GROWING OLD – PREPARING

Just as you need to start preparing for retirement long before you retire, so you need to prepare for growing old long before you are old. If you do that, you will find that old age is, in Alex Comfort’s words, ‘a good age’. If you have the right attitude to growing old, you will remain far younger than you may look; and you can get a great deal of help from old people’s organizations, groups, and clubs. Not only do they mitigate the loneliness of old age, but they encourage their members to keep active, physically and mentally, within the limitations of an ageing body.

It is true that many old people are difficult. They are demanding, they are self-centred, they have fixed habits which make life difficult for their family and friends. For many old people, habit is a refuge, a security blanket against an indifferent world. For those old people who have no consuming interest, a daily routine gives life a meaning. A man can look forward to his daily walk, his daily read of the newspaper, his daily bench in the park, his routine way of preparing and eating food, his fixed habit of only listening to certain radio or television programmes, his fixed time of going to bed. Habits become important because they enable the old person to merge his past recollections with his present experiences and with his uncertainty about the future. Some old people become obsessed with their possessions, and continually adjust and readjust their wills. A possible reason for this is that, in a way, possessions are solidified habits. They give the old person a reason for existing and a purpose to life. If the old person is rich, the ability to manipulate his possessions may enable him to manipulate those of his family who hope to benefit after his death. They give him a feeling of power and so a purpose for living.

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ADJUSTING TO THE CRISIS OF MIDDLE AGE

What can be done to help a man adjust to the crisis of middle age? The first step is for him to be aware that he has to adapt to middle age. He has to recognize that he is no longer in his twenties, full of the aspirations of youth. He has to recognize that many of his hopes have not been achieved. He may have to accept that his status is not as high as he had hoped it would be. He may have to accept that his work is monotonous. The days stretch greyly on towards retirement, the challenge has gone. He has to accept that his body is ageing and is less responsive than it was. The years of over-eating, too much alcohol, too little exercise, and stress have had their effect. His chin is less firm, his belly is more flabby, his waist is thicker, his hair is thinner, and his face is beginning to show the marks of ageing. He has to recognize that he is being challenged by his children who may reject his conventional views, repudiate his values, ignore his advice, and behave in a way he regards as bizarre. He has to recognize that his wife may also be going through a period of readjustment and needs help just as much as he does. Both may have to accept that their relationship may have lost the excitement it once had. The man may have to recognize that neither his wife nor his children talk to him, or he to them – they talk at each other, but are unable to communicate with each other.

GENITAL HERPES

Recently, an increasing number of sexually active women and men have become infected with genital herpes. The condition is caused by a virus which is similar to that which causes cold sores on a person’s lips. The virus, usually herpes simplex virus type 2, or HSV2, prefers to grow in moist areas, choosing especially the entrance to a woman’s vagina and the shaft of a man’s penis.

A few days after being infected during sexual intercourse with a partner who has the herpes blisters on her vulva or in her vagina, the man notices a localized burning feeling on the shaft of his penis. The burning is followed by a crop of small blisters which burst, forming shallow, painful ulcers. After a day or so the ulcers are covered by scabs, which separate in about four days leaving a faint scar. The whole disease lasts between 7 and 10 days.

Unfortunately, there is no treatment; and even more unfortunately, the infection tends to recur after a long or short interval. This is because the virus invades the nerves supplying the area, where it lies dormant. When something occurs, such as stress, its activity is triggered and it moves along the nerves back into the skin, where the blisters form once again. About 5 per cent of people infected with HSV2 develop recurrences.

Genital herpes has a further danger. A man who has herpes on his penis may infect his sexual partner. If the infection occurs on the cervix of her uterus, the virus may be a factor in the development of cancer, years later.

The lesson is clear. If you develop genital herpes, avoid sex until the disease has disappeared.

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LACK OF SEXUAL DESIRE AND ERECTILE FAILURE – FAILING OF SEXUAL DESIRE

During talks with his therapist, he gave the information that he ‘was turned off by his wife because she had stopped bothering about her appearance and had become a slob’. He had failed to notice that he had developed a beer-belly and was spending more time drinking in the pub. He was asked if he had tried to talk with his wife about their problems and replied that it ‘wouldn’t do any good’. The therapist suggested that the couple should talk, each asking the other to say what annoyed them, and the problem was resolved. In many cases of inhibited sexual desire such simple techniques.

Unfortunately, even psychotherapy fails to help at least half those who have this problem. Inhibited sexual desire obviously inhibits sexual arousal and consequently a man fails to obtain an erection. Because the man’s sexual desire is inhibited, the emotional distress caused is likely to be less than if a man has normal sexual desire, is sexually aroused but, in spite of this, is unable to achieve an erection or to sustain it for long enough for him to insert his erect penis into his partner’s vagina. His erectile failure may make him feel that his masculinity is suspect or that he is an incomplete man, a failure. He believes himself to be impotent. When this occurs, his image of himself as a man diminishes and anxieties about his self-image increase.

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ADJUSTMENT TO PARENTHOOD – FATHERS SUPPORT 2

Faced with the problems of learning how to mother the infant, often lacking sufficient confidence, and without support, the new mother may begin to feel that her baby’s demands are excessive and she is never going to be able to satisfy them.

She is woken at night, and becomes increasingly tired, so that even normal household duties become an effort. As most women are reared to believe that they can be housewives and mothers, she feels inadequate if she is unable to care for her child and keep the house as clean and tidy as she would wish.

She is also anxious that her relationship with her husband is deteriorating. Previously they could give a good deal of time to each other. Now the baby occupies much of her time.