, life's going to be good,
then I get this, life's going to be good.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
When I retire, life's going to be good and then
you retire and you look around.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
You haven't spend any time with your kids and you're like, hey,
you guys want to hang out And they're like, well no,
because you didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Create a relationship or whatever.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
So yeah, I think you've just got to work out
to understand that you're dissatisfied and that's fine, just deal
with it.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
On a way to work it out.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
In this podcast, we talk a lot about women and
aging and dealing with it and things. Men how do
they cope with aging? You know that their bodies change
as well, their physicality changes. They suddenly can't do quite
as much. Does it have an impact on them?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
It was interesting because I had this experience. I was
talking at.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
This event in Hawks Bay and I was talking about
this thing where I set myself on fire to doing
the stunt when I was working in London and I
was dressed up in a monkey suit and I set
myself on fire and I was well, I got set
on fire and I was running around doing the stunt
in this TV studio and they were like.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
What were you thinking then?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And I thought I was thinking, oh, that I'll get
paid two thousand pounds to do this is what I
was thinking. But now you wouldn't able to pay me
enough money to do that, And I thought that is
a huge difference because they're like, why would you do that?
And it's like I thought, because the situation was we
were shooting this thing and they were going to pay
the stunt in two thousand pounds and I was like,
for what, you know, he's just been set on fire.
(19:41):
That's nothing. And now I look back and I go,
that's insane. But at the time, you know, that's the change.
That's the change. It's like, you go, I just wouldn't
do that. Now I can't even get my head around
the guy that would do that.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I have that thought when i'm you know, you're at
the beach. He used to go and he used to
just leap off the top of the say you have
to get down to the beach. I have that just
with that lit alone, sketching myself on fire. But it's
all those little things, isn't it that our brain is
just kind of going, hang on a minute. We lose
a little bit, it's sensible, but we also lose a
little bit of faith in ourselves.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess also, you know, if
you've got more things to protect. You know, it's be
terrible for a lot more people than just me if
I badly injured myself.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
What do you reckon? Women should know about men as
they age. Are they sensitive to maybe getting a pop value?
Are they sensitive to the fact that they're getting grumpy or.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
I don't think people need to get grumpy. That's lazy,
becoming grumpy, I reckon, So I think they need to
be pointed out that. But I think men, I don't know,
like we have, well I do and my friends have.
There some huge amount of pride and being able to
provide for your family right that means a lot. I'm
not sure why, but it does. So what our problems
(20:57):
is when we start getting to a position we expect
people to be great for what you've done.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Wondy about that? More grateful? No, I know.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I think I think men need to not expect to
be thanked all the time, you know, just do your
thing for because it's the right thing to do. It's
a mindset that we need to get into to do
things because the right thing to do not for what
you get back from it, you know, and then you
have your happiness and that this is where you did it,
because if you do something, you know, if you bring
up your kids because you want them to thank you
(21:25):
for it, then you haven't really done anything.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well you're being headless again, don't you.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, yeah, you're going, well, why did I do that?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
No?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I did it because it was the right thing to do,
to be a good father rather than.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
But there is also power and a thank you. And
in season one we spoke about this and a psychologisty
to us just occasionally say thank you, and so we started.
I started saying thank you in the house and then
all of a sudden, a couple of weeks later, I
realized that everyone was thinking everybody all the time, and
it almost kind of got quo lost the power of it.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Accept it as well, Like if you can learn to
accept to thank you or a compliment rather than kicking
it to touched, just going, you know, thank you, and then.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You go, of course I did.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Expected to whatever you just go oh thanks, But yeah,
but I mean, like people could thank you and that
would make you feel good. But you can't walk around
expecting to be thinking.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
No, no, absolutely right, what about rigid thinking? Do you think?
Obviously you've got a pretty flexible outlook on life. You've
went and read the books and so forth, did you
think back on before when you were in a sort
of spiral of sadness, that maybe you'd lost a little
bit of flexibility in you're thinking.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Or Yeah, I think I think that's true. And I
think I was really inflexible and my thinking. I was
just angry about things a lot of the time and
like you know, resentful of where There's something I wrote
in the book about the fantasy life that people think
like they're trying to compete their life as competing with
the life they've made up, and go, I'm doing this,
but there's this other life that I could be living,
(22:54):
but you're just making that life up in the life
you've got can never compete with it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So you get into this really grim stay.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Of thinking about the life you're in as inferior to
something that you're making up, and the thing that you're
making up is always going to be a lot better.
So I think I was in the rigid in my
thinking about where I should be in life, what I
should have achieved, what constitutes success, you know. And then
and then that's the problem with dissatisfied, because you when
you're in a position where you've achieved everything that you
imagined as a twenty year old is making you happy,
(23:22):
which is just something to eat and somewhere to sleep,
you know, and having a girlfriend. You're there and you
and you're not enjoying it because there's some better thing
out there that you're making up.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You would have thought wad to learn by now, after
COVID and everything else in the state of the world,
that you know something, a lot of that stuff is
just out of our control.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, yeah, oh, I mean that's that's the cliche that's
always going around on Instagram and obviously a stoic idea,
but the idea that just, you know, stopped spinning your
mental energy on things that you can't control, because what's
the point.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Thank you so much for your time today and for
the book. Are Life Less Punishing. I think it's perfect
for anyone, but in particular men, as you say, if
they kind of getting to a point where they're worrying
or their stressed, or they're angry, or they're wondering, criking,
what the hell's going on. So it's a great resource,
Thank you very much. Even before yeah, and I gave
it to your what was he at the time, twenty
(24:15):
twenty year old son.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, oh that's good. Oh well, thank you so
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You're listening to the Little Things And that was Halaki.
Breakfast host and author of a Life Less Punishing Matt
Heath up next to clinical psychologist Google Southerland joins us
to talk about middle aged men and aging and if
you've got a grumpy, irritable one, how to deal with
them and keep our relationships on track. We'll be back shortly.
(24:41):
Welcome back. This is the Little Things, and joining us
now is clinical psychologist and CE of Umbrella Well Being
Google Sutherland. Google is also an adjunct teaching fellow at
Victoria University and he contributes to the training of the
next generation of clinical psychologists. It's great to have you
with us, Doogle, You're a nice to be with you
dogging you were a grumpy middle aged man.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Oh I have been. I have been until probably a
turning point in my life, maybe two years ago. I
think when my family refers to it as old Google
and new Doogle, and so new Google is markedly less grumpy,
I believe from based on popular report.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But how good is that that there is an old
doggle in a new doogle.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, well I think so, and the people around
me seem to appreciate it too. It wasn't the most
It was one of those experiences that wouldn't necessarily want
to go through again. But I think we've come out
on the right side of things.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Was it a painful metamorphisis?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Yeah? There were some home truths spoken, shall we say,
and some things brought to my attention that I wasn't
really kind of aware of, if you get what I mean.
I was just doing my thing. I was just being
me and living life and not perhaps aware of the
expectations and the standards that I was throwing out to
(26:06):
other people, particularly in my family. And so yeah, it was.
It wasn't pleasant. As I say, there were some hard
home truths spoken to me by those around me.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So I suppose my question here is what advice do
you give to other people when all of a sudden
those home truths are sort of thrown at you?
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I think, and this comes from Matt's book as well,
I think, is that ability to stop and reflect and
take some time to acknowledge that what other people are
saying about you, or what you think to yourself about
you could be true, So don't get defensive about it.
Be open to feedback, and be open to being aware
(26:49):
that the way you've done things might not be the
best way of doing things as you go into the
future that might be. But being able to I think
that ability to stop and pause and step out of
yourself for a moment and go ah. I wonder if
there's any truth in what they say, and maybe there is.
That's the starting really is. That's ability to stop and reflect.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
And that could possibly happen at any age, but in particular,
if we're going to be talking about men reaching that
middle aged area, is irritable male syndrome or grampy old
mens syndrome or male menopause andro pause? Is it a
real clinical thing.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Look, I don't think you could put it on the
same level as female menopause and perimenopause, because there isn't
the same biological happenings going on for men as perhaps
there are for women, nor that associated change in view
of yourself and the world because you have gone through it,
(27:46):
because a woman has gone through that particular change. But
I think there's definitely a phase in life for men
when we get to this point, I kind of think
that you kind of emerge from the woods and the
muck and the murk of raising kids. And I think
my kids are about the same age as Matt, So
you just sort of emerge from the fact that.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
Ah, hang on a minute, I've had my head down,
I've been busy at my work, I've been busy with family.
I've been busy with this buying a house and doing everything.
And now some of that starts to drift away. The
kids are older, they don't need you as much. Maybe
you're in a sort of settled or reasonably clear trajectory
with work, and then it's all of a sudden it's like,
oh what if we can't I got It's almost like
(28:25):
a adorning It's.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Like, ah, look, this is a whole new phase of life,
isn't it. Maybe it is. So I think there is
that definite pause or opportunity to pause as you emerge
from that, because when you're stuck with young kids and
building a career, it's not easy to find that time
to sit down and breathe, let alone reflect on yourself.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the pause is really good unless you suddenly stop
and go, oh, is this my life? Is this it.
Then I imagine that could be a little bit trolld
with them.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Yeah, it could be, but that's it's okay. I think
one of the things that Matt's talks a lot about
is the explicitly and iimplestitly at times, is the acceptance
that there are different emotions and you don't have to
steer away from them, Like there's anger and there's dissatisfaction
and there's loneliness, and we should pay attention to those
(29:21):
emotions and go, actually, what is this trying to tell me?
And that it doesn't mean that that will be a
wonderful process full of lollipops and roses that will be wonderful,
feel wonderful. It might be painful, it might be uncomfortable,
and that's okay. That's how it is. Lots of bits
of life are painful and uncomfortable, and we don't need
to shy away from those they might be trying to
(29:43):
tell us something.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So you do you see male patients that you would
say are in this change or this phase or this
pause of life on a regular basis.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah, Actually, I was speaking to somebody just yesterday who
was in a very similar stage of life, sort of
late forty kids were growing up. Business was going well,
and it was like, oh gee, I just don't really
feel satisfied. Had everything that he needed in terms of
(30:13):
material things, but it was like, man, is this what
this doesn't just doesn't feel quite satisfying. And I think,
you know, for some guys, it's that actually the material
things I've got those, I'm satisfied. You know, I've got
those foundations in life. I don't have to worry about
the roof over my head or where the next meal
is coming from. But but maybe life could be more
(30:37):
than this. Maybe getting drunk every Friday night is not
the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I do think though, there is also we are in
a time where there is a lot going on, and
particularly if you are in Wellington, your job could be
compaile or or anywhere else. It's tough time. So is
that a layer of complexity you're seeing of middle age maya.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Particularly in Wellington. I think you're right well although that
the change has sort of radiated out, and I think, yeah,
those times can often for some people that causes a
real kind of shift that's like do I really want
to be doing this? I kind of I almost stumbled
into my career. I sort of you know, finished UNI
and got this job, and then I, you know, I
needed to work another three years before I got to
(31:19):
this level, and then another four years to get to
this level. And then it's like, actually, do I want
to be? Maybe I want to be a Keywi fruit
farmer and tooookie, maybe that's the thing for me. And
so it can it can feel a little bit tripe
to say it's somebody in this situation, but it can
be a bit It can be an exciting opportunity for change,
although when you're in the midst of it, it may not
(31:40):
feel particularly exciting and you might just want to raise
the middle finger and say, it's not exciting at all?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Is it largely because we sort of focus so much
on all these other things we do were it's kind
of like, Okay, we go, we study, we start a career,
we maybe get married, you have a kid, you buy
a house, you renovate the house. You know, like we
sort of had this understanding of what those earlier decades
kind of should look like, and then we almost kind
(32:07):
of think, well, when you get to middle age, what
else is there? And we should actually be thinking really
positively about what you can be achieving in your late forties, fifties, sixties.
You know, it's not like you're just sitting back now
and waiting for retirement. Yeah, you know, we don't. It's
almost like we don't kind of go oh, hang on
a minute, yeah, actually the kids have gone. The kids, right,
(32:28):
this is the moment we've been waiting for. Let's go
live our lives the way you know, and do those
things we want to do. It could be hard to
find the energy to think like that.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Yeah, I wonder so if that's a generational chef, like
maybe not maybe my parents' generation or certainly the generation.
But once you kind of got to forty or fifty,
it was starting to okay, let's just sit back. Now
we've done, we've completed life, and we'll just sit back
wait for retirement. And because we're forty or fifty, so well,
and now it's like, well, forty or fifty, we've still
(32:56):
got lots of energy and we've still got half of
our lives to live. So I think it might be
a newish thing that our generation is experiencing, and therefore
we haven't had lots of guidance in it. It's not
like we can look to our parents or grandparents and
see what they did, because they just sat on the
couch when they were in their slippers and CARDI. By
the time they got to forty and had a pipe
and well listened to the wireless. I was going to say,
(33:19):
watch TV, but you know, probably listened to the ryalists
or watched the one channel that used to be on TV.
So I think it's a new challenge for this generation
to figure out how to cope with.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So what about if you are in a bit of
a negative spiral and feeling irritable about everything, you know,
what is the best way to deal with this?
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Look, I think firstly acknowledging that that's where you are
and not attempting to brush that away. And that might
take a little bit of time. Because who likes sitting
there having a negative emotion? Oh yeah, I love it.
I love sitting there feeling uncomfortable. So oh no, you know,
we do lots of things to avoid negative emotions. So
I think having that ability to start up and notice
(34:00):
and hey, I've been feeling uncomfortable for a while now,
and maybe I need to do something about it. You
can buy Matt's book. That would be a good start.
I think it's a really good handbook for middle aged
men really, so try some things off your own bat
and if that doesn't work well, it doesn't have to
(34:22):
be instead of As well as talk to other people.
I think getting another person's perspective, and whether that's a
friend or family member or you know, you go and
see a psychologist or whatever. I think the key thing
is getting another person's perspective and not just getting stuck
in your own head around. It would be my two
key things. Stopping pausing, getting somebody else's perspective.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I don't want to generalize or anything, but quite often
and maybe your partner or your wife is the person
that might notice that you're not quite right, maybe before you,
you know, recognize it. How should they approach it? How
should they talk to their partner and say, hey, look,
as you know, is everything okay? What's going on? How
do we sort of help them?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Very gently?
Speaker 4 (35:04):
And I think I think it's just noticing. I think
I think this is a bit of a universal truth
that trying to change somebody else is very rarely successful,
and so just occasionally noticing, picking your moments and noticing
or no observing what you've noticed, they have noticed you
(35:26):
for being more quiet recently or more grumpy, and that
maybe all that they need to do. And you'll obviously
have to pick your moments if you're particularly grumpy and
says then somebody says, I've noticed you're being more grumpy.
I have not been. That's ridiculous. So picking your moments
is probably good. And I think creating space for the
(35:47):
person to pick up on that you know, don't don't
fill it with things that you think they should do. Hey,
I think what you should do is get a mountain
bike or buy a new car or go. You know,
during this club will hold off giving any options, just
stopping them then noticing, and it might take time, and
that's frustrating when you're trying to when you wish somebody
(36:08):
else would change or so you can see what's blatantly
wrong with them and if they would only just accept
your common sense, they would change. But doesn't usually happen
that way. So I think just being reflected, you know,
reflecting back, noticing, giving them space to talk about it
and to change in their own time is key.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Because I was also wondering that that midlife slump or
if you're seeing a bit of a midlife crisis and things.
It can actually also indicate depression is something we should
be aware of as well, isn't it It could do.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
But remembering that, you know, majority of people don't get depressed,
I think, and I was thinking about this actually as
I was reading through Matt's book, is that one you know,
one term that that perhaps really could describe this age
or this time and life is the term languishing, which is,
you know, when you're not depressed, you know there's nothing
(37:00):
clinically wrong, but life just kind of sucks.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, it's a good word.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, And for me, that's the languishing is the is
the absence or the low levels of mental health as
opposed to a mental illness like depression. And I use
the term illness and quotes, but you know, on one
side you have mental illnesses or mental disorders or mental
clinical issues like depression. But having mental health isn't simply
(37:30):
the opposite of not being depressed. It's on a different
scale altogether. And so you know, good mental health we
might call flourishing, and poor mental health we might call languishing.
And I think a lot of a lot of people
can find themselves in that kind of languishing zone when
life just feels empty or a bit dull, and it's
like and it could slip into depression for sure, but
(37:52):
it won't be for everybody.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
No, A friend of mine needs to have a term
saying that she'd had a day or two of feeling
like she was swimming through treacle. And the key to
know is, you know, how long have I been swimming
through this trek? Or you know, have I been able
to get out?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Yeah, I agree. I think you know that you don't
languish and left too long can obviously drift down in
towards depression and other things. But everybody, you know, I think,
I think it's useful to recognize and to say, hey,
actually I might be depressed, but I might not. My
life just might kind of suck at the moment without
any particular reason, and I can do things to change it.
(38:26):
It's not like you are a passive victim and all this.
You can do things to change how you feel and
change how you think, and that can be really helpful.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
It's interesting you say, you know, the best way for
a partner to sort of deal with the men in
their life is to do it gently, because we sort
of when we were coming up with this idea for
the podcast, we were sort of talking to a few
people and they they were giving us their thoughts and
opinions on why they were very keen for us to
do this podcast. And one of them has quite blatantly said,
(38:57):
and we'll have to use the beep here, but you
know why the thing? Can't they just do what they're told?
That was what she was referring to to her sort
of you know, stuck in a rut, slightly useless middle
age husband, which is rather to the point to Frank,
and to the point, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (39:13):
It is? And I think obviously men have to take
some responsibility out of it. I think Matt said before
about you know how we kind of we sometimes contract
the emotional side of things out to your partner. It's like, oh,
I love take care of all that kind of stuff.
And you know, men do tend to narrow down their
social circle to focus predominantly and rest on their partners.
(39:37):
But actually we need to take responsibility for our own
thinking and feeling. You can't farm it out, you can't.
You know, there's a sometimes I can't remember her. It
was a wise psychologist said that therapy is a bit
like you know the wheels, So this is talking to
a therapist. You know, the wheels round, but you can't
tell the other person that the wheel's round, and you
(39:58):
can't show them the wheels round. They have to discover
that for themselves. And I think the same is true
in this situation. A partner might be able to see
that you know that the guy is languishing or not
doing well, but they can't change that, and that they
you know, as much as you want to, you can't
do it for another person and it won't have the
(40:18):
same effect. If you're just doing what you're told, you've
got it. It's that you need some sort of internal
motivation to go, Actually, I need to do this. I
need to take on the responsibility. I can't just keep
farming this out to my partner all the time.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
And if they if they don't. I think that's the
other thing too, is that you know, women our age
are dealing with their own menopause and changes in life.
Is that when we, you know, sometimes see things spiraling
into distance in a couple or even separation, divorce, the
great divorce.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Yeah, yeah, I think so, you know, it's it's it's understandable.
You know, you can see how that kind of naturally happens.
And I think you know, patients are the real virtue
on both sides here, giving each other the space to
change and the time to change. And it might not
be in your time frame, and you might wish the
(41:06):
other person was changing sooner, but you know, I guess
i'd say, think back to when you got together and
watch the rationale for you're getting together, and have you
made a commitment to go through? It sounds cliched and
sickness and in health for better or worse?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It should say sickness and health and middle age, shouldn't it?
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Yeah, for richer, for poor or bloody poorer? That's you know,
But yeah, have you made I mean you may not
have made that explicit commitment, but is that actually a
commitment that you've got and and are you in this
relationship for the long haul or just for the good times?
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I think both We always want the partner to be happy, right,
That's what we want for them. But like you're saying,
you can't make that happen, and that might be where
the frustration kind of starts to Similarly.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean it's natural that you know,
if you if somebody you care about, you want them
to feel god and you feel bad when they feel bad.
But you can't changed, and the other person has to change.
And in this situation, men have to take responsibility for
changing themselves. They can't farm it out because that just
won't work. But yeah, that look, I think that patience
(42:12):
are real. And it may feel frustrating because you're like,
come on, I can see what needs to happen, or
come on, We've got the rest of our lives to
live and you're just stuck in this rut of treacle
to pick up on that metaphor, But you know, I
can just be there and empathize. I think too. You know,
empathy is a great thing. That I've been stuck in
this rut of treacle as well, and I'm not sure
to get you out, but I've been here too, and
(42:35):
it sucks, and I'm here to be with you in it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
It's quite interested to hear Matt talk about a man's
need to provide and the importance of it to him
in particular. Is that something you see? I mean, I
think society is changing a lot. There are a lot
of situations where women can out earn their partners. Is
that something that's hard for men to deal with?
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Yeah, that will be my experience talking to other god eyes,
is that there is that It's not always explicitly stated,
but there is that kind of sense of yeah, we're
carrying the loads where and we're doing this, you know,
for the good of everybody else. You know, even if
your partner is the bigger bread winner, it's still that
kind of sense of, ah, yeah, but I do all
these things. I do the gardening, and I take things
(43:17):
to the dump, and I do DIY at home and
other important things to provide. And what would I do
if I wasn't doing that? Well, more to the point,
maybe what's going on here is that you get to
the point where you have provided and everything's provided for now,
and it's like were your job's done, isn't it? Because
you've provided, And it's like, ah, surely there must be.
(43:38):
I've got a house, I've got a car, kids are
just about to grow up or leave home. I've done
all the providing. Now now what the heck? Now what
do I do? And that could be a bit of
a reckoning for lots of because that's a historic along
this historically held view of guys is that got to
be the bread whin. I've got to be the earner,
got to be the provider. Some will gone onto that
(44:01):
a lot more strongly than others.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Could provide me with a holiday would be fine. I
can definitely come up with a list of things that
could make you feel good about providing for It's not
a problem. Sometimes they just provide for themselves and by
an expensive bike and lots of lecraft. So true, Oh dear, looks,
it's a tough one, and I think that I think
that you were mad have both said more than once.
(44:24):
It's about owning those feelings, and I suppose realizing that
this is is a kind of a real thing. It
doesn't matter that it's not exactly the same as women's menopause,
and that as women or as partners we can probably
need to appreciate that for them and for them, they're
not alone.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Yeah, I think that sense of hey, there are other
people going through it, whether that's your partner because she's
going through menopause, or whether it's other men and they're
going through it as well. I think, you know, historically,
at least in recent generations, in recent times, men have
not been good at talking about this kind of stuff.
(45:02):
And you know, Matt talks a lot around banter and
how often men's conversations don't go further than banter. But
to have men inful relations band is a great place
to start, but it needs to go further. And actually,
can I take it further? Can I have a vulnerable
moment done in a sort of a manly way where
I can kind of get some empathy and some support
(45:23):
from other guys around me because they're and realize, oh,
sheish other people are going through this as well. It's
not just me, Jogel.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I just had one more question for you, and that's
about something that happens to all of us as we age,
which are the aches and the pains and the indignities
that come with age. How do men deal with that
kind of loss of physicality when it sort of takes
a hit, when they can't kind of you know, live
their lives at full power and do all the things
that they want to do.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, Look, I think often you'll see men kind of
especially in recent kind of decades, swapping and downgrading and
moving and taking on new you know, maybe they don't
run trasslines anymore. Maybe they but maybe they go mountain
biking or just rode. Like you know, you've seen this
huge increase in sort of people over the age of
(46:09):
forty riding around and like ground on Sunday morning. It's like,
what the hell are you all doing? But so I
think they cope by what you can cope, perhaps by
not giving up and not going, oh well, just can't
do it anymore. I just have to sit at home
and vegetate. I used to run in the mornings and
I was getting terrible sort of knee problems and the
(46:31):
doctor just looked at me and said, men of our age,
we just shouldn't run anymore. He said, try walking instead.
Knowing what walking made me sound like, I was asy.
But you know, I've changed to walking, and now I
sort of do. I would hesitate to say a power
because that sums up terrible image. But I walked briskly
and fast and it's better on my knees and I
(46:54):
don't hear my knee kind of grind, grind and glaunch
when I'm walking now. So I just changed that, and
I think that's a good thing to do.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
You own that power walk. You tell everybody you power walk.
There's nothing wrong with the power walk. It is quite
hard to transition from running to walking, but it probably
does come for us along the end. It's going to
hurt us all. Google. Hey, thank you so much for
your time. I think the reason I have heard the
message here, which is about patients, gentle conversations, empathy, empathy.
(47:24):
We'll give that a whirl for an hour or two
to chat with you. Thanks so much, doogal So what
did you make of that, Francisca. I thought both of
them were really interesting. I love the way Matt said
that grumpiness is just laziness and there's really no need
(47:45):
for it. But I also love the expression that Google
gave us, which is languishing, because I think we can
all relate to that. I think we've all had a
moment in our lives where we just we we feel
like that from twenty two languish, that's for sure. Yeah,
I agree with Matt's comment. I think there is a
point at which you know it gets too hard, Like
(48:08):
if you do languish for too long and you're too
grumpy for too long, then there is that risk of
falling into anxiety or depression. So and then that's not laziness.
You just can't get out of it. So I think
that's the key thing. Isn't it recognizing when things when
you're just not yourself or when your personality has changed
a little bit. One thing I cannot handle is people's
(48:29):
getting to a point and saying, well that's for me,
I'm not going to change anymore. I just think both
Matt and Google have emphasized that it's possible to bring
yourself out of a slump or look up from your
life and go I can do better, I can be happier. Absolutely.
I also took on board what Google said about it
needs to be a gentle approach. It's one that requires
(48:49):
some patience. But I also thought I thought it was
really interesting because I know a lot of women are
genuinely trying to offer solutions and hey, why do you
do this? Or why do you try that? Or why
do you catch up with your mates? Like I think
that's what we do. We kind of try and find
solutions and we offer you know, we're always sort of suggesting, oh,
maybe you could do this, maybe you could do that,
(49:11):
or you know, no, isn't it a beautiful day? You know,
you're trying to force sort of you know, some happiness
and these people. But actually I thought that was really interesting.
Actually just stop. It's a matter of gently and slowly
hopefully prodding that person into having some self reflection and going, yeah,
(49:31):
actually I could be happier in myself, and I could
be happier at what I do, and I could be
happier in this relationship. So yeah, I'll take a moment
and have a think about it. Look, and if you
if you preface a suggestion or you know, just say
look at this is because I really care about you.
I don't know what you need right now, just but
I need you to think about what you need rather
(49:52):
than like you say. And god, I'm the worst offender.
I'm constantly go to the gym into a race decent.
You know, I don't know, go mother, aw do something.
But I think that again the messages men own it. Yeah,
and they also you know, I think it's as we
said at the beginning, there's this sort of societal expectation
(50:14):
that middle aged women own grumpiness and anger and all
these things, and we don't. It's very nice to spread.
While we might be going through different things momonally, we're
actually kind of all going through a similar thing so
so empathy, empathy. Thanks for joining us on our new
Zealand Herald podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you
share this podcast with the women in your life so
(50:34):
we can all live well with the men we love.
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
head to inzid Herald dot co dot inzet and we'll
catch you next time on the Little Things.
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