Why more and more middle-aged women say life feels like a BURDEN
Crippling debts crumbling relationships left behind at work needy children ... and parents
LAST month I started working with a woman who flopped onto my counselling sofa at the start of our first session and wailed: ‘Nobody told me life only gets harder.’
Susannah, 52, is a recently divorced HR manager. She feels her life has been reduced to endless hours at work and picking up after the adult children she’s continuing to support when she gets home. Her two sons, both in their early 20s, can’t afford to get onto the property ladder, while much of her own income goes on servicing credit card debts. She has no savings and will be paying off her mortgage until she’s nearly 70.
Susannah’s marriage broke down two years ago. Since then she’s discovered that, even for the middle-aged, dating has become a looks-based facade, facilitated by mobile phone apps.
‘It’s soulless,’ she complains. ‘And if I did meet someone, I don’t know how I’d find the time to develop a relationship because I’m always working.’ The sight of her sons sprawled out on the sofa greeting anyone she did take home would hardly encourage intimacy, she wryly observes.
Susannah is suffering from low self- esteem and a consuming sense of dissatisfaction.
‘I look to the future and I just feel horribly anxious — it feels like it’s only going to get worse,’ is her bleak conclusion. Anxiety and problems with
self-esteem are issues you might expect to feature in young women’s lives.
But according to the latest official wellbeing statistics, middle-aged people are the least happy, have the lowest life satisfaction and experience the highest anxiety of all age groups.
Statisticians analysed data for more than 300,000 adults from 2012 to 2015, for the Office for National Statistics. They found that even people aged over 90 enjoy better life satisfaction and happiness than those aged 40-59.
In June, a national happiness survey also found 45 to 59-year-olds are the most miserable UK age group. Being middle-aged has a similar effect on a person’s sense of wellbeing as poor health, being single or having only a basic education.
These results don’t surprise me at all. They reflect the feelings of many of my clients, people who should be in the prime of their lives.
They are responding in the most natural way to sweeping social changes that have robbed them of the success their parents’ generation enjoyed.
Yes, there were always those who suffered a ‘mid-life crisis’, trying vainly to recapture their youth. But for many others, middle age was once a time to enjoy the fruits of their labours. MaNY
could expect to have a small mortgage and no dependants, and to reach the peak of their careers. These days many retire still in debt, and have children living at home long into their adulthoods.
Women who have children later may exhaust themselves looking after toddlers, while increasing dependence on new technology means younger competitors threaten to overtake them at work. Longer lifespans mean elderly parents need intense care and attention.
Economist Nina Skero, head of macroeconomics at consultancy Cebr, says that several factors are at play. ‘People who are middle-aged today are likely to help their children financially for longer,’ she explains. ‘If they have savings a large chunk might well go to helping their kids get on the property ladder.
‘also, this generation will have been working in the 2008 economic downturn; this has had a lasting negative impact on this generation’s standard of living.
‘People are becoming debt-free later and later in life,’ adds Skero. ‘Lower earning growth means they might have taken on more debt. also, people are buying properties later in life, which means more financial pressure.’
Susannah is a case in point. She spent her 20s and 30s grappling her way up the career ladder, while raising her sons and putting her own needs after those of her bosses and her family.
The pay- off, she believed, would come later, in the form of respect at work, independent offspring, financial security and time for herself.
But it hasn’t worked out that way. Over the years Susannah and her husband spent their way through the equity in their home, and ever-growing debts put their relationship under pressure. When they split, there was little to share from the sale of the house.
‘at work I feel like the old lady in the office, because my colleagues are all so much younger. Half the time they speak to me like I’m their granny rather than their more experienced colleague.
‘Their lives are laid out in front of them, while I’m here wishing I’d worked harder to hold on to my marriage and hadn’t let myself slip into debt when credit was cheap,’ she says. ‘It just seems so unfair.’
Susannah is far from alone in her frustrations.
Like me, psychotherapist Hilda Burke sees many unhappy middle-agers. These women’s nests are now starting to empty, which suddenly brings two defining elements of their lives — careers and relationships — into sharp focus.
Says Hilda: ‘ This is when women start asking the big questions about their relationship: without the kids, do we work and what are we? Or, now we’ve got more time to spend do we actually want to spend it together?’ adds Hilda: ‘ around 50 is a key age when it comes to career decision-making. again, more questions need to be asked: do I want to slow down, or crank things up and start a second career or push to go higher in the one I already have?
‘This can be challenging in itself,’ she continues. ‘It’s like the clock’s rewound 30 years and you’re having to make the same kind of choices as you did when you left school. You have to try to work out, once again, who you want to be.’
Those are difficult questions to answer as a teenager — and it doesn’t get any easier in middle age. The fact that many women aren’t as financially stable by this age as previous generations only compounds the problem.
Take Lina Killick, 42, a married mum with four children living at home, aged 19, 16, seven and two. a part-time childminder, she lives in Peterborough with husband Charlie, 46, who works for Royal Mail.
This is a second marriage for them both, and Lina says she’ll be paying off her mortgage until she’s 66.
‘With a significant mortgage debt at this point in our lives I find it hard to look to the future because it just feels so daunting,’ she says. ‘I suspect I’ll never be able to give up work.’
Lina feels constantly burdened. ‘I have all the responsibilities of the household: cooking, cleaning, childcare, running the household finances, paying the bills, doing the shopping.
‘Whenever I do something for myself, I come home to everything as I left it. The pots will still be in the sink and the dog will still need to be walked. No one will have thought to put some food in the oven.’
and Lina says this is chipping away at her self-esteem. ‘When I met my husband I was working as an IT professional, with a good salary and a strong sense of independence.
‘I had no hesitation in giving that up when I took on Charlie’s two daughters as my stepchildren; we went on to have two more children together.
‘I had no regrets at the time. But there are moments when I wonder what my life could have been like if I’d invested more in my career.
‘Perhaps if I’d tried harder to have both when I was younger then I’d feel more fulfilled now in
middle age. I’m scared I’ve left it all too late and that things aren’t going to get any better.’ Lina’s sentiments echo those of Susannah — she’s looking back with regret and sees only doom and gloom ahead of her.
One thing she doesn’t have to worry about at present, though, is looking after her parents. They’re still active and in good health.
But for Caroline, a 56-year- old physiotherapist from Leeds, it’s another story. Caroline’s 84-year-old father is disabled and in poor health — her mother is a frail 80-year- old and struggling to cope.
‘My youngest son recently left home, meaning my husband and I should finally be free to enjoy ourselves,’ she says. ‘But all the holidays and spur- ofthemoment weekends away we had planned have gone on hold because my parents are a growing burden. I love them dearly, and I’m glad I can help. ‘But my older sister lives on the other side of the country and only visits rather than coming over to actually help — and so everything falls to me. ‘My husband can’t understand why I feel so torn when he suggests we go away for a few days and all I can think is: “How will Mum cope?” ’ Caroline says she feels she never gets the chance to catch her breath, faced with such complex emotional pressures. But even when money isn’t an issue and your parents are fighting fit, the challenges of modern middle age can still leave you overwhelmed. Rachel Wiles, 46, works in the fashion industry and has an 18- month- old daughter, India, with her husband, David. The family lives in St Albans, Herts, where, says Rachel, their life is cash-rich but time- poor. ‘Nobody’s going to feel sorry for me,’ she concedes. ‘ We’ve got a good joint income and a beautiful baby girl. We have nice holidays, live in a lovely area and lack nothing materially. ‘But there’s no time in my dayto-day existence to really live — life feels like it’s about getting through it, rather than experiencing it. My stress levels constantly hover at seven out of ten.’ Rachel’s day starts at 6am and doesn’t end until she drops into bed at around 10pm. ‘I dash everywhere — dropping India at nursery, getting the train into London. ‘Work is manic, then I rush to pick up my daughter and see to her needs. ‘I leave the house with her cot set up ready for me to slip her back into her baby-sleeping bag at bedtime — that’s how organised and efficient I constantly feel I need to be. ‘Then there’s all the housework to get through, and preparing meals and getting the shopping in. I do the lion’s share because my husband works even longer hours than I do.’ Any woman in her 20s or 30s reading this might roll her eyes and think, ‘ So what?’ But remember, Rachel is nearer to 50 than 40 — she’s juggling a career with raising a baby at an age when some women are becoming grandmothers. ‘I didn’t find love until ten years ago when I met my husband online,’ says Rachel. ‘ We got married in 2012 and India came along in 2017. ‘It’s now hitting me that when I’m 60 she’ll only be 16, and that really scares me. I hope to God I’m still here for her and in good health.
‘Not that I particularly look after myself. There’s no time to go to the gym and even if I find myself with an hour to spare I’m so shattered I’d rather flop down on the sofa than get some exercise.
‘I love my daughter to bits, I just didn’t realise how hard starting a family in middle age would be. The future worries me.’
Fear of the future, knowing that the here and now is already tougher than they ever expected it to be, is a running theme through all these women’s stories. That, and the way they feel unbearably burdened at a time when they thought they’d be embracing new freedoms after years of hard work.
I have no magic wand to wave. The truth is, many of the issues we face in middle age can only be managed, rather than fixed. But I believe that we can at least help ourselves find better ways forward.
Yes, our kids are leaving home later — so we must learn to cherish that extra time with them, seeing it as a chance to strengthen familial bonds. THe
way to do this without turning yourself into a miserable drudge is to redefine the relationship between you. Make clear that they are now adults sharing your home, not children whose every need you must meet.
Talk to them, explaining that they must start to ease the domestic load, instead of adding to it. They might even be able to offer advice and support if you find yourself back in the dating game.
Yes, elderly and infirm parents are a burden — but again, it’s important to cherish the time they have left. That means finding strategies to help care for them without exhausting yourself.
Women like Caroline must seek help from other sources — be that social services or other family members — and demand the support that will allow them to escape occasionally and recharge their batteries. Stand firm without feeling guilty if parents, or indeed siblings, resist the idea.
Above all, we must strive to accept the sad reality that life has changed and the expectations we once held for this stage may never be met — whether that’s because we’re still paying off the mortgage at 59 or not enjoying the freedoms we thought would be ours by now.
Instead, the best thing to do is seek out what’s good in the life we do have.
Whether that’s simply having your health, a partner whose company you still enjoy — no matter how hard it is to get time together — or even a job that challenges you, these are starting points for a more positive outlook.