The midlife crisis has a stock image problem: sports car, affair, motorcycle, a man trying to be twenty-two again. On this Men’s Therapy Podcast roundtable, host Marc Azoulay brings together three voices who work with men at exactly this turning point. Brooks, a therapist and retreat leader based in Central Iowa with a telehealth practice in Colorado; Desmond Cohen, a counsellor and longtime Man Kind Project facilitator based in Oregon; and Mark Platten, who has spent over two decades in men’s work, now focused specifically on midlife, andropause, and the men whose partners are moving through perimenopause.
The conversation moves well past the cliché, tracing the midlife crisis back to an older idea: a reckoning with the ladder you’ve spent your whole life climbing, and whether you ever leaned against the right wall. The panel debates whether this is a modern phenomenon or a timeless one (Brooks points to Dante and The Odyssey), why the timeline seems to be shifting a decade later than it used to, and why roughly two-thirds of midlife divorces in the U.S. are initiated by women rather than men. From there, it gets personal: Robert Bly’s image of the shame men shove into an invisible bag starting in childhood; a real case study of a marriage rebuilt after a hidden affair came to light; and the pattern of “being right” as a childhood survival strategy that quietly wrecks adult relationships. The episode closes on spirituality and altered states, ayahuasca, psilocybin, vision quests, and why Joseph Campbell wouldn’t take a student under 40.
This episode is for men who feel a low hum of dissatisfaction they can’t quite name, even though nothing is technically wrong. It’s for guys whose marriage feels flat, whose drinking or screen time has quietly become a coping mechanism, or who sense their old strategies- working harder, solving it, being the nice guy — have stopped working. It’s for partners trying to understand what’s happening to the man they married, especially if she’s also navigating perimenopause. And it’s for anyone drawn to the idea that this stage of life could be an initiation into something bigger, rather than a crisis to just survive.
The panel rejects the “guy buys a motorcycle” stereotype outright. Desmond frames it through a systems lens: a set of tools and identities that took decades to build stop fitting a world that’s kept changing around them. Brooks describes it as reaching the top of a ladder, or close to it, and realising you’re not sure you built it against the right wall. Mark Platten adds that no amount of accumulation, status, or achievement fills the hole that shows up at this stage; the crisis starts when a man clings to his younger self instead of asking what this new phase of life is actually asking of him.
Mark Platten, whose five sons range from 24 to 45, says he’s watched the entire timeline shift by roughly a decade. He points to himself turning 60 with more physical vitality than his own father or grandfather had at that age, and to men having children later in life, which delays the point where kids are grown and a man is forced to confront what’s next. What used to show up in a man’s 40s is now stretching into the 60s and 70s.
Mark Platten cites the U.S. figure directly: about 67% of midlife divorces are initiated by women. His read is that perimenopause forces women into their own reckoning, shedding roles, no longer performing “nice,” standing in a newly sovereign version of themselves. Many men, meanwhile, are still relying on what he calls “juvenile” strategies: fixing, controlling, playing the nice guy, withdrawing when none of it works. The result is a growing gap between a partner who has done the inner work and a man who hasn’t, and it’s that disparity, not simply restlessness, that he sees driving the split.
Desmond connects the popularity of psychedelic-assisted therapy in this demographic to its temporary dissolving of ego and self, which mirrors the transformation midlife is already asking for. Mark Platten describes three decades of solo vision quests, fasting alone in nature and references Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan on using altered states as a doorway to something bigger, not a destination in itself. Brooks reframes the whole stage as a chrysalis rather than a straight-line failure, pointing to Dante’s dark wood and Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, where the king becomes an unrecognised beggar before he can go home — the humbling that has to happen before real transformation can.
Brooks hosts his private practice and retreats on his website, where you can also sign up for his newsletter. Desmond Cohen works with people anywhere as a coach and counsellor, and locally in Oregon through Desmond Cohen Counselling. Mark Platten has his archetype quiz, courses, and men’s groups that can be accessed via his website.
Ready to go deeper? Men’s Therapy Online offers Individual therapy built specifically for men. Also consider joining the Men’s Group and the free Slack Community where over 250 men have real conversations about growth, identity, and men’s mental health.
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MTO connects men with licensed practitioners who provide guidance and support for navigating the challenges of modern life. These coaching services are not a substitute for mental health treatment, emergency services, or crisis support.
