What age did you start feeling life was finally sorted?

38. Feeling more out of my depth than I ever have...

About 43. I've had a lot going on in the last 10 years (epilepsy, MS and a stroke) but I've been relaxed and have felt really happy. I'm single, so I think its had an impact on me.

Do people actually feel this? Surely most of us just come to terms with the way things are, whilst waiting for the next inevitable struggle

48

46 and still waiting

I agree with this most definitely.

We can have stable, happy, healthy successful periods of life. Followed by curve balls containing crocks of utter shit. That’s life!

I’m 50. I’m not sure it’s going to happen ever.

It was meant to be after my hysterectomy back in late 2023, to remove a cancer. But no, it had to come back less than a year later and fuck everything up! My lifespan is now limited ☹️

Late 50s here, currently going through major upheaval and trauma that have been advised will take around two years to resolve.

The question doesn’t resonate at all and thats for someone with a good job / house / successful marriage healthy kids.

Life can always throw curve balls. All the good things are incremental. At 22 I thought all sorted (married DH bought flat had a good job).

eg married dh aged 22
third child born aged 35
over the years moved house / changed jobs / redundancy etc

55 and still looking around for an adult in the room when things get tough

I'm nearly 70, so it doesn't let up.

I thought we had it sorted when DS was born, and I was 44, but since then DH has had a serious health crisis roughly every five years. I get excema every time. But we are still here, and just about coping.

19, then 37, then 42. Life gets sorted periodically, not permanently.

I would say several times I have felt like I’ve taken steps towards security? Almost like unlocking a new level and new challenges but having a moment to revel in putting the old challenges to bed?

I’d say 17, 23, 29, 32 have all been big moments so far.

28 and I don't think it's ever felt less sorted than this

Just now I think, at 35.

My parents are dead and my children are teens. I am my family matriarch now.

My job is secure and I'm not well off, but nor am I running out of money before I run out of month now, even if I still can't afford a car or a holiday...

Mostly, I feel content with myself. I no longer torture myself about the trauma and abuses of my earlier life. I don't want to be dead anymore; I have a lot to live for and I feel happy about that now. I have outlived everyone who has ever tortured me and feel satisfied with this - I have already reached an age that at one point I thought I never would.

I feel filled with a calm grace and walk the earth as a decent, caring and strong woman.

@TheHouse reactive ambition is such a good way of putting it.

We’re very similar, DH and I are equally still together happily after all these years. Something I recognise now I’m older as being very lucky, the odds were stacked against us but we grew up together rather than apart, makes a relationship quite special I think, of course the beauty of youthful ignorance is I didn’t consider it going any other way at the time!

I won’t feel like that until I get my state pension. That along with some work pensions will mean I will have enough guaranteed income without having to work for it. So three years time I can sit back and finally feel in control.

lol. Many of the things I thought I had sorted have been blown out of the water by life throwing shit at me.

Thought I was there at age 51 but discovered 5 years later he’s on tinder so back to the drawing board for me

63 here and the only sense in which my life is groping towards becoming sorted is that I now begin to understand that it never will be sorted.
I understand it, but I don't accept it. Perhaps my life will finally be sorted when I do accept that it will never be sorted.

I'm working on that.

@lisa7843

Absolutely. I had a reactive ambition due to having my children young. I wanted to beat the stereotype so I got the mortgage, the degree, the job, the marriage, and then by 35 I was very, very burnt out. I definitely did it to prove to others but now I don’t care.

The good thing is though after 20 years I still really love my husband so I feel quite lucky really. But now I chill a bit more these days. I don’t feel the need to prove myself. I am proud of what I’ve achieved but I am starting to breathe again and it feels lovely. I look back now and think I can’t believe I did all that, I get exhausted thinking about it 😂. So I think we deserve a little bit of smugness.

Well it’s not about it being a daring adventure for most unsettled people I assume, but personal and financial insecurity. Which is no fun.

When I was 37 and had just had dc2. I was married, had bought a house, completed a second degree
and was financially secure. Things have continued on a fairly level path since then (am now 47).