From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicki-larson/are-middleaged-women-done_b_2297847.html
Vicki Larson
01/05/2013
Not too long ago, I asked a friend how she’s doing. After a long pause, she said, “I keep wondering if this is all there is.”
A lot of us have that feeling.
She and I are both 50-something and like many 50-somethings, we are empty-nesters or about to be empty-nesters; we’re either 20-something years into a marriage or any number of years divorced. We’re in midlife, crisis or not; a time when we question what we’ve done — and, more likely, haven’t done — and where to we want to be.
Our conversation was oddly timed, coming just days after Monique Honaman’s provocative post, “I Just Wish He Would Have an Affair”, in which she detailed how many wives have confided in her that they just don’t want to be married anymore:
These women are done. They say they aren’t happy. They say they aren’t in love with their husbands (or any other man — they aren’t having affairs). They say they simply wish they were no longer married to him. They aren’t fulfilled. They wonder if this is how they are doomed to live the rest of their lives (and God-willing, most of them have another 40+ years ahead of them). … The common factor amongst all of these women is that they say that their husbands are really solid, good, nice men … they just don’t want to be married to them anymore because they have fallen out of love.
Honaman doesn’t say how old these women are or how long they’ve been married, but since she indicates they have another 40-plus years ahead of them, it seems that they are middle-aged, too.
Why is midlife so wrought with angst for women? One study found that age 48 is the pivotal year for women’s unhappiness, and women tend to be more prone to depression anyway. But at midlife, we’re dealing with menopause, the loss of our role as nurturer, the loss of our youth and beauty, etc.
Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicki-larson/are-middleaged-women-done_b_2297847.html
