Nearly 50 and feel totally exhausted and overwhelmed with life, is this all there is?

[Summerhopesanddreams]

I’m approaching 50 and have worked full time all my life. My children are grown up and have left home but I feel like life never gets any easier.

A typical day is get up early for work, feed the dogs, do a few small jobs around the house, get ready and travel to work.

Spend a full day at work in job that I neither like or dislike, it’s just a job but I need to work financially. Part time isn’t an option, I’m on my own with no entitlement to any benefits as income just above minimum wage.

Travel home, take the dogs for a walk, feed the dogs, hoover up, cleaning, put a wash on and more jobs around the house and garden, life admin such as answering emails, paying bills, online shopping.

Go to bed exhausted and start again the next day.

There is no enjoyment in life and I regularly wonder if things will ever get any better. Is this a common theme these days, anyone else feel the same?

Do you go for a nice walk at weekends with the dogs. I find being outside in the country or at the coast really uplifting, especially walking MIL's dogs- early morning, quiet beach, cool, fresh air. My spirits soar.

Yes! Much as taking kids to clubs, parties, dealing with the PTA, school stuff etc is full on, all of a sudden the kids are grown and it’s like - now what?! It’s not easy.

What I find is that you have to actively schedule joy into the week rather than wait for it to come along. Just like you have to actively look for friends.

The dogs sound like a full time job in themselves frankly.

Stop doing so much bloody housework OP! I bet your house looks like a show home.

I would try to change your job, and try to reconnect with your friends - and join a choir or something, and make some new ones.

@Summerhopesanddreams I'm happy you found my post ok (part of my joy today, so big thanks)

there's a spoken bit in the song Cabaret which has become a bit of a byword for my life "when I go, I'm going like Elsie". It's come to mean, in my family, that I'm going out having the best life I can, it might not be sensible but I'm going to live the rest of my life finding joy.

I was in the same situation as you until I stopped full time work at 59 (I took voluntary redundancy, otherwise I would have kept going). I lived payday to payday, but seemed to have money for the occasional treat. I also had elderly, divorced, parents who I needed to visit often (I don't drive), then my DM moved into care and I had to empty her flat, which took months of work every day (still working at that stage), and I'm an only child.

I never felt exhausted at all. However, I'm sure I didn't do as much housework as you, you seem to do a lot for one person. I only did laundry and housework at the weekends, and it took little time. I used to just potter around with my own things and loved my hours away from work. I would suggest a visit to the GP, it's not normal to be exhaused all the time at 50.

i honestly feel the same.

i'm so exhausted, work is very stressful, money is tight, and both my parents are in old age with significant illnesses and need a lot of support.

i'm so down at the moment.

I agree. I don't live in the UK and it's quite normal here to leave dogs alone at home while working. It really is a modern trend to think that they need to be entertained all day.

Do you belong to or follow your village or community Facebook page?
There are weekend and evening rambling groups, salsa dancing, gardening clubs, pub quizzes, live music - these are all local groups which are free or a few pounds to join in.
They have what's app groups. I think there is an am dram too, and all manner of sport clubs.

The Facebook page is good because you can follow them, see the meet times and just turn up. People are very friendly or at least quiet but kind.

You do need to plan ahead though. Look at what's coming up locally, get it in your diary.

What’s your diet like? I only ask as my mum cut out sugar when she was in her early 50s and her energy levels soared. What about your sleep? Try looking after yourself and ensure you’re eating a healthy, balanced diet. Enjoy the time making good home cooked meals, put the radio on in the background, sing a long. Get out early into the sunshine. Take vitamin d. Do some sort of yoga or Pilates twice a week - you can do it off YouTube, or even better, find the time to go to a class instead of cleaning. Try to book something fun in at least twice a month on the weekend so you have something to look forward to.

This post isn’t about you though.

I wasn’t being patronising actually. It’s all in your interpretation.

So true

I felt like this at 50 ish, but took a broken ankle to really knock me turns out I had kidney disease & autoimmune conditions. I was lucky I was able to retire at 55 but no children to worry about. The other thing vit D was really low & also HRT were the initial medication that helped. It was a combination of things that triggered it stopping smoking, menopause & work stress. See your GP try & get them to do your ANA not always but can be indicative of autoimmune.

The RSPCA would disagree. They say a dog shouldn’t be left for more than four hours.

I'm nearly 50, kids are teens, work more than FT in a self-employed gig that's hard but fulfilling and I do almost FA housework. The kids are fed and a cleaner comes every other week for 3 hours but beyond that I do no drudgery. The house is hygienic and the laundry gets done, but it's no show home and domestic shit doesn't matter. I put my energy into creative project and friends I love and feel that's staved off the middle-aged angst so far. YOLO and all that so don't settle for anything you don't have to. If you want to take any risks, now's the time. If you don't, that's okay too but own your choices and don't just bumble along as though you're pleasing some authority that doesn't exist. We're the grown ups at this point and if you can't own your decisions now you never will. Do something different tomorrow. What's the worst that'll happen?

I'll get flamed for saying it, but that's where you're going wrong right there. You're making your life pointlessly complicated and expensive.

So let's get this right - your children are preteen but you're a similar age to OP however her children are all grown. Which must mean that you had a whole chunk of your 30s child free at exactly the time that OP was in the same full on parent mode that you've been in for the last decade.

OP's main child free time is just starting now, she's put the work in with the child rearing thing. You had YOUR main child free time BEFORE you had your kids. ie. when you were still in your prime of life, with the child birthing and rearing exhaustion yet to come. So there is clearly going to be a great deal of difference in how OP feels about and approaches her child free stage of life compared to how you approached yours in your 30s. She's experiencing it having put in the best part of 2 decades of child rearing and working, which as you admit yourself is exhausting. Give OP a break. You haven't done that for 2 decades yet. Let's see how you feel when your child free time comes when your kids are flying the nest. I think you're not realising how much you still worry about their wellbeing even when they're adults.

Oh forgot to say I don't have, and couldn't be arsed with any, dogs. I guess that's a personal decision but again you've gotta own it and not treat it like you're saddled with them. If you chose them, they must be worth the aggro.

OP has already said she loves her dogs and they are her priority but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a lot of work and expense. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Oh hun, I know how you feel. I'm fed up of "just existing" there's gotta be more, surely, there's gotta be more.
Where do you live?

Well strangely enough dogs managed alone by themselves for many decades, and still do. It seems dogs these days, much like modern children, seem to require constant entertainment. Also, did you miss that I don't live in the UK so the RSPCA has no relevance here.

@Blusterylimp it was an addition to my post, to be clear that's why I don't have all the aggro of looking after dogs. Obviously that's a different workload but if the agg and expense of it is weighing on her so much rather than the love eclipsing that, it suggests a depressed perspective rather than the problem being situational. So it's good that she's going to the GPs.

I don’t want to derail OPs thread any more because she has already confirmed that her dogs are not left alone all day.
Your comment is clearly ridiculous though because the RSPCAs recommendation would still apply irrespective of where the dog lives!

Nah, this is it. We DO just exist, and then we die. Everyone gets the existential dread at that age when this realisation dawns. It's a bit of a shock when it comes. You spend your life working towards some distant goal of "becoming an adult, and getting the full blown adult's trappings of life, including house and kids and career". And after those goals are achieved........then what? Some people have a mid-life crisis. Others just feel a bit flat. But eventually I think most pick themselves up and think "ah, well, better make the most of it then." OP, you're probably on the cusp of thinking that there's nothing for it but to make the most of it.