In recent years I have been fortunate to co-lead several groups on creative maturity, some mixed, some for men only.

My conclusion from all these groups is that there are parts of this journey where men and women can learn from and with each other, and parts best explored in separate gender groups. For both these parts, groups have a very valuable role to play: they can offer support, shared insights, and a renewed sense of OK-ness which is hard to find in other ways. The ideal is to have enough time to interweave the group journey with space for solo rest and reflection.

Both research and my own experience suggest that most men and women will face a process of falling apart and reinvention, somewhere in their forties to sixties. What provokes this crisis may differ for women and men, but they face many similar questions and blessings in looking forward to the years ahead. These can include: renewing life purpose, how to relate to ageing parents and grown-up kids; and making new choices about work, money and home, which will suit our sixties, seventies and beyond.

For both men and women, midlife and beyond is a time to reinvent their relationship to the other gender, and a fresher easier connection is on offer. What I’ve seen in mixed groups is women and men relating more with than to each other, with fellowship in exploring what it might mean to be an elder in our society, which has so much need but so little understanding of this role.