What is this Midlife Bullshit? Getting Real About Why it Feels so Hard

What the F***k happened?

Last time I looked I was a vibrant young woman with a fit body, beautiful home, and invested in my role as a stay-at-home-parent.

Then my 40s hit like a bomb and I found myself in the middle of a divorce, building a career from scratch and back on the dating seen.

Navigating my 40’s was like watching a bowling ball racketeer off gutter guards, hoping to hit some kind of target at the end of it all….any target at all. It went by in a blur.

And somewhere in amongst all of it was the creeping onset of perimenopause—that dreaded time of life I watched my mother navigate during my late teens. The horror of watching her hormonal rages, hot flashes, and joint complaints made the word “menopause” seem like it should have been up there with ‘trauma,’ ‘crisis,’ and ‘the End.’

Thank God for me it was in the very distant future.

Until it wasn’t.

The Future Is Now

That future is now, and the last three decades went by far faster than I could have believed possible.

In just three years between age 47 and 50 I gained a ton of weight, my energy and fitness levels hit an all time low, and I was sweating so much in front of my therapy clients I needed more tissues than they did.

I made it to 50 holding on for dear life.

Being a woman in Midlife is no joke. No wonder the rates of depression increase significantly for us in this stage of life. Not only are fluctuating estrogen levels wreaking havoc with our emotions and overall health, but this stage of life brings with it a tendency towards significant circumstantial changes that can aggravate the decline in mood.

The pessimist in me says “this sucks. Big time.”

The optimist in me says, “this is my time to shine.”

Why It All Changes

It’s not just about menopause. Something unique happens to us in midlife where we start looking over our shoulder, reflecting on where we are and how far we’ve come. It may happen at 40; it may not happen until 60, but for most of us, it happens.

Along with the reflection and internal shift often comes an external shift. Unlike any other time in the lifespan, Midlifers, and women in particular, are faced with a uniques set of circumstances that unfortunately seem to collide into the same time time warp:

• Menopause
• Empty Nesting
• Aging parents (and their shifting care needs)
• Relationship malaise
• Divorce
• Career shifts

Why all of this right around the same time? Well, menopause, as we know, hits right at that sweet spot around when our kids fly the nest. The same with aging parents. Of course there are caveats to this, depending on when we and our parents conceived. But whether it all happens in a five year span or a 15 year span doesn’t change the fact that it happens, and it dramatically shifts the way we feel about life and ourselves.

For me, circumstantial changes began to happen early and still continue a decade later. The first course was the breakdown of my marriage. The second was the quick realization that I would need to build a career so I could one day become financially independent from my ex. Until that time I had been home with my kids.

It does mean I wasn’t married long enough to experience the following…

Relationship Malaise

For many, the onset of midlife is a common time for relationships to either break down or be held up to the light for analysis. Most of the women I see in my therapy practice experiencing relationship malaise are in midlife. They are past the intense stage of caring for little people and have the time to sit back and examine their marriage.

The once vibrant connection has begun to feel stagnant, characterized by a disconnection and lack of excitement that wasn't there in earlier years. The roots of the disconnection can be layered and complex, but often include:

• Being too busy for the last two decades to make the relationship a priority.
• Hormonal changes during menopause not only disrupt physical well-being but also alter emotional landscapes, which can affect intimate relationships.
• As women in today’s world we want and expect more from marriage than our mothers and grandmothers ever did. We are not longer prepared to accept empty marriages or relationships that feel unequal. Nowadays a large portion of splits are initiated by women in a heterosexual union.
• Changes in physical appearances mean some women might struggle with body image and self-esteem. Invisible Woman Syndrome adds to the issue.

Reinventing Midlife

Like I said, I want to be optimistic about this stage of life. I have seen some refer to it as being “in our prime” and there’s something about that I find very uplifting and agreeable.

If our twenties are about figuring out who we are and having some fun, our thirties tend to be more focused on career and family, which can feel all consuming.

What then of our fifties and sixties? My friend, this is our time. This is the time to really look at our relationships, our careers, who we are beyond the roles of mother and partner, and what adventures we may have been putting off because we simply never had the time.

As we are still in the clutches of a patriarchal world, we have some work to do if we are going to fight against who society tells us we are in midlife and who we actually are. Our worth is not based on beauty, age, or our ability to reproduce. Instead of withering away, it’s time to stand up and live our best lives.

Let’s Do It Together

I believe that community is the most important thing we can be part of to move forward in a way where we feel inspired and empowered. If you would like to be part of such a community, watch this space and connect with me on Instagram Empowered Midlife.