Midlife often feels like standing in a perfect storm of responsibilities. You’re being pulled from all directions, and it feels like you can’t ever catch a break. But take comfort in knowing that although you’re likely reaching peak stress, these 10 common pressures will soon begin to ease off.
1. Career pressure and stability.
In many careers, midlife coincides with the pressure to maintain peak professional responsibility. You may also feel social pressure from family, friends, or coworkers to do more than you currently are. After all, why would you turn down such a good promotion? Or leave a high-paying job for a less stressful, lower paid job?
Someone who has been in their career for a while may find themselves in a management role, which comes with its own set of responsibilities, often involving other coworkers. However, what you do have to look forward to is familiarity. It gets much easier because you learn how to do your work more effectively and get your priorities in order.
2. Financial responsibilities.
Finances are a touchy subject for most people. Midlife often brings financial responsibilities like mortgage payments, funding children’s education, and retirement savings. You may also find yourself in a position where you need to help out aging parents or adult children who are struggling in today’s economy.
That financial stress can ease up as time goes on, children graduate or get better jobs, and debts decrease. Retirement accounts will be building interest for you to help you be more comfortable in your later years. And financial education can make a world of difference.
3. Parental responsibilities and children.
For many people, midlife is filled with parenting teenagers or watching your teenagers grow into adults. If you had kids in your late 30s or 40s, then you’ve got the stress of those early years when your kids need close supervision and endless attention right at a time when you might not be feeling as energetic as you once did.
There are financial responsibilities in addition to keeping up with your child where you can in their own life. For example, if they are into extracurricular activities that you’d like to see.
Everyone knows how hard it can be as a teenager experiencing puberty and struggling to understand one’s identity. However, these different responsibilities ease up as your child transitions into a young adult when they become more independent and start taking care of themselves. And if your kids are younger, things do get easier as they need a bit less supervision.
4. Caring for parents.
Your midlife is typically when your parents will be in their senior years. Seniors often need some additional care from their family because they just can’t do what they did when they were younger. It’s a normal part of aging that none of us can escape.
As your parents get older, that stress may decrease as they reach the appropriate ages for Social Security, retirement benefits, and other senior benefits. Of course, it may not be completely perfect in that your parents do need the additional support, but it can certainly be much better.
5. Aging and health problems.
Midlife is when you start to feel the effects of aging, as well as the abuse that you put your body through in your younger years if you didn’t, or don’t, take care of yourself. It’s not an unusual time for other health problems, chronic pain, and body changes to start cropping up as well. Ladies, of course, have perimenopause and menopause to look forward to.
The stresses from aging and the health problems you develop often decrease as you get used to your new normal. At some point, you just have to accept that your body isn’t able to do the things that it used to. Exercise and eating well can help keep your body and mind in great condition, but it may take some long-held lifestyle changes to make that happen.
6. Relationship and marriage problems.
As Boulder Family Therapy informs us, many couples experience midlife marital struggles. Statistically, more divorces happen in middle age than at any other time. Cheating, finances, or incompatibilities may start to cause the relationship to crumble. Even more benign problems, like empty nest syndrome, can cause a lot of stress.
The good news is that this can also mark the beginning of renewal and growth. Couples therapy and reinvesting in the relationship can bring you closer together, strengthening your bond. As life goes on, we can learn to love each stage of our loved one’s evolution.
7. Identity crises.
As you get older, you may find yourself questioning your purpose and identity. People often like to say that life is short, but it’s really not. Life is pretty long for a lot of people, it’s just that we waste a lot of time. Looking back on a life of wasted time can be hurtful.
That was time you could have spent understanding yourself, working toward your purpose, and cementing your legacy if that’s something that matters to you. That’s typically referred to as a “midlife crisis,” but it gets easier with self-acceptance and new priorities and purpose. You still have life ahead of you where you can wisely use your time.
8. Maintaining social expectations.
Social pressure never seems to stop – from the time you’re old enough to perceive it as a child until the day you die. Unless you can manage it, there will always be pressure to have it all – a great career, a happy family, and a good lifestyle. These stressful expectations tend to peak in midlife.
However, as you get older, priorities start to shift. After they hit 40, a lot of people stop caring so much about societal expectations because they start seeing that the expectations aren’t necessarily real. After all, what constitutes success to them may mean nothing to you, and vice versa.
9. Time and work-life balance.
Time is a resource that you can’t get back. You can’t work for or buy more time. Instead, all you can do is make the most of the time that you’re given – twenty-four hours a day until your days stop. You need to be vigilant of time thievery.
Work and other people may try to steal your time away from you through constant demands. Midlife is often a time where you have to say, “Enough is enough,” and start setting some boundaries. Boundaries make that balance so much easier to maintain and will reduce this stressor as you move through midlife and beyond. Boundaries show that you respect yourself and your time.
10. Mortality and the fear of the future.
Midlife may cause you to start thinking more about your limited time on earth. After all, at some point, you will have more days behind you than ahead of you. You may start feeling pressure to find purpose and an urgency to accomplish life goals that you haven’t yet.
The good news is that this heightened awareness can also fuel gratitude and an appreciation for the present. That awareness forces you to look more at your present moment. Once you start doing that, you can let some of the stress of an uncertain future go.
