Bored with everything and need a new lease of life, is it due to perimenopause or just realising you aren't young anymore? Any ideas for making the most of life?

[Beached8]

Mid 40s, lucky enough to have lovely DH and primary aged kids who are getting out of needing you every two minutes stage after years of fertility issues.

I feel like one minute I was 30 and now I've woken up and I'm "old". I know I'm not really old and could live to 90, and that I should appreciate as I'll never be this young again 😂.

I'm also worried about the future for our kids as everything is so much harder than it was 20/30 years ago - housing is so expensive, school is more intense, cost of living has skyrocketed and it's harder to get jobs. I don't think that helps add to a feeling of existential dread.

I'm bored of my job, need to be less frazzled to progress. DH and I haven't done many things since the kids and the years of fertility issues/losses were so overwhelming that everything else slipped away. Lots of friends have moved away, so that hasn't helped. I also need to work on exercise/makeup/clothes as that has taken a backseat over the years. Going to work on reading more/learning about new subjects and doing more fun things with the kids and/or DH.

Does anyone else feel like this and want to join? Or is it just me? I think this is the point were middle aged men want a Ferrari😂

@CatOnAHotRadiator good luck! My role may change (or I’ll get a good redundancy) in a few years so I’m tempted to hang on, if I can cope??

Im 44 and feeling similar for a few years. Think it has become more pronounced as the kids have started to get a bit older (9 and 12) and parenting has started change from the intensity of the younger years. I’m often left with a weird feeling of being untethered somehow, like I don’t really have any direction but hard to change things as daily life just feels so full on. I have a good job and senior role that pays well and allows me flexibility which I’m grateful for, but have not progressed for several years both due to not being arsed and also feeling restricted by the need to have a job with short commute etc for school. I’m trying to embrace this next phase and realise that my time for ‘me’ again is hopefully not too far away, but also feel nostalgic for the past and where to find an identity in all of this.

I feel untethered too, like I'm not sure where I'm going next. I should try and move up at work but home is still so busy that I don't have the motivation and energy.

Continuing the exercise, planning to try and find something new, and thinking of a glow up as I've been neglecting things like nails etc.

Another nearly 45yo feeling the same. Only DS is off to secondary in Sept but is autistic/ADHD, so life feels on hold until he hopefully settles there.

Moved to a more corporate, well paid job 2 years ago, doing well but still feeling a bit bored. I’m trying to plough more money (and now a bonus) in pension/stocks and shares ISA at least until I’m 50. I dream of a more wholesale career change, but becoming a eg teacher feels like jumping off the deep end!!!

Need to regroup when back from hol, get to the gym, cut down on wine etc. I feel very bored on the evenings, but doesn’t help son doesn’t sleep well, and his bedtime routines take 2+ hours 😵‍💫

Well, no. If you have a hobby that you do every few days that's a part of your life whereas a holiday or a weekend away is an exception.

Oh my goodness this thread resonates with me. I read an article that claimed that the the ages in life that a person aged most dramatically are 44 and 60. I can confirm that 44 has felt like a transition to being old. My face has aged, I’m suddenly gaining belly fat, I feel tired all the time. Perimenopause in full swing for sure but my GP won’t help. I generally feel pretty miserable, angry and foggy headed almost all the time. As a PP mentioned, it takes endless effort just stay afloat.

I also have small children after years of infertility and it turns out that despite wanting them so much, I find parenting overwhelming and difficult. Not sure if it’s me, or perimenopause but everything feels relentless.

I’m 45 and a lot of this resonates with me too.

I'm 44 and this so resonates with me too. 3dc, between 21 and 17 so a fair bit of driving around for them but currently no uni costs (although dd2 has announced she quite fancies a french uni because they'll teach her subject better 😱)

I have a job I enjoy but have got as high as I can without moving to a more clinical role which wouldn't be for me. So there's an element of boredom and I'm fed up with the crap that can come from the area manager. Also sick to the back teeth of being relatively craply paid but see above.

I have hobbies, I volunteer but I have no friends locally, just a few very old friends who don't live locally. It's bloody lonely at weekends.

Has anyone found a solution to the tiredness? I’m 47 and already on HRT. But I’d happily go to bed at 8pm every night. Then I feel like I’m wasting my life.

Why won’t your GP help?

I would go back and say you would like to try HRT please, immediately.

Me! I’d like to join the blah brigade please.

Left my soul-crushing job 7 months ago to go freelance as thought that would mean more freedom and excitement but really it just means way less money and worrying all the time about how to get more work - still don’t regret leaving the soul crushing job though. Still, I feel like I’m 45 and still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

I’ve tried new hobbies and joining groups but they’re usually either too expensive or not my cup of tea. May look into volunteering if I can find something that doesn’t feel like a chore.

@Bebee1 the GP insisted they only go on symptoms from age 45 (even though I’m 44 and 3/4 FFS) and then sent me for a pointless test that came back ‘normal’ even though you can’t actually measure peri through an fsh test or whatever it was. I didn’t have the energy to argue.

This guidance is ridiculous.

If the average age of menopause is 52 (therefore many women finish periods altogether younger than that) and peri can last up to 10 years, there are going to millions of women in their late 30s and early 40s who are having peri symptoms 🙄

I got HRT at 41. I had to go through a load of blood tests for other things first to rule them out, but after that I said I was demanding to try HRT as we had nothing to lose.

I think I’d made such a nuisance of myself that the GP just said yes.

And it turns out I was definitely in peri. HRT sorted a lot of my symptoms.

Sorry that this is the truth of it but you have to push and push.

Do NOT let them give you antidepressants instead.

Echoing everything you said in your post OP @Beached8 and what most of the PPs have said too!

The whole, hang on, I was young a minute ago, what the hell happened! The saying "youth is wasted in the young" is soooo true and you know you're getting old when you start saying it!! 😭

45 here with 2 nearly fully grown DC but also youngest with severe SEN needing care for life.

This is where I really struggle when reading threads like this. I must be perimenopausal as I've every symptom going from hot flushes to dry eyes, getting fatter, emptiness feelings and total lack of libido, like dead waste down lacking. I've also lost all my friendships over the past 15 years through moving house so much and just generally not making the effort or not wanting to.

So many point to doing things for yourself to help. Like exercise, taking up new hobbies, volunteering. Well I have had a lifelong, all encompassing hobby since I was a child and it has always been my constant. It is a competitive hobby and my progression upwards through it has done more for my confidence than anything else has done in my life. Unfortunately it does require a lot of driving round the country.

At the mid point in my life, when I need it more than ever for my state of mind and during peri, I am finding that this hobby is slipping away. Why? Because we have no one to help care for our disabled child. Respite is non existent as is family help. He used to be able to come with us and we'd all go as a family but he can't cope anymore so one of us has to stay home. I am really struggling with tiredness whilst driving with each passing year so I am losing the only thing that played a huge part in keeping me, me.

My DH is really supportive and obviously more happy to care for DS when he's not at work so that I can pursue my hobby but driving solo is becoming a big obstacle and is massively limiting what I can do.

So idk what the answer is. I've tried social groups, volunteering, crap like that but I think I'm now facing even more solitude because of my increasing rather than decreasing caring duties. I have actually lost friends because of my DS. When everyone else is 'getting their life back', I feel like I'm losing more of mine and I don't know what to do about it.

Sorry just needed to offload 😞

I feel the same. The maintenance I have to do to keep myself looking and feeling half decent is ridiculous. I'm off for blood tests this week as I've felt exhausted for so long and I'm getting a bit dizzy and out of breath. I suspect it's an iron deficiency and yet another bloody thing I'll have to get on top of. I can't keep up with living if you know what I mean. When the kids were young and I didn't have a moment to myself I thought I'd be tripping the light fantastic when they got older but no. I just can't be arsed.

A new lipstick always brings some relief, I find. Until the next lipstick is needed.

@Biony I'm so sorry, that is very hard for you, I don't what to suggest. Are there any things closer to home?

You can get the iron tablets off prescription from a pharmacy if the GP doesn't think they are low enough, and they aren't optimal and it's still causing your symptoms.

Totally relate to the concept of aging dramatically at 44. I felt that very significantly.

it’s been offset to a degree by feeling professionally successful and having objectively met many “important milestones” but I’m really tired, caring much less and would most of the time like people to just leave me alone!

I don't know what the solution is, but I'm in a similar boat to you. DS2'S needs are getting worse & he is not small & cute any more so he is less accepted. Combine this with hormones & it's disastrous. So my relationship, career & friendships are all starting to fail & there is nobody to talk to who will understand, let alone help. And I'm failing DS1 & DS3 who obviously still need love & attention too.

Sending unmumsnetty hugs & solidarity, I hope you find a way through it.

Same here. I’m 50 this year. Started looking after myself better, going to the gym, long dog walks, doing what I can to visit the few friends I have left. And now I’m laid up with a prolapsed bladder and uterus - waiting for yhd NHS to actually give me some treatment and off work with dwindling pay.

It’s just been one shit year after another for at least the past decade.

Im so done with life. It’s my child’s birthday soon and I’m having to force myself to care about it - which o feel awful about.

Seriously bloody hard isn't it?

Do you find yourself reading the endless threads about peri, how bloody hard it is, nodding along and then all the ideas, hints and tips, solo trip abroad suggestions, new hobbies and think to yourself, well that's just great, I can't do any of those things.... Am I therefore doomed??

I certainly do. Whilst it's really good to read those posts feel less like I'm all alone with this physical and mental feelings that come with middle age, the common thread that runs through them is often, your children will soon fly the nest and you will be freeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Nope, not for all the parents like us. Our aging parents are less and less able to give us time out occasionally. You get older and more achy and shitter at caring for yourself, let alone a disabled child, a child rapidly becoming an adult themselves. Friends go by the wayside unless you are very lucky. Marriages suffering, other children suffer.

If anyone reading this has a good friend that you think is in this situation, ask them how they are, how they really are. When you are starting to get your freedom back after years of having to be pretty selfless for your family, just imagine that never happening. It will never end for parents of disabled children. Never. They never get their freedom back. We all love our babies until the day we die but for some of us, the constant supervision and caring duties that we thought would only last a finite number of years lasts forever.

Sending you lots of love and hope for future too changedmyname24 ❤️

You have very sadly summed it up all too well 😔