40's? From 40 to 49, what's changed?

[thinkingisharderthandoing]

So from approaching the 40's to approaching the 50's. How's that decade been?
I'm 45 this year......still feeling like I have a youngish streak, but realising I'm not so youngish as I may want to be.
It's a weird age.
How have you felt and dealt with it?

ALS it's interesting that people have said that they're much more people intolerant.
I just thought I was a grumpy fucker,but now I can blame my age

Also not ALS!

Definitely the eyesight going. I used to be so smug about not needing glasses and having much better eyesight than DH. Then one day I had to accept that I really couldn't see things that I ought to be able to see. First glasses were varifocals because it's not just the short distance but the long distance going at the same time! Was out for dinner with 40/50 something friends the other month. I was the only one who could read the small print on the menu - because I had new glasses with an increased prescription.

Also brown spots on my hands. How did that happen so suddenly?
Perimenopause symptoms are there but come and go - I've had to give up alcohol for other reasons and I think that has helped. Also drink caffeine free tea and coffee now which I think helps as well.

I'm in denial that I'll be 49 this year.
On the plus side I'm still here - a good friend died a couple of years ago and DH had a major health scare so it is a reminder of our mortality. But there are lots of positives - not giving a damn is one of them.

48 and quite happy with myself, despite being the least conventionally attractive I’ve ever been ( in terms of slenderness and youth). I think being more confident compensates for declining ‘bloom’. I have no grey hair yet, but my parents went grey relatively late.

..more aches and pains, of course, and weird menstrual cycle.

@MoorMummy You are right re the drinking. I don't go mad (and always have tried to avoid hangovers and I know which drinks to avoid) but 3 of my 5 oldest and best friends are teetotal. I feel a right lush just having a drink or 2!

On the upside I am going to more gigs than I have done since my 20s and I love it - have 3 in the pipeline this year. Fortunately my DH has similar musuc tastes. It is great to be able to go out and not need a babysitter!

45 this year.

I’m grateful that my body is still working well. I don’t really have any aches and pains, apart from my right knee, which lets me know when I’m not getting enough exercise. So that’s quite handy really.

I’ve gained weight, I suspect due to medication, but I’m not horrendously fat, and DP certainly doesn’t mind.

Professionally, I’m so happy. I’m self-employed, doing a variety of things, all of which I love. Don’t earn much, but I have no mortgage so that’s ok.

I don’t look bad. The extra weight plumps most of my wrinkles out, and Botox deals with the rest

Sex drive is fine, so far.

I’m making time to do things that make me happy. Read lots, have started drawing and painting and have discovered that I’m quite good at it. Yoga is one of my favourite things to do, and it helps keep me flexible and strong, as does my allotment. And I’ve surrounded myself with dogs, who, I’m finding, are so much nicer than most people.

My kids are adults now, and are a joy. No more foul teenage nonsense!

There are stresses - old parents to wrangle being the biggest. But after a horrible marriage which ate up my twenties and most of my thirties, I can hand on heart say that my forties are my happiest decade so far.

I am 49 next week and I think I am feeling it tbh
I hatred turning 40 as we were in a vicious secondary infertility cycle at the time and 40 had been my mental cut off age and turning 40 with no success was horrible and a very low point.

In my mid 40's, once I gave up the hope of another baby and allowed myself to focus on things like my career I had a really good few years. Mentally I was coping better and I was very fulfilled at work etc

I had a lot of change in work last year and I had / have a pretty bad case of impostor syndrome which left me feeling very wobbly. I am sort of coming out of that now, 6mths into the new role.

I am a stone overweight but working on it - I was 1.5st overweight on the 1st Jan but dieting is NO fun and I feel a bit miserable.

Dh has had a very rocky time with his business over the past 18mths, he's self employed and that has really affected me and put enormous pressure in all sorts of ways.

My body shape has changed and I am carrying the extra weight around my middle which i HATE

I am 100% grey (but hair is coloured and I hate the maintenance)
Eyesight is failing and I need to get glasses but am too vain so far to do it
Have a teen dc and feel very weary some days with the stropping (dc is 13)
sex drive is gone
I can't settle on a 'look' for how I dress.

Sometimes I look at a certain type of middle aged woman - the type you usually see out for coffee or wine with a bunch of other women and they are super glam and I wish I was like that but I'm really not and I don't know how to be
I feel like I have lost me somewhere along the way

Just turned 47. I'm less tolerant of ineptitude and care far less about what others think. I'm heavier, with thinner greying hair and achy joints, and have the beginning of cataracts!
But my DC are growing and becoming more independant which makes the practicalities of family life much easier. Losing my DM two years ago in a car accident however, and many years of nursing has completely focused my priorities. If all goes to plan, only seven more years to work then DH and I plan to enjoy what we've worked for whilst our brains and bodies allow.

I'm "lucky" in the sense that my father died years ago and I'm more or less NC with my mother. So I have no elderly relatives to care for. I had my kids young so they're both nearly 30 now. Which means I really only have to think about myself. I think I would find it very draining to have to look after another person at this time in my life. I do have friends who are looking after elderly parents and it takes a lot of time and energy. I quite like being selfish now!

I’m taking a lot of comfort from this thread (thank you OP). It’s good to know we’re not alone/slowly going crazy/not imagining things.

But I’m also finding the positive posts encouraging. It doesn’t have to be this way (I’m guessing I have to be prepared to put the effort in though ).

Reading this thread with great interest. I'm 44 this year and the realisation has hit me in the last week that I'm now mid 40s. Not early 40s, which is not much different to late 30s, and 50 is the next milestone For the first time I feel I'm not young anymore. Plus, although I'm far from gorgeous, I have aged pretty well (I've always looked younger than I am) and I think I've come to rely on that. Now I live in dread of that 'youthfulness' disappearing and no longer getting the 'but you look xx' responses when I tell someone my age.

Oh and I got divorced in the last couple of years. I'm happier for it but still get regular 4am panics about future financial security etc.

I’d say it’s the last year or so it’s hit me. I still felt ‘normal’ up until about 46/47. 48 has floored me.

OMG I'm 42 and now dreading the coming years lol!

Will soon turn 45. I haven't felt any different to my 30s so far, but judging by this thread, that's all about to end! Have come across the occasional wiry hair on my neck (are there others I haven't noticed???) and am reluctantly conceding that I might need to go for an eye test soon. And probably a hearing test.

Career-wise am a bit bored, to be honest, but I'm a lone parent with a big mortgage so can't do anything daring. I have my eye on something new I'd like to do in a few years, but I'm worried about how attractive I'll be to employers at that point.

Have been for nearly a decade, and I don't know if I'm willing to make the effort to find someone now.

This whole phase seems to be one massive contradiction: you find your voice but are invisible; you no longer give any fucks, but can be overwhelmed with anxiety. For me though, the shining light through it all: I am having the best sex of my life.

Was absolutely fine until 48, then it all hit like a sledgehammer. Had an earlish menopause at 43/44.

Am still 48, but sky high anxiety, slim but with a barrel stomach and skinny legs. Nothing fits me now.

Thank God I had DD when I did, she's now 10, no way would I have the energy or confidence to do all that malarkey now.

No wrinkles (yet) but am utterly exhausted, greying hair and panic about the future.

I have lost myself.

It really does just hit you in a matter of weeks, suddenly, mid to late 40's. It's a shocker.

Same, Wendy. I'm 48 and in the last year or so it has hit like a ton of bricks. Also have the barrel shaped middle with skinny legs and arms. My ribcage seems to have expanded. It sucks.

YY to ribcage. So odd. Also my fingers seem 'swollen' somehow.

I am like a skinny/swollen old woman suddenly, when I used to have such a lovely body. Yes, I can 'avoid' carbs and alcohol but then I might as well give up on life! I'm not fat in the slightest, I'm just a totally weird shape now. I am too tired to go out in the evening, so if I can't have a glass of wine and watch 'Vera', what's the bloody point?

Oh, jealous of those that still want sex. I would be happy to never have it again.

Sorry, a bit down today!

I’m watching this thread with interest. I’m 37 and pregnant with baby #3 of a wished for 4.

DH and I haven’t had sex in ages and I love in hope that once I stop having babies (at 40 all going well) then my forties might be the decade I get my figure and sex life back - sorta.

It’s also interesting to see so many folk get into fitness this decade, the buds are there for me but time won’t let them bloom.

I have a lot of hope for my 40s. Thank you to OP for starting this thread, honest and interesting xx

Paul I had DD at 38 and was totally normal for 10 years. Full of vim and energy, I have recently done the pilates/gym classes, but really can't be bothered to be one of those desperately trying and failing to cling on to youth types of mothers any more.

But, fear not, you have another ten years! Maybe more.

Glad it's not just me, Wendy. I had to buy all new bras due to ribs broadening. Look like a tattie with sticks, all the weight is in the middle and it's been hell to shift. Slowly getting there, but man, it's HARD now.

I did low carb for a month, before it dawned on me what is was... aging. I got thinner all over (which is not what I wanted particularly) but my fat stomach was still disproportionally fat.

I was doing planks every day etc

It was too depressing. I just put up with it now and realise it's not long till I'm 50, so what did I expect?

The rib cage thing (and bigger feet?!) are really annoying.

Wine time! [happy]

(and bigger feet?!)

I thought it was just me. My feet are growing and it's weird. Been a 5 all my life now I Am a 7 or even 8.
Yy to the barrel middle with skinny limbs.
My beautiful glorious hair is thinning. I don't care about the colour (greying) but I had such a lot of hair and it's changed so much. No riotous soft curls, now just coarse and unwieldy. Bah humbug to getting older.