Midlife crisis. What about it? A lot. Do women experience it? We are about to find out.
We talk about the midlife crisis as though it were a male preserve.
Women and midlife crisis: Quest for new life
A man clocks 55, buys a loud car, starts wearing clothes his children consider embarrassing, develops an inexplicable interest in the gym and suddenly discovers that life is too short to remain married to the woman he has known for 25 years.
We laugh. We even applaud.
But what happens when it is the woman?
Does she not have a midlife crisis too? Perhaps we simply call hers something else. A mission that needs to be aborted simpliciter.
For many women, midlife can become a period of profound questioning…
Not necessarily because something has gone terribly wrong, but because she has reached a point where she begins to examine the life she has built and ask uncomfortable questions.
Who am I outside being someone’s wife, mother or daughter?
What happened to the woman I used to be?
Is this marriage still the marriage I want?
What do I want for the next 20 or 30 years of my life?
And sometimes, the most uncomfortable question of all:
Do I still want this person?
The phrase “midlife crisis” is not a medical diagnosis, and it occurs in varying degrees.
But the midlife years can bring significant physical, psychological and social changes.
For many women, this coincides with peri-menopause and menopause, when hormonal changes may affect sleep, mood, sexual desire and physical comfort.
But here is where the conversation becomes interesting.
Not every woman who loses interest in sex has lost interest in her husband.
Sometimes she is exhausted.
Sometimes she is uncomfortable in her own body.
Sometimes she has spent 20 years caring for everybody else and has forgotten what pleasure feels like.
Sometimes the relationship itself has become emotionally empty.
And sometimes, yes, she may genuinely begin to wonder whether she wants a different partner or a different life.
That possibility makes people uncomfortable.
We are more accustomed to discussing male midlife restlessness as though it were almost inevitable.
When a woman begins dressing differently, traveling alone, making new friends, pursuing an old dream, becoming financially independent or suddenly insisting on personal space, the reaction can be very different.
Society wonders if she is being influenced. Or if there is another man.
Perhaps.
But perhaps she has simply discovered herself.
There is a difference between wanting something new and wanting someone new.
A woman may not necessarily want another husband. She may want another version of herself.
She may want the career she abandoned. The degree she never pursued. The business she postponed. The friendships she neglected. The freedom she never had.
Or simply the right to sit quietly and ask herself what she wants without everybody assuming that a married woman’s desires must always be negotiated through her husband’s needs.
And yet, there are women who genuinely fall out of love.
Long marriages can change. People change.
Sometimes couples grow together; sometimes they grow in completely different directions.
Women’s sexual wellbeing in midlife is also influenced by relationship quality and intimacy.
A satisfying relationship and open communication can support sexual wellbeing, while relationship difficulties can work in the opposite direction.
A change in desire, therefore, is not necessarily caused by age alone.
So what should a woman do when she feels herself changing?
First, don’t panic.
Not every strong desire for change requires immediate action.
Second, investigate yourself before blaming your marriage.
Are you unhappy with your husband, or unhappy with yourself?
Are you sexually disconnected, emotionally disconnected, physically exhausted or all three?
Are you craving another man, or are you craving novelty, attention, affection and the feeling of being seen?
Third, don’t dismiss the physical.
Menopause can affect sexuality, sleep, mood and physical comfort. These are legitimate health concerns, not character defects.
A woman experiencing troubling symptoms should be willing to discuss them with a qualified healthcare professional.
Fourth, have the difficult conversations.
Marriage cannot survive indefinitely on assumptions.
Sometimes what looks like rejection is exhaustion.
Sometimes what looks like loss of attraction is accumulated resentment.
Sometimes what looks like a midlife crisis is simply a woman finally finding the courage to rediscover herself.
Midlife should not automatically be treated as a woman’s expiry date. Neither should it become a licence for reckless decisions.
There is wisdom in pausing long enough to understand the woman who is emerging before destroying the life the younger woman built.
Perhaps the real midlife question is not:
“Why does she suddenly want something new?”
Perhaps it is:
“What has changed, and have we taken the time to understand what she is trying to tell us?”
Because sometimes she is not trying to escape her life.
She is trying, perhaps for the first time in years, to find herself inside it.
