Abstract
Very frequently the psychiatrist is confronted in his practice with having to deal with marital difficulties that occur during the climacteric and post-climacteric age in marriages that, until then, seem to have been more or less reasonably satisfactory. In many cases, these difficulties are not very serious though troublesome; enough to make the relationship between the spouses unpredictable and shaky. In others, however, the marital relationships are completely disrupted, misunderstanding between husband and wife is complete, every constructive communication and intimacy disappears and they feel that no way out is left for them but separation or divorce, that when really accomplished proves practically always to be catastrophic for both.
On the basis of clinical observation, the author tries to show how these difficulties are the expression of inability, in varying degrees, of the ego in both spouses in facing and/or solving successfully the crisis of the typical nuclear conflict of this stage of life: “generativity vs. stagnation”. As a result, a regression occurs that manifests itself in a great impairment and impoverishment of interpersonal relationships and a lack of mutuality. In the individual one observes a diminishing of productivity that often leads him to anger and despair.