To think the first half of your life is the best part?

[Imissmanchesterrain]

Apologies for sounding so pessimistic, but when I think about the future now, I can’t see many pluses..Dh and I will get older, my parents will pass away, well enjoy watching Dd grow, but then she’ll leave and then what.
Im 45 and up until a few years ago, I never felt this way. The first half of my life was exciting, mainly full of fun and promise, so much to look forward to
Wouldnt life be better lived the other way around, like it gets better and better?

I'm both looking forward and dreading the future. There are bound to be lots of hurdles: ageing parents, illness, menopause but at the same time, I feel I have reached/matured to what I was meant to be and that's a nice feeling. I also like being secure what with having a family, a loving husband, a steady job, a house, savings.

I guess this is dependent on how long you live...

This!

I had a hard start in life plus lots of bereavements in my 20s. Marriage, infertility, single parenthood and divorce in my 30s.

Now age nearly 44 I have a beautiful daughter, great friends, a lovely partner a cosy house and a good job. Luckily my mum seems in good health at the moment. I'm appreciating this window but am aware things can easily change for the worse. Also my DD will probably not want to hang out with her mum as much in the next few years.

No, no, no! Life gets better and better the older you get! Kids are grown up and off hand. You don't have to get up early and go roaring off down the road to work! As long as you've looked after yourself, the body still works and in fact you still feel about 20! You've got time to do what you like, rest and be lazy without feeling guilty. I know, cos I'm 72, and it's lovely!

It hasn’t stopped mine either. Tbh, it was a relief for both of my parents after being the carers of my maternal grandparents for years. Their life was very much limited as was my sister’s who was a teen in secondary and was working while also helping. I stepped in to help when my sister went off to uni otherwise parents wouldn’t have been able to manage grandmother at home and grandpa at a nursing home (he had Alzheimer’s) while also working their full-time jobs.

My parents still work but could retire if they wanted to, and do whatever they like.

Not sure we will be able to do the same with DS1 being non-speaking autistic, but even with that, I would disagree that the first half of my life was better. Being bullied as a child and a teen, working 5-7 days a week while going to uni, and doing an internship. The only things I miss from those years is the amount of quiet time I had to be alone with myself and not being on a constant state of low level alertness, that is it.

I know exactly what you mean. I'm 49 and I can see my parents won't have many years left. Seeing them old and struggling breaks my heart. Im dreading the next few years in that respect. My children are growing up fast. Already my daughter is a teenager and doesn't want to spend time with me so I can see the teenage years ahead and then them leaving. I'm quite worried that I'll be bereft when they leave! They've been my life for so long.
However, on a positive note I'm looking forward to the relentless slog of looking after everyone, easing up, of having more time to myself. I think we'll travel after they've left and have adventures. Not everything will revolve around the children. I'll have time to pursue hobbies. I'll join groups, I'll do voluntary work. At the moment life is just work, taking care of the kids, laundry, cooking, driving the kids around. I think there'll be less pressure when they've gone.
I've read many times that people are most content in their 50s and 60s (maybe 70s too) and I can understand why.

This is lovely to read

That might be true for you but certainly not for everyone. Not for me that’s for sure.

I am nearly sixty and the first thirty years of my life were certainly far worse than the past thirty which have been pretty good.

It depends whether you are going to sit around letting life happen to you - or be proactive about taking the bull by the proverbial horns.

• There is more beauty than not the bitter sweet magic of watching little people grow up and fly the nest
• there is huge comfort in the fact that the older I get the less I give a damn about other people - very freeing!
• there is space to learn things, eat things, explore things - it doesn’t have to be months long international adventure - take courses in things you have always wondered about but never tried
• 45 is an age where you still have the potential to get really fit and increase the chances of being more comfortable and mobile in later years for all the potential adventure
• there is space to dig into a career, or change direction completely still before retirement
• maybe grandchildren
• space and time for a dog? A pet llama?

I disagree
Each decade has got better as I have grown older
However, I do plan things to do & I do them
I also do spur of the moment things

I have had ups & downs as everyone has in life

Nobody can predict the future

Some of the things that have occurred in my life, I would never have predicted

I am an optimist

I've seen quite a few surveys that indicate people in their 40/50s are the least happy, and those in their 60/70s most happy

My really happy years (not counting the ones when my child was young, they were happy, but exhausting) were between 59, when I retired and 69, by which time my health started failing.
those ten years were bliss. I was lucky enough to retire with a good pension and I had the freedom and ability to do and go wherever I pleased.

reading yesterday of talk about raising retirement age to 71 makes me so sad. As a country out age expectancy has started to fall. So why make people work longer. And I do understand the economics of it, but life is not just about economics. It's also about having a good time while we can

Hope things get better for you op. 💐 The first half of my life was pretty shite. Had a toxic childhood and an abusive marriage. Now I have depression, anxiety and complex PTSD. Hoping the future looks brighter

It depends on what life brought you in the first half. I’m mid forties and had to take care of my elderly father for the last ten years. This week he died. Also took care of mum when she got ill but she died 8 years ago already. Children growing up. DH and I both have nice jobs, nice house. I consider myself lucky.

I think my early 40s were my most unhappy possibly late 30s too although maybe that was just drudgery. From 45 onwards I've been having a ball. Then I left a marriage, started enjoying single life, got a fantastic new job (and new career) at 49 and have some really amazing friends. Sure, my teens are a bit challenging, but miles more interesting than when they were toddlers. Now i@m dating a lovely new man.

The U shaped thing resonates with me too. Definitely from about 38-45 were very difficult years for me. I had a very fun late teens and 20s, but think maybe my 50s and 60s will be even better!

Goodness no! I'm 59 and tge last 25 years have been the best of my life.

In answer to @Beautyofthedark the goal is "individuation":

"The act of consciousness is central; otherwise we are overrun by the complexes. The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacaphony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves."

And

"The capacity for growth depends on one’s ability to internalize and to take personal responsibility. If we forever see our life as a problem caused by others, a problem to be "solved," then no change will occur."

And

"When one has let go of that great hidden agenda that drives humanity and its varied histories, then one can begin to encounter the immensity of one's own soul. If we are courageous enough to say, "Not this person, nor any other, can ultimately give me what I want; only I can," then we are free to celebrate a relationship for what it can give."

I wasn't a happy child, not particularly unhappy but never felt part of anything. I had an unhappy marriage for which I totally blame myself. He wasn't a bad man, just not right for me and I knew I was 'settling' when I married. (Have 2 adult kids that I adore). Most jobs I did were, at best, boring - and I don't think my employers thought much of me. I didn't stay in any job more than 2 years. I enjoyed the work I did from around 40 to 55 and then back to boring.

I'm 69, I'm retired and I'm content. I do what I want, when I want. Holidays, gardening, walking and time with the kids, are what I find most enjoyable but am content in my own company. Pottering around housework, diy, sewing, reading and time spent on the computer - all these just pass time with contentment. No one making demands or expecting things of me.

I know it doesn't and won't suit everyone but it suits me. Whilst not ectatic, I am content, probably for the first time in my life. I know (and am glad) that the majority of my life is behind me. Being dead doesn't worry me at all. I only wish that I could legally decide when to go rather than suffering from being disabled or living with dementia.

Life is finite. Enjoy what you can but don't believe you need to be young to enjoy life

That entirely depends on what sort of life you had when growing up.

Some children have miserable lives, and get themselves free only when they are able to make decisions for themselves.

In my seventies now and the body is starting to creak in various places, so I can't do what I would like to. If I had the energy (and the spare cash), I would love a train journey through Canada.

It's so sad that so many children have poor lives, and they are powerless. At least as an adult you have some choices, even if those choices are difficult.

This sounds very dramatic but I’m finding the thought of my big mortgage looming ahead of me for 25 years suddenly very depressing. We live in an expensive area, children in school, family here, we can’t just sell up and go but sometimes I want to run away screaming as feel SO financially tied to this house, it’s overwhelming at times that we’re in our ‘forever house’ with a mortgage that seems to go on forever too.

I felt as you do at that very age, very down indeed. It took another five years for me to realise it was peri menopause and to get on HRT.

A problem is that when you have the money to travel your body says "NO".

Your are being very unreasonable. I love my life as I enter my early 40s. I am much more confident, I can hold my own. I have so much to look forward to.

I'm in my late fifties and can say definitely yes, we like to think that life is a continuous state of being but it isn't. Being young is a definite state of being, much superior to being old , I have seen my parents and in laws and many others suffer in old age. I can see my suffering coming and I honestly think I will check out before. Both my mother's and my father's passing were horrific and prolonged, we live too long now , I have already decided I won't take any tablets, for heart problems and diabetes etc .so hopefully I will drop dead before any suffering.we think long life is a goal , it's not.

Yes I'm loving this confidence! Each year I feel more powerful and kickass.

I am in my 50s, both my parents have died and my children have left home but my life is fantastic, i am retired, i travel, i try new things and meet new people but the very best bit is my Grandchildren. Life is great.