I think I'm missing out as I don't think I've had a mid life crisis. I hope it doesn't come at 50 - cos I couldnt' bear to think of living to a 100!

I work with a woman who reckons she is going through her midlife crisis at 32 - I said I hope you live longer than 64! But her theory is that as she had her first child young(ish) - she was 23 - she is having her mid life crisis speeded up!! (yes she does talk a lot of baloney!!).

Maybe I'm just not sensitive enough to have a mid life crisis? Or maybe I had a brill time in my 20s and so don't feel the need for a mid life crisis? I'm not sure! Maybe I'll have one next week - which would probably serve me right for making light of it all!

So any takers here for a mid life crisis and maybe some tips on how to survive it!

How much time do you have.....blah blah hormones....lost oppertunity....getting save for your funeral mailingsfor 50+.....saga radio.......planning for being 60+, oh also 70+ and maybe the 80+ Realising you are unlikely to be there for your daughters 40th birthday and if you are you will be the grand old lady in the wierd ugly clothes in the picture. Sheoque is now sobbing and is too slumped over key board to continue.

I'm sure mine must be overdue too Dol, but if it's a bit like middleage, that no one is ever prepared to admit reaching only passing, then we have long time ahead of us.

What happens in a mid life crisis then?

I dunno if I've had one or not? I could be actually going through it for all I know......

What happens in a mid life crisis then?

A very good question Karen! My friend at work doesn't actually specify what she means by it and to be honest I just let her chunter on most of the time too scared to ask her for more in depth answers!

I guess it means getting to a certain point in your life and feeling like you've missed out on something and then deciding it's too late to do anything about it. All joking aside that must be quite sad.

I'm either a very shallow person or I'm easily pleased but I don't feel like I've missed out on much in life overall.

I'd have one, but I don't think I've really got the time! I'm too busy to allow myself the luxury of a crisis just now, but I'm keen to try it Dol. Perhaps we could have a mid-life crisis themed month? How does February sound? But then that might be ageist, so perhaps we should have a mid-year crisis open to all and plan it for July? Actually I'm finding it all a bit trying just thinking about it, it's very stressful planning a crisis.

I'll just have an asprin and a bit of a lie down instead I think :)

I guess it means getting to a certain point in your life and feeling like you've missed out on something and then deciding it's too late to do anything about it. All joking aside that must be quite sad.
Yes, putting my flippancy of the above post to one side, I can see how such a realisation could make someone feel low and as if time were slipping away. Like you I don't feel that Dol, although I do know that there are choices that I could have made and alternative avenues that I could have taken in my life, but I chose what I chose and I'm happy with that. I'd say it's never really too late to do most things (although it'd be a bit late to decide you wanted to be a prima ballerina say) sometimes I think the only person stopping us from doing something new, is us.

I sometimes wonder if it might hit me when im 50 ? For instance, will i regret not having children, and not doing more with my life. Would i wish that i had travelled the world, started my own animal sanctury (my dream), and shagged more men :ninja:

Who knows, only time will tell - and i will let you know in 20 years time :wink2:

50+ is a great time to travel the world Bonnie. I think you never know what life is going to throw at you....and mid life crisis is an apt term many of my contemparies are deeply into parent or elder care, and it affects your routine sometimes completely. I never returned to live in America as my Mother was ill. I had a Dizzy by then so that was OK. The extra things you deal with 40 plus can be difficult. Of a circle of 20+ friends 8 have died,including two godparents! We are free of parent care now which also means we have no grandparent support.
Approaching 50 and hearing of people who die in their 60's is hard when you think of the previous 15 years.
I keep my life less full now, sort of allowing room for spares in the event of a crisis that means we have to change direction, or get huge sudden demands on our time itsa easier to cope with.
There no point in wishing a change of the past but a realisation of a life span that falls short of immortality. You have some control in terms of healthy eating and looking both ways before you cross the road BUT you have very little and almost no control over your own or loved ones or friends and neighbors fate. You are neither young nor old. You are mid- life and you see fore and aft more clearly, sometimes it feels alittle overwhelming and some of us get busy and some of us get comfier slippers and some do a bit of both dependent on the weather!

I don't know if I went through a bit of a mid life crisis a while ago. Nothing major but all my thought patterns went very strange.

It was after having my second son, and we had both decided that we weren't going to have anymore kids.
I started thinking, ok my child rearing days are over, next is bringing them up, then they leave home, then its old age, then I die!
I started thinking about death quite a bit. I know I'm strange. I think it was my, as Sheoque put it brilliantly above, realisation of a life span that falls short of immortality. I am not going to be around for ever. Then I started thinking how the kids would cope when I'm gone, would I be remembered, blah, blah, blah.

I wasn't majorly depressed or anything but my mind just thought about this for a while.
After a while, I just realised that there are different stages in my life and I've just entered another one.

Now I don't really think about it much. I just enjoy the life that I have now.
I guess thats all I can do.

One thing I do remember my husband saying is about life after death. In that the life you give your children is your life when you have gone. In your children there is part of you still carrying on, just as part of me includes my parents and grandparents etc.

OK, thats enough of being deep, I'm off to tell you all what I'm having for tea:laugh:

I had a quarter-life crisis a few months ago.

It wasn't too jolly.

cheerio!

I don't feel that way either. Yes there are things I would have liked to have done, places I would have liked to have visited and people I would have liked to have met and maybe one day I might just do these things, go to these places and meet these people, but if I don't I don't.

I am happy with my life, I have friends who I can have a laugh with, a home to go to and most importantly, I have people who love me just as I am.....


What more could I want from life? !!!

A friend of mine has had a rotten time with her husband's 'mid life crisis'. He just walked out one day 4 years ago leaving her with 2 kids then 14 and 17 and although he comes back intermittently, he's out of work and relies heavily on her for money. He even came home with a huge German Shepherd dog and she's the one who ends up looking after it. It affected her kids really badly and she's on tranquilisers. It's very sad. I started off feeling sympathy for him but the effect it's had on her just makes me feel angry.

As for me, I just have ups and downs like most people but no crisis thus far.

Max, was your friend's husband actually suffering a midlife crisis or is he just a total.....

We all feel like we should have done things differently sometimes, but people of a certain can use 'midlife crisiis' as an excuse to shift the blame for their inadequacies onto others.

In a few years time we won't even be able to have this conversation as it will be recognised as a disabling psychological condition that requires support and treatment, and compensation payouts of course. :dry:

Max, was your friend's husband actually suffering a midlife crisis or is he just a total.....


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Well quite, Nox. Although to be fair the personality change in him was so radical, it must have been some sort of psychological problem - not that I'm an expert!

I know of a few men and woman who suddenly had enough of marriage and children. Both men have more children by a younger woman...the woman felt she needed space and time and keeps in touch but always on her terms.
I don't recall any of them being in a crisis.
Working through the problems would have been hard. All did a lot of free from responsibilies travel all renaged on their familial and financial obligations. All left a real crisi in the wake.

You know when you feel like you are getting a cold?? Well I suspect I maybe coming down with a midlifer!! Now a cold takes about 4 days to descend on me - so relatively this midlifer may take a couple of years.

I am so much more boring than I used to be. I wish I weren't, but it is like someone has come along and changed my innner workings and clicked the sensible button to on - been off all my life! I hate it - I want to be that mad impulsive crazy chick I used to be!!