Why midlife is so bloody tough and what to do about it
While writing my psychology honours research on midlife adults a few years ago, I made a list of major life events and milestones that happened during that period.
I realised that during the ages of 30 and 60, the average person will, in no particular order:
- Start or already be in a serious relationship
- Get married
- Buy a house and attempt to maintain it
- Commit to a career building job
- Try to have children
- Realise children may or may not happen
- Have children and learn how to parent
- Take parental leave away from the workforce
- Sell a house and buy another one
- Get pets
- Care for ageing parents
- Be promoted, made redundant, and/or start again in another career field
- Experience major change at work
- Become totally responsible for reoccuring bills and large amounts of debt
- Farewell grandparents and eventually parents
- Farewell friends and other relatives
- Divorce, and find new partners, or – if still married – go through periods of feeling like flatmates
- Have a midlife crisis
- Experience the empty nest as children leave
- Plan retirement or come to the realisation they can’t afford to stop working
- Notice their body changes in ways they didn’t realise was possible. Some will be healthier than ever before and some will look into the mirror and wonder who is looking back.
For women, there will be mixed emotions around trying to get pregnant (or not, and managing the expectations of others) and the bodily changes during and after pregnancy. Menopause will arrive at some point and they’ll be faced with the growing distance between ‘normal’ beauty and society’s ‘ideal’ standard of beauty as the signs of ageing show. There will be career highs and lows, and seemingly unrelenting obligations and expectations as they juggle work, family, and friends.
Many of those things will also be true for men. Interestingly, men’s midlife crises tend to relate more to work than do women’s midlife crises and midlife men’s psychological wellbeing is also more closely tied to their work compared to women of the same age and with the same work responsibilities (as in this study and this study).
The research says that generally men cope better with ageing than women because society tends to value older men’s success, knowledge and ability. But, not wanting to get into an argument over the sexes, the short story is midlife is bloody tough going and my list is by no means a definitive one.
So where does that leave us? Tired, probably.
It does gets better
The thing is, it’s a really busy time of life. That’s the reality. But we can’t and shouldn’t let the time pass us by as we go through the motions. One day a packed hall will say farewell to us too and we want them to say, “hand on heart, she/he lived a bloody good life”.
The good news is that life does get better as we age. With age comes experience, wisdom and stability. Studies show as we get older, we become more accepting of ourselves and our lives, and life can be more satisfying. We tend to feel significantly less pressure to meet society’s idealistic expectations, and we’re happier and more content with our lot.
Midlife may be a challenging period, but it’s also a time with immense rewards if we’re open to them. The key is to start valuing them now and to learn how to cope with the ups and downs. Don’t wait until your retirement to discover all the things you’ve missed.
