mid life crisis for women

[itsallballs]

a i b u in thinking that women can have a mid life crisis same as men ...and no i am not talking about the menopause?

well thats what everyone told me when i bought a convertable! single mum with three kids! I THINK its just fancied somethign different for a change rather than thinking of everyone else all the time! so if thats a MIC then ive had mine.

a convertable...fantastic!

yes love the car but totally impracticle for day to day use and i get very frustrated when i need to collect any large item! however as its afour seater i no longer have to ferry kids friends around either! so we will see how it goes although i will say kids now think its great and keep asking me to make sure the hard tops down when i pick them up from school! i think ive increased thier cool factor!

Aa in panic at the passing of youth/opportunities etc? Yes, definitely.

absolutely!

My GP said to me last week that she thinks men have a big mid-life crisis around 50 and women have 2 smaller ones - one around 40 and one around 50.

We haven't got the time.

Not related to OP, but I remember when I was at school, an old friend of my dad's once turned up at school to pick me up in a vintage Bentley that he had lovingly restored. That set the jaws dropping and the tongues wagging (I was mortified with embarrassement at the time, but like to look back on it)

Yes they can

dying hair a wacky colour
going out to pub discos again in too tight clothes
flirting outrageously with young men

sounds like great fun i can't wait

I think my converse might be the start of a mid life crisis.

I'm having one of them!!
I caught myself really lusting after some 21 YOs playing football the other day.I am old enough to be their mum!

Oooh, I think I'm having one now... It's been going on for ages though.

I generally have a mid-week crisis - er weekly

I'm not ready to get my clubbing gear back out yet but watch this space......

I found pre 40 really tricky and I definitely had the potential to hurtle into inadvisable situations.

I was very jittery for about 9 months and it was fear of ageing. Now I am actually 40 I couldn't give a stuff!

Dredging this thread up again cos I think I am having a MLC... Not sure if this is the right place to be posting

Anyway, am mid to late 30's have an amazing toddler, partner of 10 yrs, am SAHM with no money and feel like I have completely messed up. I KNOW I am soooo very blessed and lucky to have LO and a DH who works his bum off keeping us fed, clothed with a roof over our heads but I can't help feeling trapped, pathetic and useless.

Sometimes I seriously feel like leaving but I know what a mess this would make things and when DH and I are getting along everything is great but then the panic, feeling lost and trapped and out of control sneak in again and I feel like I want to run away.

I would not ever ever leave my DS and I know I often think I truly love DH but then a few days later I am pulling my hair out and thinking we no longer love each other and he winds me up no end with petty comments about my mothering etc.

Ach, I don't even know what I want anyway. I have just recently realised that we only have one life and it is not the way I thought it would turn out. DH and I never do anything, never go anywhere. He works all the time and when he has time off he doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything apart from play online games...

I am just in a mess just now and I do think it may be a MLC but if I left and set up on my own, I would have no money, have to live in tiny flat with DS and I KNOW DH and his family would defo fight for full custody.

Sorry - this is likely not the best thing to be posting here but I am feeling so crappy just now and just wondered what other opinions on mid life crisis status is here...

Yes, I know how lucky I am to have both DH and especially DS - he is the best thing that ever happened to me. I just don't know what I am doing, feel hopeless and out of control and really feel like I don't know what I am doing at all

Gosh Paranoid1stTimer - I give crap advice when it comes to these things. Hope someone better palced comes along shortly for you

I don't think women have a MLC at 40. What I think does happen is that women who start families in their 20s shift rapidly from young 'n hip to young 'n frumpy, and then once their DCs are no longer teeny realise that bloody hell they're only 40 (or 39, or 42 or whatever) and they're buying their clothes from ASDA. Not just one or two well chosen items but the whole bloody lot

They have I guess a Midlife un-Crisis.

They start to look like their mothers as they remember them as 12/13 yos. This horrifies them either in that they don't want to end up like their mums, or they look at their mums and realise that their lives weren't over once they'd flown the nest. Or maybe (as in my own mother's case) their mothers are no longer alive and they realise life's too short.

Hmm, not a mid-life crisis, but a tired with small child crisis, if you ask me. I think everyone goes through that crisis.

Forget about dissatisfaction with your OH, it sounds like you have more dissatisfaction with yourself. If you leave him, you'll be on your own with the same feelings, only poorer. Wait until you've sorted yourself out, then decide if you want to leave him

Do you have any hobbies? What did you do with your spare time before you had your DS? Make a list of things you want to do. How did you expect your life to turn out? Was it a realistic expectation?

You don't have a job, so perhaps you lack a purpose in life. Can you learn a new skill, get a new qualification?

If your DH is working so hard, no wonder he doesn't want to go anywhere. Would he go somewhere if you organised it?

Thanks for your replies.

I totally get both your points. I think you are right JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar - I don't want to turn into my Mum and have recently realised I have turned exactly into her except I don't go to lots of toddler groups and Sunday school like she took us to. I always felt bad for my Mum when I "grew up" and was about 16 as I knew she would have loved to go back to work as a Midwife and she was asked to do a pilot of what I think turned out to be NHS 24 but she had lost all her confidence. She died very suddenly a few years back - just before I had DS so maybe this is all to do with it.

Cretaceous I do nothing for myself now. My time is spent being mother to both my DS (which is great and also very tiring as you say)and DH as since I am SAHM I end up doing everything for them wrt housework, washing, cooking etc etc etc. This is part and package I suppose but I am SAHM cos we couldn't afford childcare but it is true that you get no recognition for how bloody hard work it is and I don't get to go home at 5pm.

I think maybe you are spot on - tired with small child crisis. Now he is old enough to communicate and more wordly wise, I have more time to contemplate things where before it was all consuming - bottles, boobs, nappies, everything. It seems the past few years have just blurred past and now I am wondering what the hell has happened to "me"? I don't even know who I am any more.

Yawn! I guess this is all old and you have all been through it but I really didn't know it would be like this. Of course I wouldn't change things or I would not have DS and I love him more than anything, ever. I just feel like a crap mum just now and I don't have a clue what to do - starting to realise I need to know what school he should go to, when to enrol, what happens and I have no idea.

I am disillusioned and disappointed in myself. In fact, some days I actually hate myself. You are so right Cretaceous that is exactly the problem. I can't run away from myself.

It feels kind of like an extremely unglamorous Breakfast at Tiffany's where she is always going to be that lost little girl from the ranch trying to run away but never being away to get away from the real cause - herself.

OMG how melodramatic was that!

Thanks again though - it is good to get a calm, sensible view on things so I don't go and do anything really stupid like leave and end up worse.