Why women are better in a middle-aged crisis
It struck me the other day how many people I know in their 40s who aren’t happy. I mean, my younger friends in their 20s aren’t happy either, but we just blot it out better. Whereas my older friends are past the stage where they can get by on weekends of tequila shots and sex with strangers.
The more conversations about happiness I have with my older friends the more I realise that you don’t magically get happier as you get older. Instead the giddy recklessness of youth gets whipped away and you realise you’re in a middleaged slump. (The good news is that the research suggests you actually get happier on the other side of the slump: the over-50s have the best sex and best overall wellbeing of all of us.)
Now, the phenomenon of the midlife crisis isn’t new. Journalist Miranda Sawyer describes middle age as being characterised by money struggles, boredom, frustration, a realisation of your own lack of self-awareness, and looming insecurities about yourself and your career.
Supposedly it hits women at 35-40 and men at 40-45. (Incidentally, it’s now showing signs of developing in millennials with a quarter-life crisis, but that’s a different column.)
What’s interesting is talking to my older friends about how people deal with it. Because it seems from the outside, in my highly uneducated opinion, that women deal with middle age better.
Oh, there’s still a lot of $12 rose´ and zumba, but on the whole they get through these disorientating, Lycra-clad times better than guys do. That’s not to say that the midlife crisis doesn’t hit women; actually it’s fairly equal – 26.3 per cent of women and 25.4 per cent of men get the slump.
But the difference, to my untrained eye, is that when women hit the hump, they start doing stuff. They get a new haircut, a new wardrobe, start bikram yoga, go paleo, try ballet classes, hit the early morning gym classes and learn burlesque. They make friends, go for coffee, sew things, redesign the garden, go to public talks and spend hours assembling tastefully minimalist flat-pack furniture from Sweden that they ordered after seeing it on a Netflix original movie.
They do anything, really, anything that brings in new and interesting ideas and sensations. I know because I meet them when I’m doing all my own quarter-life crisis-induced activities. Crafternoon, anyone?
Whereas middle-aged guys just do . . . well, not very much. Yes, some do cycling. Their Spandexclad buttocks whizz past my window each morning heralded by a foghorn of manly shouting. But they’re almost the exception that proves the rule. It’s certainly not middle-aged men who come to my writing club.
Instead, men seem to sit, paralysed by the unhappiness of it all, unsure what to do unless they can buy a Porsche to sit in being sad while accompanied by a millennial plaything. I know because I’ve spent far too long pretending to be interested in how much your Maserati cost.
The No 1 thing I hear women in their 40s complaining about is that their partners/ prospective boyfriends don’t do anything. The women have got their book clubs and barre classes, but their blokes don’t. Instead the guys look to them to provide all of the amusement and interest.
Perhaps women do more because, from an early age, we have been taught to reinvent ourselves. We’re forever being told we need a new look, new fitness class, new fancy unusable decorative cushion . . . We’re in the habit of reinventing ourselves by doing new things. So when middle age hits us, we have an idea of what to do.
Potentially it’s because, as a male friend in his 50s pointed out, men are taught to value their lives by their career and the amount of money they make. Whereas women are valued more on their friendships and relationships. So when an emotional tsunami hits, women are more prepared to weather it with the help of strong relationships.
Or maybe it’s because women are good at recognising difficult situations and doing something about them. You know that scene in the movies when the helpless woman turns to the strong (white) man and says: ‘‘What are we going to do, do you have a plan?!’’ Yeah. That does not happen in real life.
I have never, ever met a middle-aged woman who doesn’t have a plan. Especially if it comes to an emotional situation. And especially if they’re a mum.
Mums have plans, and snacks, for every occasion. So maybe they’re just more prepared to make a plan for middle age and stick to it.
And honestly, I don’t know personally if women’s ‘‘let’s just try stuff’’ strategy works, but it’s got to be better than sitting alone in your fancy car.
Mums have plans, and snacks, for every occasion. So maybe they’re just more prepared to make a plan for middle age and stick to it.