“Every Day has Enough of Its Own Torment”—A Narrative Study of Life’s Greatest Challenge Among Men in Late Adulthood

The purpose of this study was to investigate stories of life’s greatest challenge among men in late adulthood from a narrative and developmental perspective. The investigations focused on narrative processes and the content of challenge narratives in relation to satisfaction with life and generativity. Narrative processes were analyzed using existing frameworks (Eriksson et al. Identity 20:157–169, 2020). The study showed negative, neutral/vague, redemptive, and a combination of positive and negative emotional sequences, among which negative sequencing was the most common. An additional narrative theme, metareflections of challenges as part of life, involved the conclusion that hardship is simply part of what one may expect from life. Analyses of types of challenges revealed six categories and a secondary coding the adversity of the challenges. In contrast to expectations, redemptive sequencing was not associated with either higher satisfaction with life or generativity. The few differences that emerged in the subsequent analyses showed that participants whose challenges were coded as not expected and potentially disruptive had significantly lower satisfaction with life and lower mean age when the challenge occurred. In conclusion, the study demonstrated the saliency of the challenges’ timing and adversity. Negative framing was common in the challenge narratives of the men in late adulthood, without being negatively associated with satisfaction with life or generativity. The role of negative emotional sequencing in this study adds new perspectives to the emphasis on redemption and positive emotionality for well-being and generativity in later adulthood.