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?

Love the sound of "days of joy" Pag. I think I might have to adopt that

I didn't have parents around to help either, but I was dead lucky to hit the expansion in higher education, go to university in 1968 and have the choice of a career. We didn't do a lot for years apart from work, look after the children and tend the house and garden, but we worked on it all together and shared all the jobs. Now we have time in our retirement to look after a much bigger house and garden in rural France.
Our son lives in Spain and his MiL is their support for emergency childcare. My DD in the UK has had it harder but I go over for half-terms and holidays when needed and in an emergency. It helps that we are only an hour from a Channel port.

brilliant advise!

why is stuff like that never obvious?

I do the same and it's driving me round the twist.

advice

Yay

I think looking at what you did in the past in the way of hobbies is useful. You managed to fit it in then so you must have been interested.

Finding a job you enjoy isn't easy but the more classes you join, reading writing or art groups you attend, the more voluntary work you do, the more likely you are to work out what really interests you, meet someone who can offer you work or someone who can point you in the right direction.

I hope you don't mind me gate crashing this a bit...

I turn 40 this year, not really that traumatised by it, in my head I am still about 27!

At the end of last year, something happened at work which has led to me leaving my job. At the time, there was a lot of anger and high emotion which in turn led to the decision to move away from London and up to the north west.

I have got a new job there, househunting next week, accepted an offer on our London house. I am raring to go...in the meantime, DH has become less and less sure about it and now hinting that he wants to stay.

Is this all part of the same crisis around 'starting again'? I don't know what else to say to him, but I think it's clear I see this as an opportunity (back in nov, my motto was 'fuck it, what's the worst that can happen!?') and he thinks of it in terms of leaving it all behind.

Do men see this differently?

I think there is a balance here. For a while in my late 30s/early 40s I was completely immersed in my kids even though I had a part-time job and I am very interested in my grandchildren and willing to help if asked.

As you get older though I don't think adult children want over-involvement and it can soon cross the line into interference-so its good to have your own life and interests.
I think that its completely possible to start building this up in your 40s and 50s if you start with small changes.
Also do what you really want to do-don't compare yourself with people who are triathletes at 60 if that isn't what you want or you were never fit enough.
As you get older you can do as you wish-not what you think you should be doing.

I don't know if it's a male thing but lots of people hate change.

Even if the status quo isn't great or interesting. They still prefer to stick with what they know.

The women I mentioned up thread are very much creatures of habit; meeting up in the same places to do the same things. They often talk about making changes but never actually do.

I am 65 but 35 in my head. But I can still do the splits much to chagrin of my oldest GD who can't
I think moving and settling takes time and effort. It took me ages to settle in rural France and I had to let go of the expectation of outside entertainment and learn to be self-sufficient. But it was very hard and I had a lot of dark nights of the soul. DH loved it from the start and I do too now.

Yes Word.
I have a freeing who is crushingly bored and unfulfilled. She chases fads, starting and stopping yoga/pilates/juicing etc.
she is desperate for change so travels a lot but she goes to a 5* hotel, eats the same breakfast, sits on the beach, etc and comes home as bored as when she left.

She is a lovely person, but fails to see that she is looking for a different life in the same familiar places. Stuck in a rut but doesn't see it.

What do you think she should do? That sounds like the kind of thing Id do!

Exactly pag.

These women are intelligent, educated, articulate, funny and kind.

But their forties have been spent on auto pilot ( your analogy of sleep walking is perfect ).

She should book a caravan, go to Iceland, try remembering where her joy was, try not to be so scared of not enjoying something.

Here

• you have a totally free day tomorrow. You cannot do something you have done in the last five years. Money is no object but you can only travel within 50 miles.

Find something.

I'd feel lonely for my mum, fed up I was skint and earning £6.50 an hour in a dead end job, looking for cheap things to do online, dreaming of travel I couldn't afford...and doing the washing, going to asda and probably replacing a lost PE kit or something similar.

pag, what would you do?

I have a friend chasing lots of different things too. She is 60 and is absolutely terrified of retirement/getting older and not being 'useful'. She never stops but never sticks at anything either. She can't seem to enjoy the simple pleasures in life - a walk on her own somewhere nice, going to the pictures on your own with a cheapy ticket or just sitting in the garden in the sun doing nothing. I've never known her relax whereas I am a master at it

I'm not in England but I would try and drive somewhere I've never been before(I get really anxious about driving so I'm trying to do it more)
There is a pretty lock nearby that I drive past but never go to. Or there is a well known art gallery in a nearby town I've never visited. Then I'd have lunch. I've never been for a curry I might do that.
Or go to a driving range. I've never tried golf.
I would be spectacularly shit

I mean not in England today.

Rule 1. Do not be useful.
Rule 2. Be very selfish (but try not to harm anyone or anything else in the process).

That's it I think.

Ooh - there's a place in London called school of wok.
I'd love to have a cookery lesson there just because of the name.

If I imagine my dream future it's always me, sipping tea and reading a novel, on a plant filled balcony somewhere near a British coast. So I am obviously craving quiet time alone!

Sorry op. I'm soap boxing on your thread.

What a fab thread and I'm really enjoying these posts.
My advice to my 40yr old self ( and actually my 30yr and 20yr old self) would be to not say"yes" to something that you're not happy with eg "please could you man the school bookshop while I'm way?" Or "please could you look after my (appallingly behaved ) toddler for the day?" Or " please come to my Tupperware/pippa dee/anne summers/ candle or any other expensive and usually useless stuff party. You don't need to fabricate a reason and don't feel guilty. And ditto to enjoying having your children around... The time goes by unbearably quickly.
Oh and give yourself some credit from time to time ... You are amazing even when it seems that those around you don't see it that way. To paraphrase from " Into The Woods" someone is on your side and someone else is not.

This thread is fabulous - because I turned forty today!