If youre in your 50s and 60s what would you tell your 40 year old self?

[Baconontomato]

Just that really. I'm lacking direction and oomph and wondered will the wisdom of years help! What should I know about my 40s? I'm a SAHM with young children and a v stale marriage.
Does life get better?

lotsofcheese, I have a primary age child and a DC about to start school in August. I am a single parent with no family support. I feel really bad but I have got to the stage where I am literally counting down the weeks I still have to pay nursery costs!

That apart, really interesting thread - I am early 40s, left my marriage, just beginning to find me - but fairly skint, very tired and can't imagine doing anything remotely intimate with a man ever again.

Paleo, really sorry about your friend.

May be... but so many women utterly screw up and in their 40s or 50s husband buggers off with younger woman, children disappear and they have minimum wage income at best. Your career will never screw you over....

I wish I had had the courage to leave my husband, but things get in the way.
Finances, children etc
Don't let yourself become overweight, and excercise.

After two divorces from two disasterous marriages, a series of miscarriages and losing two babies just after birth, in my teens/20s/30s
I thought my life just couldn't get worse.

I was a single Mum who had
decided that sod it, I was going ok on my own. dating sometimes but nothing serious . Never again I said.

At 36 I took on the care of my 16 year old DS's daughter.

I then met a guy ten years younger.

I married him just as I turned 40.

Best thing I ever did.

DS married a wonderful girl 10 years ago and they are expecting a baby on Christmas Day

DGD is marrued 18 months ago, and as I write is in the hospital having her first baby ( I can't sit still)

And DH and I are about to buy our last home ( forces so always moving)

So I would tell my 40 year old self that life always has something up its sleeve.

Wise words from Shosha. However bad things seem good will come - just hang on in there. Seize the day and make your own fate. You are not a piece of flotsam and jetsam floating on a sea but the master of your own fate. make things happen. Change what you don't like and accept quietly what you cannot change.

(Am 60)
Enjoy your siblings, I lost one far too early!
Don't give up! Train, retrain, make your life what you want it to be!
Try new challenges, don't say you're too old, you definitely are not.
Don't listen to people who put you down. It says more about them than you.
Get any medical checks done.

I will be 60 this year - not quite sure when that happened...
and I am really happy with life - more time for the things I love and see more of DH now he has retired ( I seem to be one of the few who is happy after 39 years marriage!)
so

1. Try to carve out time for yourself, do things that please you- I know how hard that is though , which leads on to
2. Get used to saying 'no' - it doesn't help anyone if you are worn out
3. Like yourself and be comfortable with what you are - no 'what ifs"

Oh, and enjoy how you look! Don't ?ish for somebody else's body!

What CactusAnnie said - I am mid thirties and thanks to you lot am feeling inspired about my 40s

Shamelessly place marking 39 year old here

Cut down on alcohol, exercise more and don't bake in the sun. Otherwise, you're doing just fine .

Love this. Am nearly 40 and finding the sage advice inspiring.

And makes me feel less old.

Thank you theconstant and romey x

It makes you value life so much more.

Agree with the person who said write down things your family have done. My DMiL was in the WAF in the war, but now she is gone we realise that no one in the family knows what she actually did. All the friends, and DFiL, who might have told us are gone too.
If I had realised in my forties I could have written our family story for our children and grandchildren.

Larry. After my DM died we realised we knew little of her early life before she joined the WRAF, just after when she met my Dad.

So I got my Dad to write down all he could remember from both of them.

We have it in a self published book.

All the family have a copy.

It's one of my most treasured items.

Put more in your pension!

Brilliant thread.

I'm nearly forty and spend a lot of time worrying about wrinkles, grey hair and whether I should LTB.

What a brilliant thread. It's come along at EXACTLY the right time for me. Thank you OP and all the posters

Thanks for this great thread. Another 40 something feeling overwhelmed... but has reinforced the need to loose weight....

great thread here!

This advice is inspiring, thank you.

Great thread, thanks for all the words of wisdom. I'm 36 and finding life a struggle at the moment. Nice to hear things can get better. I might have a wee cry

Sort out your marriage or LTB.
Retrain for that career you've always fantasised about
Know that your kids love you; if they don't like you it's probably temporary
Look after your teeth, skin and parents.

Stop defining yourself by your age.