To think there's a point where it's too late to hugely change your life

[FloatingOutOnTheTide]

I'm forever hearing "it's never too late to change"; "life can be anything you want it to be"; "only you hold yourself back".

But just being realistic here - by the time you are in later middle age. Married with children and no good reason to leave your marriage. In a career. If you aren't already very wealthy, you're not likely to become so, unless you inherit or win the lottery. You can't make drastic career changes that late in life. You can't strategically marry if you're already married (and yes, before I get flamed, a lot of people do aquire wealth through marriage).

It is far harder to be a free spirit travelling the world if you've already got children and mortgage commitments. Your body and looks are only going in one direction, eventually, no matter how much you fight it with treatments and exercise. It will catch up with you at some point.

Just doing a lot of thinking at the moment and it seems it's just too late - I'd like to be super successful and wealthy and well travelled and to have made more of my looks whilst younger.. But the barrage of inspirational slogans saying it's never too late just don't ring true. Sometimes it is.

@wizzbangfizz

I'm 40 and looking to move countries (but we both hope to keep out existing careers) with 2 DC (tweens) so I hope it is doable!

My parents moved countries when they retired.. somewhere they didn’t speak the language either.....

It’s totally doable.

My grandparents (having never been on a plane) upped and moved to Australia in their mid 70s. That's fairly late in life.

I agree with PP’s who said that there are certain times when it’s easier to change your life, e.g. when you have older children or they go to uni/start leading more independent lives. You sound as if you’re feeling trapped by all your responsibilities- join the club.🤣. My two darlings (15 & 12) were serving me nuts this morning before school, then there’s wfh, endless chores, so many bills to pay, etc.

At this type of stage, you can only make smaller changes that could eventually lead to bigger ones. DH and I need our current incomes right now, but we’re planning for possible career changes when the expensive kids are off our hands. We’re planning for that now and it helps when we’re feeling weighed down with our current responsibilities.

Perhaps you can do the same, OP. Think of a few concrete changes you’d like to make and work towards them.💐

• driving me nuts

I see your point and have felt like you do. I've been a nurse for 25 years. I've traveled the world with the military. I got my masters degree in Nursing while in the military and became a CRNA. I retired from the military and opened up a care agency. I'm now back in school at age 50 to become a history teacher.

Social media maybe? There are plenty of Youtube channels by older creators who started it as a way of sharing their hobbies/cooking/lifestyle tips that turned into lucrative careers. The good thing is you don't need to retrain in any field and can get started with minimal investment. Once you go down the rabbit hole, there are creators getting millions of views on everything from budget family meal challenges, filming dead malls, video walks in the rain, looking for fossils, playing with toys etc. TikTok is another platform that just recently pays creators per views (in the UK at least). The clips there are much shorter and easier to make and can be filmed & edited entirely on mobile.

I changed my life completely at 45.
I decided to totally upscale my career.
My kids were all in their teens and folk thought I was mad - but I didn’t want to get to my old age wondering if I could do it (I dispute the adage that on their death beds people don’t regret not working more - I think lots do).

I'm 47, happily married for 24 years, 3 children (26, 23 and 14 years old) , 1 5 year old gs. I try to be satisfied with my lot in life but I do yearn for a life out of my reach. Nothing fancy. A different house in a different area. Chance to travel more. Start a creative business. As it is im now childcare for my gs and home school my 14 year old. We used to make narrowboats but now husband works his own maintenance company and I just plod on each day as now I have rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia so whatever I long to do in my head I dont have to energy to fulfill it. Xxx

Me again! If I could change my worklife again it would be to train in child therapy, maybe in play or art therapy x

OP I found a life coach pretty useful, that might help you pin down exactly what you want and break it into steps.

There are good books on this too (sorry can’t remember any right now)

Anyway - as the saying goes -''It is better to travel than to arrive''.

Your choices give you some things and close off others. And the older you get, the more of these choices you have made, so yes it can be more difficult.

I also believe that culturally we limit ourselves. We are all so obsessed with the beginnings of stories, as a culture. We like the bits before the choices are made, because of the potential. Once the choices are made, that potential is seen to be gone.

I don't think it has to be gone, but it does get harder.

Depends what sort of dramatic change you're after I suppose. I'm enjoying life now (42, 2 DC primary age) but I'm also looking forward to doing things when DC are independent and I'm retired. Walking holidays with friends, learning new skills, volunteering, exercising, travel to art galleries around the world, going out to concerts and theatre whenever I like. To me, that would be a huge change and one I'd see as the best I could ask for. I don't aspire to be CEO or filthy rich, stylish or super slim, or to have lots of stuff I don't need or a house that is too big to keep clean.

When I was a student in a volunteer project, I met a man who had gone blind at 60 and started a PhD at 62. He had just published a book based on his PhD research (at age 68).

I think you can change things, but it's always a trade-off

I was going to say exactly this. You can always change something but that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

I spent my twenties working and travelling the world. If I’d saved that money instead of buying plane tickets, I probably could have bought my own house and maybe even paid off the mortgage by now.

DH stayed living with his mum until he was nearly 30, then moved out and bought a flat. He now regrets not being a bit wilder and freer when he was younger. I think of what I spent on travel and, while I don’t regret the experiences, I do feel a bit .

I’m now 40 and am in the middle of retraining in a completely different career. It’ll pay off in the long run - I’ll be able to be self employed, work around the kids, pick my own hours. But the trade off is I’ve given up my current career and am taking a risk.

It just depends how much risk you’re willing to shoulder.

Genuine believe you can change your life but it's not easy and the pathway might look different to how we sometimes perceive it.

E.g take the goal wanting to be rich - you're right, you can't control that...so why do you want to be rich? Say it was to have a house by the sea...why do you want a house by the sea? Because the fresh air is good. What can you do immediately? Well actually I can walk by the sea twice a month etc etc. Small steps towards what you actually want. God, horrible cliche but sometimes exploring what's underlying the things you want rather than just getting the end result is part of the 'journey' (sorry, vomit). And If it was actually the house by the sea breaking that down into a series of steps. Of course the caveat to this is that life does get in the way - health and other circumference play their part but mostly we have some options, however hard they are to pursue.

CrazyToast that point about the beginning of the story really resonated with me. I’m forever stuck in the endless potential before making solid decisions.

As a result I’m not fully emotionally committed to my current life. It’s ok, but I have a vague sense that it hasn’t properly started yet. That’s really concerning now I realise it.

You’re not even 40 and you’re describing it as “later middle age”. I think this alone shows you have a fairly pessimistic outlook!

Maybe (for me anyway) it’s a way of avoiding our own mortality - if we haven’t fully decided who to be, then it can’t end yet. Gives the illusion of a guarantee of more time.

I’m starting to wake up now though, the signs of ageing are clear and the generation above are starting to die or develop terminal illnesses. It’s such a terrifying thought that we only have finite time. I’m not at peace with it yet.

You’re not even 40 and you’re describing it as “later middle age”. I think this alone shows you have a fairly pessimistic outlook!

This struck me too.

I also believe that culturally we limit ourselves. We are all so obsessed with the beginnings of stories, as a culture. We like the bits before the choices are made, because of the potential. Once the choices are made, that potential is seen to be gone.

That is such an interesting point.

@WingingItSince1973, I have ME so I get where you are coming from with the tiredness.
I had to look hard at my life to be able to retrain. Was there a trade off? Yes because there is no space for anything else. And no because I LOVE what I do so it’s not a burden or a trade off.

What became very obvious is how unbalanced my relationship was, with me still doing the lion’s share of the hw and parenting even though I was ill.
Addressing that suddenly gave me space to do what I wanted and was looking so impossible before....

FWIW my mum did the same and did a degree + PGCE in her late 40s. It worked because she stopped doing it all. And only because she reclaimed that balance in her marriage.

That’s really true about an unbalanced marriage holding you back, through lack of time.

For me, part of the post-divorce personal evolution has been because I’ve had 2 evenings and one weekend day per week childfree.

Probably lots of married women could find their focus more easily with that amount of free time (though I wouldn’t wish divorce on my worst enemy, it literally nearly destroyed me)

Actually it was a mixture of the free time and the sense of holy crap my life’s totally fallen apart, can/do I even want to go on? Sink or swim I suppose. Then you have to rebuild it from the ground up.

I have recently totally changed my life at 52.

I left career I had done for over 20 years and which in many ways defined me. Left the house I had lived in for 20 years. I have started a business with my partner of 25 years. We went from being almost mortgage free to having a £750,00 mortgage on our business.

I am the same person but with a different life! I have the same personal issues- overweight, a bit lazy, crap childhood- I had before. A new life won't make them go away. But I felt like my life could only get worse before, especially financially.

The catalyst was my partner being made redundant