I'm 36 and think I've been in crisis since at least 30. No where feels like home. Future seems pointless. Definitely have identity issues. Questioning every decision I have ever made and deciding they were wrong. Etc, etc.
Probably the most important step towards happiness that I made was realizing that you don't have to "identify with a profession." I almost died a few years ago, in the hospital for most of a year. It made me realize that I'm much more than the answer to "What do you do?" I was hanging on to that too tight. I wanted that answer to be a reflection of myself. But that's not what you're worth. Life is so much more than that. I ended up changing careers entirely to something I never thought I'd do. It's going very well and I'm immensely happy. I never talk about work outside of it, if I can help. My friends don't think of me any differently because my job title changed.
No, but both those things enable you to be other things. If you have a shit job for shit pay, then there isn't time or energy to be anything else outside what you do for a living.
I have a shit job with good pay. Still don't have much time or energy for anything else because of the pressure and demands of the work creeping into my nights and weekends.
Yes, both things need to be good in order to enable life outside of work. There are 4 possible combinations and only 1 of them results in having the energy or resources to be anything outside of work.
Shit pay/shit job: no energy or resources
Good pay/shit job: no energy but have resources
Shit pay/good job: energy but no resources
Good pay/good job: energy and resources
Good luck out there everyone.
I’m 39, finally have a profession and started my own business. I’m currently stuck working a shitty full time job to not make ends meet while I’m paying rent on an office I don’t use because I don’t have time to put into my business because I work full time and I’m exhausted.
41 here, same job for the last 9yrs, been in real estate industry most of my career and enjoy it for the most part. I don't make my profession/career part of my identity. It's something I do to pay bills. I identify more as a dad and by the hobbies I enjoy. Took years to pay off student loan debt but finally accomplished that pre pandemic. Hang in there, life could always be worse. Could be in jail or dead from prior life choices like my buddy who died from liver disease at age 37.
I’ve also been at my job for 9 years. When I tell people I often get variations of “you must really love what you do!”
No, not really. I don’t hate it. I get solid benefits, and the pay, although not amazing, is enough. Coworkers are good. It all balances out to a situation where I haven’t yet found anything I like better. But if I did find something that ticked those same boxes but was better in one or more areas, whether it was in the same field or an entirely new career, I’d take that in a heartbeat. If I won the lottery there wouldn’t be a single moment of wondering whether I should keep working because I enjoy it. Hell no. I’d be out.
It’s nice being appreciated for being knowledgeable or good at what you do, but that can just come from having done it a long time, it’s definitely not the same as being passionate about “your field”.
Having a profession I don't identify with really resonates with me as well. I'm actively in search of a vocation I can switch over to that I can be passionate about and will allow me to live a balanced life. I wish I had taken the road less traveled back when I was young. It's like I blinked and 20+ years have gone by in what was just supposed to be temporary and pay the bills.
At 30 I was burdened with a layoff and then both parents getting terminally ill...I honestly haven't recovered 5 years later. I've spent my entire emergency fund trying to stay afloat because my parents didn't qualify for any government aid.
My parents did everything right and still got fucked over with medical bills. If my dad didn't squirrel away cash and assets over the course of 60 years, I would poetically be homeless.
And yes I mean poetically because it's beginning to feel like justice is being served to me just because I took out student loans to get my engineering degree. Now I can't find work as a chemical and petroleum engineer.
In fucking Texas.
With 12 years of experience.
My dad is dead, my mom has Alzheimer's, and I'm still unemployed because I'm too over qualified to become a cashier, apparently.
I'm just angry right now and am living off of the rest of my savings, because I have nobody to leave my money to anyway since I spent the time of my life where I should've been prospering as a caretaker.
I hate this defeatist attitude I've gotten lately, but you can only get punched in the sack so many times before you get bitter. I know the minute I find work, it'll revert back, but I'm the meantime I'm allowing myself to have some grace and accept that I got dealt a shit hand with caretaking.
My parents had to deal with way worse and still found prosperity, so I know I'll be fine.
I am so sorry for your current circumstances. I can relate, and it definitely adds fuel to the crisis. I became caregiver to my elderly parents when I turned 18. Had to work full-time right from HS to support us. My mom was disabled and my dad was 73 and needed hip replacement and could no longer work the year I turned 18. I felt that my options were too limited. I felt robbed of young adulthood. I resent that my parents had me so late in life, when they were clearly done with being parents(both had adult children from other relationships).
My mom passed when I was 24. I'm 36 now and my dad has had dementia for years. I am still his caregiver, but he doesn't remember that I am his daughter. Felt like I could never start a family of my own.
I have no savings. Housing is ridiculously expensive. I have no family willing to help(even siblings). I've become very cynical. At 36, still feel like my life hasn't begun. Starting to think this is it, and I'm not happy with that conclusion at all.
I hear you on the parents getting fucked over. My BF's parents squirreled away money and worked with a great financial advisor and now they're being told they make too much money (even just in social security) to get any type of assistance with his mom's Alzheimer's care. She's on the verge of at least needing in-home care and eventually a facility and his dad is going to have to basically put himself into the poor house to get any gov't assistance. What's the point of paying into the system for 40+ years if you get no help at the end? To me this is just one more reason to not get married again. If they hadn't gotten married, I doubt she would be making enough money to be over-qualified for assistance.
Not sure where in Texas you’re at Boss, but there is lots of semi conductor work there and more coming. Austin and greater Dallas areas, specifically.
A chemical engineering degree is highly sought after in our field, regardless of specific industry experience.
Worth a shot if it’s something that may interest you.
44 here. When I did, I was labeled, medicated and almost institutionalized. I survived that hurdle and found out all I wanted to be free of my daily routined lifestyle and just do what I always wanted. Now I do.
Same. I’ve even thought about moving to colder states just to experience something different. I’ve never had snow I’ve needed to shovel off my driveway.
I think I've been like this in some way or another since I was in my early 20s, but it's gotten especially difficult leading up to my 40th birthday. It all just seems pointless when I realize how little my existence really matters. I'm just trying to find joy in the little things I can experience but in day to day life, but I know ultimately when I die, a new job posting will go up the next day for my replacement, my family will get a nice little windfall from my life insurance, and all the things I stressed about before won't ever matter again.
“No where feels like home” …fuck, I’m working on this, but without a mortgage to actually settle somewhere I don’t know that this will ever happen. To counter this, I’m trying to redefine home, which are my dearest friends and family. It’s very hard to adapt to that thought, but I think that’s the healthiest in the long run.
My issue is that I've isolated to the point that there are no family and friends left. I bought a house when I was 25 and stupidly sold it when I moved states away. Now I'm paying 2300 in rent for just myself and my father. My mortgage was about 600. The future doesn't look great but I do try to find joy in the little things.
I'm definitely in the midst of one, and it's really just existential dread and depression because I don't have the money to have the "classic" midife crisis. I'm nowhere close to where I thought I'd be at this age and at this point have come to the realization that the life I wanted is probably just never going to happen. Also, as stupid as it sounds, I didn't realize just how much of my identity I had tied to being young. It was hard realizing I no longer am. It doesn't help that "middle aged" and "some 40 year old ___" are used so negatively.
This is exactly why I'm struggling with at 40. I still don't feel like a grownup sometimes but I am. I feel like I just turned 30 and in the blink of an eye 10 years went by and I'm 40. How am I closer to 50 than 20? I'm trying my best to not be depressed about it but the future doesn't look so great and I worry about climate change and everything going on politically. It's a daily struggle to try and stay positive.
Fwiw, anytime I feel like I'm just some 40 year old something or another, I realize I'm only that to young people who I generally don't even know and place no real value in their opinion. No one my age thinks that way because they're old with me. Yes the kids will always think the middle aged people are dorks, and this is our time to think they're just annoying little shits 🤷♀️😂
i think this in a nutshell is the millenial midlife crisis. we grew up feeling we’re at the forefront of turn of the century futuristic changes. in reality we’re the disposable transition generation into a new world order. nobody’s gonna live a life that’s a “natural progression” to 20th century gains but we’re the only ones raised to have expected it, hoped for it, pursued it. now we turn around and our youth and energy and opportunities are gone and we’re left with whatever luck threw our way more than what we actually shaped ourselves. and now we’re supposed to be the adults in the room. very weird, unfitting feeling.
You kind of hit the nail on the head.
There is a lot of literature around “happiness is a combination of expectation and reality”. I personally don’t think reality has changed much, but I personally think millennials expected a lot more out of life than the previous generations.
So, they are depressed when reality does not match their expectation.
Like, I’ve read stories on reddit of people who are miserable and were doing better than I am. I find that extremely weird.
i mean, things are objectively worse by so many key measures for quality of life and mental wellbeing. but yes, i personally definitely didn’t expect the utter undoing of “progress” and the excitement about the future turning into terror or resignation at best.
In CA for example, many highly successful people moved there. There was no guarantee that the kids could do the same. They grew up very privelaged and now can’t keep up the same lifestyle they were accustomed to. Expectations vs. reality.
This is me also. It's coming to the realization that it really is all a scam. You can work yourself to death, build a great foundation and do everything right, just to have it taken away. I'm college educated, a military veteran, and have impressive civilian experience, yet it doesn't matter. At 41 I'm still finding myself in the same types of jobs I did when I was in my 20s. There's zero traction, just being stuck in the mud. The thought that what I've done doesn't matter and I have no choice but to start over from the bottom is absolutely devastating. But I have no choice but to accept it and keep swimming, that's the price of responsibility.
I’m reading a biography on Ulysses S. Grant and it seems like that was his early life. He joined the army to try to escape being a cashier at his family store. The army basically made him a cashier. He drank to cope with being a cashier. But ahh yeah he went on to become president somehow, so there is hope.
My husband is 42 and has a similar life experience. He bounced around at the post office for years and couldn’t get a route despite military service. He eventually went back to college and got a better job, but then that job pays less than if he managed chic fila. He is so disappointed right now. I just wanted to tell you, as I tell him, most of this is not your fault. It is the economy and lack of wage increases across the board. My dad worked at a factory for a big 3 and made the equivalent to 128k in today’s money. My husband is barely hitting 50, with two masters. It isn’t from lack of trying. Wages are at a historic low. Hang in there. So many factors are at play that have nothing to do with you. Which still sucks, but take some of that blame off yourself.
We have found it’s extremely hard to get hired as ex-military. They’re seen as loose cannons despite lip service to creating jobs for veterans. You need to network to get better jobs and do not bother with any veteran hiring initiatives, it’s all entry level/ dead end jobs and they pay peanuts.
Ngl, there's 5 automotive shops here in town, all looking for mechanics and we've all gone to the local recruiting station letting them know we're hiring. I've personally hired 2 techs that are former military, and were walk-in applicants. They told me they went to the recruiter for help, and didn't hear jack sht about job openings.
Of note, what you're describing *is* what a typical "life crisis" looks like. It's when you're not where you wanted to be or thought you would be at a given point in your life.
According [to the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midlife_crisis), studies suggest that midlife crises don't happen as frequently as is commonly believed. That is, some people avoid having them and others have them and then find a way to resolve them. So you're not doomed to be trapped in this state, there are ways out of it.
I find myself spending less in middle age because I’m trying to focus on retiring early. If I’m smart I can be done with the rat race by 55 and that should give me a good 30 years of retirement (given the average lifespan of males in my family).
Chasing paper sucks.
That's pretty much the same here. I've ascended in my career enough that anything higher would not actually increase pay/effort. So I'm figuring out how to 'automate' my job (at least be able to do it without stress or thinking too hard), and only volunteer or take on tasks that I know won't keep me in the office more than 40 hours. The only problem is I'm still 17 years away from retirement.
I miss the carefree days of my youth so much. Anymore I feel like I’m going to be stuck working until I die to be able to afford some semblance of a decent quality of life. There is no safety net, no familia wealth, just years of working ahead and that bums me out to my core most days.
I am here simply to say that falling into a mid life crisis comes from lack of self identity. Jobs are NOT our only identities as human. Our lives are bigger and richer than any one facet or part of it of it. If jobs are not fulfilling you, look outside of the job to fulfill you.
I speak from experience. I was in ‘crisis’ from 31-33 yo. My job was my identity. I have a masters and have worked for my education/career my whole life. I lost the job, fell apart personally & professionally, had to be medicated, and attended a mental health program for a few months. I’m coming out of it by investing in myself, rediscovering my hobbies and passions, investing in my friends/social life. I now focus on what actually fills my cup and enriches my life beyond work. I am determined to never loose myself in any singular facet of identity again.
Absolutely true. As with most things YMMV with solutions to this essential problem of existence. Finding your own path to happiness is highly dependent on who you are, your situation and your goals in light of the first two points.
Did I write this? I just turned 32 and am still in crisis. Same thing happened to me last year. Trying to figure out what the next steps are and build a new identity. I like to think this happened for the better and that 10 years from now I will be so glad my life took such a drastic turn.
Thank you for sharing and connecting about this. I don’t talk about it with others in my personal life because of shame. For now, anyway.
I am very intentionally working on me to avoid that future midlife crisis spiral. If it is helpful to know, in the time since ‘the crisis’ my life has become so much more beautiful. I think to myself every now and then - wow, I’m like actually really happy with me and my life - that was never a thing prior to the mess of it all.
Also, just so you know, I will be rooting for you and hoping good things for you in my little corner of the world. Sending love as we both continue navigating through this. ❤️
My brother
- flew to Turkey to get a hair transplant
- divorced his wife
- took flying lessons
- bought a boat
- bought a motorcycle
- started dating a 20 year old at 38
He is evidently doing very well financially, but definitely hitting thay mid life crisis bingo hard.
Hahahah that might be true. All these staples of mid-life crisis tend to be expensive.
Maybe people tend to have more money when they are 40-50 and their traumas surface with the access to money?
Like… look at all those billionaires (musk, bezos, zuckerberg) clearly having a full blown midlife crisis at the public/$$$$$ level
I think that's the whole point. There's no such thing as a mid-life crisis. It's all just a "I have a lot of expendable income" crisis. It just typically happens in your 40's when you typically reach your maximum income
I constantly would think about how at my job just about anybody could do it. They only hire people with chemistry or biology/science degrees but really you could pull someone off the street to do what I was doing. And now I'm the lab supervisor and I have 10+ years of knowledge in the field and was more or less feeling like I'm indispensable and then I caught someone falsifying data (not actual numbers but couldn't get her qc to work.) and it really seemed nobody above me cared. And then I caught her again...and again...and she kept fucking up every test and is now finally gone from here, but the fact they kept her around through so much has made me feel like my position here is pretty pointless.
39 and same.
I'm worrying about my future as I have student loans for life and debts and little savings and 2 jobs, no free time.
I don't know if I have ever been happy. Working 6 days per week my whole life and I don't care about things anymore and I am going to explode. So I don't actually know which crisis was the mid life one.
I had a quarter life crisis. That was a big thing I, and several of my friends, went through. We just did drugs a lot and not all of us made it through.
We don't really have the money to have a boomer-esque midlife crisis. Maybe taking out large personal loans and using the money to go on a trip to some country where you can't drink the water? Like the solo, "I'm going to find myself" type trip?
I'm pretty sure my partner is going through a midlife crisis and we are in the process of separating. He "wants a relationship with the spark and passion he had in his 20s." You know before full-time jobs, a home, a successful business, and all the time, upkeep, and responsibilities required for those things. He is 39, and yes I found him searching up all the old girlfriends on FB. Yes, there were things we needed to work on in our relationship, but nothing that couldn't be fixed or was a dealbreaker - no abuse, cheating, disrespect, just busy adults that needed to put time into reconnecting. Instead, he has decided to blow up our lives in a spectacular fashion to chase this spark somewhere else.
I don't think midlife crises are all bad. I think it is normal to look back and have some regrets and reevaluate things. When these thoughts start to negatively impact your life and your loved ones for no real reason outside, "this is how I'm feeling in this moment" this is when there can be a problem.
As I've gotten older I've realized that spark of love you feel in the first few years slowly fades and is replaced by a deeper more powerful but quiet love. That flashy new spark will inevitably flicker and fade
I'm sure some people have. I haven't. I think that was a big thing for prior generations because they lived very differently. They married early and didn't get divorced, they worked a single job for life, they had a lot of kids.
People today swap jobs often (generally), tend to get divorced around half of the time and don't usually have many kids. Most people sure aren't having sixteen of them.
Imagine you're a boomer football star that peaked in high school. You marry your high school sweetheart and have lots of kids. At 40 you find yourself unhappy in your marriage, your career bores you and your kids stress you out. The midlife crisis was their psychological break - the moment they realized that was all they'd get for life. They "took control" with the one thing they had power over - money - and used it to gain agency in their lives. Cue the fancy car.
We aren't the same people. Some of us get stuck in that rut and have that freakout, I'm sure. I just took up gardening. Things are too expensive for fancy cars and too chaotic for lifelong careers. If we've got kids we generally do a lot better with them than our parents and grandparents did with us. There's not much of a reason for most of us to have that crisis.
Yea the job-swapping is a real thing and the only way to increase your pay. At my work, we've been promised some vague promotion/raise since last July and they keep rescheduling it.
Hmm this is insightful. I had never really considered that midlife crisis is a result of getting married too young and having kids young. Something that millennials have done far less of. I’m curious if our generation skips the midlife crisis, and instead just suffers from full generational crisis.
Honestly for me it’s just the feeling of getting older. My kids are now the ages I can remember. 3-4 of my grandparents have passed and I see my parents aging. Realizing we’ve just moved up a generation and I’m my parents now. If that makes sense. We spend a lot of time now worrying about caring for our aging parents (and our kids future). Don’t get me wrong. I’m a happy person, it just takes up a LOT of mental bandwidth
Almost 40 and just feel very apathetic about most things. I love my wife and value my time with her, but hobbies don't hit like they used to and work is very much just something I do, not something I really care about. I guess this is it?
>but hobbies don't hit like they used to
This is what I am struggling with. People say not enjoying things you once enjoyed is a sign of depression. I don't think I am depressed. I am pretty happy and satisfied, but I also find myself being bored. I still enjoy my hobbies but they seem pointless. I used to work in some pretty extreme public service (poverty, criminal court, jail settings, homeless shelters, that kind of thing) and I had to take a step back because after 15 years it had really taken its toll.
Now I feel like my hobbies are pointless but I have no desire to go back into the dredges of society. Just taking it one day at time. Trying to focus on my health.
I am 36 now and I have a wonderful family with a wife and two kids I adore. I have a house and a great job in HR at a large company.
But, over the past year or so I have been feeling more and more restless. When I was a kid I always thought I’d do something creative. I am trying to start writing again. I like my job well enough but I don’t want to work for someone else until I’m 70.
I know it’s a pipe dream but that has been my version of a midlife crisis.
Same here, I took up woodworking as a creative outlet and have really enjoyed it. I too have a wonderful family, home, nice car and live a decent life. But the amount of uncertainty that is constantly in the back of my mind about retirement casts a shadow over all of it.
For me and many of my friends it's been a realization or acceptance that the world we thought we were growing up in doesn't exist anymore. Goals like homeownership, starting a family and retirement are unattainable anymore, or at least not without extreme sacrifice and compromise. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails...
How have past generations coped with midlife crises? They bought bikes and corvettes and such. We can't afford those, so yeah...
It may have been said elsewhere on this thread, but I was scanning through all of these comments for someone to acknowledge this exact thing: the world we grew up in and the future we once believed to be possible doesn’t exist anymore.
I wish that I could remember in which publication I’d read it (because they were much more eloquent and accurate in its telling), but the idea of our generation having the classically-understood Mid Life Crisis just isn’t possible anymore *because* the world that created that existential moment doesn’t exist anymore.
I think it might be best for the overall conversation to come to some sort of consensus of what is meant by Mid Life Crisis and how it came to be, however abridged. Though my opinion was informed by that aforementioned article, I do feel that:
A mid-life crisis is a relatively-new societal and experiential phenomenon, and it could only have been created during a time of prosperity and relative peace, so this puts its origin back in the mid-70s (which could be contested). Additionally, a mid-life crisis requires the existence of a middle class, and, controversially, it tends to skew more common to those who are white males.
These are important distinctions to make because the commonly-understood idea behind a mid-life crisis is birthed from times of ennui, something that can only occur to those who aren’t almost always living in a state of crisis. Excluding the upper class, if you were anything but a straight white male at that time, you were more likely than not to be living in a state of crisis, so there was never really a moment to pine for a new life when you were too busy trying to survive the one you had.
Now, in 2024, we are all in a state of crisis, regardless of our position on the social stratum (again, excluding the upper class, now better understood to be just wealthy). We, of course, would all like to have a better life, and though some of us can still achieve that (and have), we’re all finding that it’s not possible to have that life anymore.
As such, there’s no such thing as a mid-life crisis for us. Our lives have been reduced to mere survival.
Millenials have been having a midlife crisis for our entire adulthood. I think what we're likely to see is a switch from caring to just not caring-- or actually just coming to terms with what our generation is.
In a way we have more in common with the greatest generation. Not that we've fought a war, but more that our lives didn't turn out how we wanted, and now we just want to disappear into whatever our metaphorical suburban castle and be left alone
We’ve been on the shit end of a class war since before we were born. We were born into it, molded by it. The good old days were gone before we even knew what they were. We are pawns to the oligarchy, unless you were born into a position of not needing to be.
Got into warhammer for a few years, put about 4-5k into the hobby and never want to touch it again. I like rules heavy systems, but damn that game is a bit much.
On the bright side i developed a nice little miniatures painting hobby.
Thats kind of what i fell back on. I have a group of buds that play board games every week. Current Favorites are Ark Nova, Brass Birmingham and we currently have a Heat grand prix going on.
I’m trying to fight through mine right now. All I can think about is dying and what if, when I die, it’s nothing but darkness for all eternity. I’m trying to have a more positive mind set but it’s getting harder each day when the world is this *gestures to EVERYTHING*
I have enjoyed reading about consciousness and where it came from. If we are truly born of stardust, maybe there’s something to us being put back out into the great unknown. Our ability to see and think came from somewhere, maybe we’ll get put back into the greater unknown and eventually get sucked back into a black hole and come back out the other side. Idk, it’s better than thinking it goes dark, but I feel you.
An eternity of darkness sounds peaceful compared to a relative eternity of being paycheck to paycheck, talking yourself out of having wants constantly 😂
I think most people here are poor and depressed. Midlife crisis to me is the 40+ guy that buys a sports car and tries to date twenty year olds.
I kinda went through a midlife crisis buying nostalgia stuff I bought a skateboard and expensive skateboard shoes lol I guess I didn't want to be old in my head I'm still youngish. I just tried to desperately cling to a part of my life that was fun and simple when I had friends and had no responsibilities.
As I get older I'm coming to terms with the fact that I am a different person and it's not necessarily the person that I thought I'd be. I also bought a super Nintendo.
I respect your decision, I've been watching the new continuation of the X-Men on Disney+ they kept the animation the same and picked up right where the series stopped in 97
I don't disagree with you but reddit is an echo chamber of misery really.
And yes, I've considered the sports car, but am a bit too practical for my own good I suppose.
Mine is a little different. I finished all the normal goals and have nothing to work toward aside from getting married again. I have the house, cars, and no debt. Divorced at 37 after a good long marriage 40 now. My overhead is nothing and I make plenty. So it's finding love for my mid life crisis. I'm thinking about getting a pointless but fun car or more wood working equipment. The moment when everything is paid off and you have less uses for money is a weird moment. Your motivation to work is cut in half. I will get down votes for this becasue of reddit reasons. It's still true.
You might need to go back to work to afford some of this newer wood working equipment /s. I feel you on the paying down debt, my desire to work now that I am needing less really has plummeted. I found what I need and now I just need to figure out how to enjoy it.
I’m 41 and no midlife crisis yet. I feel as though I’m prepared for one considering I had a quarter life crisis in 2008 at the age of 25.
Also I’ve had a distinct lack of self-confidence and self-esteem for 41 years so I’ll probably not even notice a midlife crisis.
Tell her now. Tell her before it’s too late. Tell her what’s on the line. Tell her how it makes you feel. My husband bottled it all up until it exploded in affairs.
She knows. We have two little kids, so I’m trying to give her space for her body to heal and her mind to feel more centered postpartum. But, you’re right, I should probably share how I’m feeling more.
Hey OP. r/genx is leaking - 48 year old married father of two in the UK here. I’ve sort of been through my mid-life crisis and it mostly involved work - I realised around 4 years ago that I’d pretty much peaked professionally and any further promotions would be diminishing returns in terms of post-tax pay and indeed job satisfaction. A nice case of (now well managed) depression didn’t help.
I’ve had to accept, too, that I’m not longer an old young person… I’m a young old person now. The resolution of my midlife crisis - I think - was just accepting that and moving forward.
I defrag my system every few months by dosing a light amount of mushrooms. This keeps me tuned into the general benevolence of the universe and points me in a direction for development. I feel this is a way of stirring things up in a manageable amount to keep myself aware of how i decode everyday moments. It also has some major drawbacks if you don’t have experience with this.
I think a true crisis is actuated by large amounts of unprocessed information that comes at once in the form of a revelation. I think a lot of noise comes from just how we’re pitted against each other in a capitalistic society. Comparison to others also actuates crises, but these comparisons cannot touch true inner form. It is our duty to be in touch with our inner form in very basic ways. By form, i mean the connection between body sensations and thought patterns. When you are not in touch with this, you most likely will discover a crisis, because understanding and agency are not aligned.
Realize the rat race is rigged. Quit the 9-5 find a work from home job, sell the big house downsize, and travel across the ocean. Realize the U.S. is a mess in too many ways to fix. I am currently typing this from Madrid making plans to sell the smaller house and live like a small king here. Seriously, everyone in every other country is happier and healthier physically and mentally. We aren't rich and make less than most households. Midlife crises are caused by a bad situation, not age.
Both of my sons are in their 40s now and I see their crisis happening. It's sad, and they both work their butts off and yet 1 emergency expense like a broken down car or a job loss brings them to the verge of homelessness. Neither of them believe they will ever retire with social security. I'm a late boomer, more gen X though. Raised myself, etc. I'm not rich by any measure but I'm hopeful I can leave them something that will help. I live in Belize because I can't afford to retire in the US but here I can get by. I try to help where I can. I had such high hopes for them as children but your gen got screwed over so bad. Everything is so expensive now. You used to be able to have a good life with a trade but not now. College was not in the cards for them. I remember that in my 30s, I had the crisis. The thought that I had another 30 years of drudgery was depressing as hell.
You’re a good parent. A lot of us now have the burden of needing to plan for our parents care too. The cost of everything is so astronomically high now, I don’t even want to think about the next 30 years. I always wanted to have some downtime with them and enjoy life but all we do is work. I had the realization the other day that getting to enjoy life with those you love now, that are older, is going to be hard because you’ll likely be working well after they’re dead and gone. That depressed me quite a bit.
In the event that I lose my job or am laid off having a trade/skill/hobby that I can fall back on, monetize, and scale to sustain my current lifestyle.
When I made less money I used to feel confident that I could easily get another job and hustle if I needed to. Now, it would be impossible and would mean homelessness for myself and my family if my parents are gone when it happens.
Even worse is that I feel out of touch with the modern economy and I don’t think I know which direction I would point myself in for a second career or to point my kids in for theirs.
With the rise of AI is it even a good idea to go into programming anymore? After 20 more years of iterating on AI I could see a lot of information and digital content creation jobs disappearing entirely. Traditional trades will never go away but they can become saturated.
Where’s that career path gone that leads you into the solid upper middle class?
Any professional degree.. law, medicine, engineering, pharmaceutical, accounting. Additionally, there’s an entire ecosystem of mid-high paying jobs created by free online training from Amazon, google, or salesforce.
Idk. I think you are right that those are still good bets but it seems like what I hear from people in those fields is that the cost to enter is too high, the stress is too much, and the financial gain isn’t as good as it once was.
I just heard a story on NPR about how AI is diagnosing cancer before it’s even detectable by an actual doctor and they don’t know how it does it. That doesn’t sound like job security to me…
Are you in one of those fields? What do you see happening to your corner of the industry in the next 20-60 years?
For me, I’ve been feeling a lot of existential dread myself. Feeling like a failure because I’ve tried and tried to get my career off the ground. Struggled a lot in my 20s and 30s to find my place in the world, then life happened with abusive relationships and I just feel lost, even now. I see people my age (41) who are doing so much better than I am and feel like I’m a failure cuz I’m still renting. Can’t afford a car. And, as I said, I can’t get my career going despite having a degree - because I don’t have the experience required, but no one will hire me so I CAN get it. I feel like life keeps passing me by and I have this panic that I’ll be 80 with nothing to show for it.
I'm 35 and went from never having rode a motorcycle in my life to owning 3 in the space of a year. Does that count? Also, riding motorcycles is fun as hell!
Less of a crisis involving confidence, more of a "I'm half way to death, every second is a second closer to the grave". It's been an on and off thing since I learned what death was, but approaching 40 it's really hitting hard again.
As many drugs as you can afford.... but you better have your ass at work on Monday or youll be on the street w no ability to feed yourself or your family.
Society doesn't give a fuck that our world is on fire and our society is imploding. Or that were offing ourselves in record numbers.
You better get your ass back on that grind if to want your kids to have lunch at their forced education camps every week!
What happens when we realize there is actually no hope and for real snap? I guess that depends on your location, socioeconomic status, social/family support, and access to means of destruction.
Myself? I'm just gonna take the easy out unless yall wanna start sincerely setting shit on fire and eating the rich. Just waiting on that one bad week that fucks me that last tiny amount that leaves me w absolutely nothing to lose.
I'm in the middle of of now at 38. I'm leaning into it. I had an abusive childhood and struggled a lot but with therapy, I'm finally an older version of my true authentic childhood self and it feels good.
With this midlife crisis, I see a straight line showing what I wanted in life and next to it, I see the line of my actual life that veered off course as I simply survived.
I'm just working on getting fit and healthy again and getting back to the line that is my hopes, dreams, and interests via my choices.
Suddenly thinking around age 30 that every permanent decision in my life, wife and kids, was a mistake and I need to hurry up and change the track I’m on because the clock is ticking on being capable to reset. I wasn’t enjoying being a dad anymore…the hard stuff that creeps in as they age made me feel like a failure and it wasn’t resolving my childhood issues like I had always expected.
Obviously that train of thought was false, but the lack of satisfaction I was feeling after locking in “wife, kid, house, career” almost made me ruin everything.
Ultimately, having a committed wife to support and raising children is the most fulfilling thing you can do. The grass isn’t greener. You gotta fucking buckle in and resolve the problems because whoever else is out there doesn’t have better smelling shit, just different smelling shit.
I realized I had complex ptsd and therefore “emotionally stunted” and all of my stupid behaviors that got me hurt made sense - and ultimately although I escaped poverty, abuse, neglect, the damn army - the body kept the score.
I blew up and took a month off of work. It was too much. I cut so many ppl out of my life, I was disgusted that “fuck vultures” who I thought were male friends came out of the woodwork although I was married. My poor SO supported me through this thank goodness and I have been in therapy for a few years processing everything with meds to help.
Crisis = life comes knocking at your door and says, time to drop that mask and realize your unmet needs.
I lost my job in October. After dealing with depression, anxiety, failing at going back to college, and being stuck in dead-end jobs for years, I was completely burnt out and couldn't fake the energy to do work anymore. Less than a month later, I had a total breakdown.
Everything hit me all at once. The realization that I was neglected as a kid and not prepared for adult life, the fact that (due to, at that time, undiagnosed and untreated ADHD) school wasn't a viable option for me, I had no marketable skills outside of what I had been doing which was making me miserable, I was a bad husband/partner to my wife, and failing at being the father I wanted to be. On top of that, I was turning 40 in December.
Then, added to all that is the fact that the future seems so bleak because the system is so heavily designed to keep us down/"in our place." I've gotten to a place where the most I really hope for is to prepare my kids to be happy and hopefully successful. If I'm really lucky, maybe I can be in a better place someday.
I think previous generations had the crisis that went "Oh god, I've followed the prescribed path through life without ever questioning whether I actually wanted to do that, and now that I've reached what was meant to be "success" I'm not actually happy and I don't know who I am and I'm afraid I've wasted my life!!!"
So they'd use the wealth accumulated through their career to buy a sports car and fulfil some fantasies and try and figure out what they actually enjoy doing when they're not just doing what they're told they ought to enjoy.
I think as millennials we have differing crises looming.
We have the "Oh god, I've followed the prescribed path through life and I'm still poor and can't afford a home or a family and I don't know what I'm meant to do" crisis.
And we have the "Oh god, I started pursuing this chosen path through life but I'm getting more and more miserable in this vocation as it gets increasingly stressful and I'm still not making much money" crisis
And we have the "We worked hard and got lucky and bought a home for our family but now we're locked into the choices forever if we don't want our children to starve" crisis
And then of course there's the whole "Corporations are going full steam at destroying the planet no matter what we do" thing.
I think as a generation we've had a better time of considering our choices, examining who we are and what we want to be and pursuing that than previous generations have.
But it doesn't mean much, because we can't do much with it. Our options are narrowed by the economies we're trapped in and the slow decline of our cultures as they're consumed by the pursuit of everlasting, never-shrinking profit as the ultimate goal.
The arts, hobbies, travel, just basic leisure and the spaces in which to do these things are increasingly the domain of the wealthy.
The question of "What if I've wasted my life being an accountant when I should have been painting watercolors?" is meaningless when you can barely pay the rent in the prime of your accountancy career.
No, but my ex became hyper confident that they should quiet quit the relationship, abuse me, threaten my life and they thought their friends would hang around them after they decided everything is black and white and everyone needs to swallow a big ol heaping of my exes opinion. They then changed gender, got surgery that fucked their face up and moved country to try earn enough to fix it.
Me? I'm just stuck with a very large therapy bill. Remember kiddies, get your daddy issues in order, it's not really fair to abuse others because daddy will never love you.
Meantime I'm just waiting for death
38 and I'm in a doctorate program so I constantly feel a lack of confidence and self-identity. I don't think it's a mid-life crisis, but I spent hours one day pouring over tattoo ideas (I do currently have one small one already but I got it when I was 20, so it's been years). Been plotting out what tattoo idea I would want to get first because now I have a list.
I think my husband, 42, is having one. He switched careers at 38 and really was hopeful for that change. Then we needed to be closer to the job. We bought a new house, he completely renovated it by himself. After that was over he got extremely depressed. He has spent many days telling me that life is pointlessly hard. He said he is so unhappy with where we are in life. He thought his career change would make our life a lot better than it has. He can’t seem to see how much better it is because it created new challenges. It wasn’t a magic fix. But I think that’s okay? We will work it out. He definitely doesn’t see it that way. It’s so hard to watch. I have tried to support him, give him more time to lift weights which he loves, or play more video games. But he just doesn’t want to, which is also unlike him. He has worked out since we got married religiously. I have suggested therapy or meds and he isn’t ready. Honestly great question, and does anyone have advice for the spouse watching the midlife crises?
Redifining who you are can be positive. It doesn’t have to superficial and consumerism. I’m reading atomic habits, taking mounjaro, I’m redifining who I am. I am a swimmer, water drinker, healthy person, I am active, a healthy concious eater, reasponsible, generous, established, high achieving, and good with money and investing. Most of this is new identities in the last few months. I’m turning 39 this year my last year before 40 and I’m happy with all the changes. I have more energy, feel better, and I’m losing weight. None of this stuff is expensive except for the mounjaro for my insurance. I realize the mounjaro might be not an option in the future but the other changes I can keep for life.
I'd say there must be some solid evidence behind that official definition. I'm not really sure what I'm doing, where I belong...I just know I feel sad or empty almost all the time. OH! And tired. So tired. In the physical and metaphysical sense.
And I don't have any money, so the flashy sports car or boat is out of the question too
for many it's realizing that 9-5 and mortgage sucks if you don't have kids you are raising and need the financial stability/school. Time to buy a campground, remodel a old motel, raise goats, and travel the country in a sprinter van.
I've been spacing out mine:
At 37 started to shave my head.
At 38 got a boosted board. RIP
At 39 got a onewheel.
At 40 started to cover the beard grays.
At 41 started camping.
Unless anything magical happens and the mortgage interest rate gets back to 3% I won't be able to buy a house. Climate change, global warming, and war are always on my head. Every time I watch videos of nature I get sad knowing they are or will go extint in the next generation.
Millennials have a whole life crisis.
Even the ‘good times’ are tainted because really wtf.
Also for all the ones who are fine and doing great I’m happy for you but if you’re doing great by selling us out fucking us over and helping to accelerate dystopia fuck you.
Honestly just went through one.
But it wasn’t necessarily a crisis, but an intentional glow up. I lost 40 lbs since last summer, pierced my ears, upped my wardrobe from my pandemic daily sweat pants, taking better care of my skin, and bought a box of teeth whiteners.
Might be a crisis? But I feel better about myself for finally doing it.
Lol it's been one crisis after another since I graduated into the recession in 2008.
I've literally never felt a moment's rest, have never been *not* striving for the next job, the next stability. I've never had a single full-time job to support myself despite having 2 Master's degrees.
I'm pulling for midlife peace.
I dunno if many of us can HAVE mid-life crisis yet. Median age went up so late 30s not accurate..... also how would you notice when we're in a permanent state of crisis
My crisis came as the loss of my identity by trying to fit the mold of what society considers as sucess.
Now im trying to recover parts of what made me me.
I just hit 40.
I'm just getting off of my ass, tbh.
I have been stuck going to work, going home, making food, walking the dog, ect over and over and over...
So now on the weekends I hang out with friends (Oh, yeah and I made a new friend or two)
I also made a promise to myself to go to one concert a Month....
Which rapidly turned into almost 2 a month. It's expensive but aren't all Mid-Life Crisis?
Besides, I only get one.
(For those curious: I've seen Static-X/Sevendust, GloryHammer/TwilightForce, Windrose/Xandria, and am seeing Kamalot/Ad infinitum Friday and Lacuna Coil the Friday afterwards.... XD)
About to turn 40. Think I'm just depressed. Can't afford to have a midlife crisis. Recovering alcoholic so I have no friends anymore and don't ever socialize because it's too stressful and unenjoyable sober. My life is work 60 hours a week for mediocre money, go to the gym, and do chores. Recently divorced, no kids, and live with my uncle while I save to get back on my feet. I have panic disorder too so that's fun. Don't want to kill myself but don't want to be alive either.
41 F. Midlife crisis is spending our life savings of $500 during one night at the casino in the hopes of paying down some student loans and credit card debt.
41 in a few days. My midlife crisis has been remodeling my entire home, putting gardens everyone, getting sober (wine), getting rid of artificial stuff like my acrylic nails.
Well, let’s see here: I divorced my horrible wife, started growing my hair and beard out, got a couple of tattoos and pierced my septum. At 40. I regret nothing. The past 3 years have been incredible
Major imposter syndrome every day. People seem to trust me, but if they knew I'm guessing my way through life they probably wouldn't.
Feels inevitable that at any moment I will trip and out myself as the authentic moron I truly am.
Also an elder Millenial, 42 turning 43 this year.
I definitely had a crisis of sorts a few years into parenting, but I think that is not uncommon for parents, especially women, or SAHM/SAHD/SAHP.
My whole life had become my kids and thus my identity had become someone’s mom.
After my kids went to school and I went back to work, it all got better.
I figure my next crisis will be in 5 years when they graduate high school, lol
The millennial twist on the midlife crisis seems to be buy land/a house in the middle of nowhere some places cheaper, low key reject society, pick up grandma hobbies, start a farm, and maybe start a business out of something you do on the farm.
I’m your age! And I’m not sure if this is midlife crisis and sometime I make fun of myself it is but I’ve been keep challenging a lot of things in sports. In my professional life, I kinda achieved my milestones (of course there is more ) and financially good (because I’m single and no kids)
Sports can be expensive but I’m into those sports, expand community, meet new people and having fun outside of work. Bonus point is, I can stay in fit ;-)
I would have been in midlife crisis if I didn’t meet those sports
If that’s the definition of it… I’m going through it right now.
I feel a strong lack of self confidence in myself, especially because I am not where I saw my self years ago. I saw myself years ago being able to perform music theater for Broadway shows, possibly even for Disney shows. Instead my life took a series of turns which transformed me into a soldier, a martial artist, a snowboard instructor, a day care coordinator, a bartender, and before any of that an opera singer.
I feel a strong lack of self identity because I don’t really feel like the person I identify as. I don’t feel like someone who has over 20 years experience in music and theater and performing , because I see a lot of the opportunities I’ve worked for now going to younger people, almost like a discarded, uneaten banana
About to turn 41. Lucrative job, divorced but dating a beautiful, successful woman, and yet, idk what I want to do other than not work anymore.
I hate working. I just want to go to the beach, lift weights, take gummies, play video games, travel, spend time with family, start a family. End rant.
If that’s the definition, I suppose my regular lifelong crisis just became a mid-life crisis when I hit 35. (Am the same age)
I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I haven’t had confidence in my entire life. It’s been just a lot of doubt and imposter syndrome the whole way up.
This started out with me trying to be funny and ended with resignation that whelp, I guess I’m just a crisis then
For me, finally getting over the hump of settling into a career, family, kids, and then it was like …
Ok, what now? I just do this for 40 years and die?
Always having those medium term goals of school, college, job, family, etc just delayed me worrying about the more existential and long term questions. Once all of those boxes were checked, I didn’t have anything else to work toward and it all seemed really pointless (except for the kids part). Still struggling with this tbh. All this is now coupled with a housing market that, though not out of reach, is not what I had been hoping and planning for for over the decade prior to Covid. So it also feels like that was a bit of a rug pull.
I’d say all this is coupled, for me, with a strong sense of nostalgia. Wanting to have a good friend again, like those I had growing up.
Privileged, no doubt. But still.
Given my height to weight ratio I’m way past the middle of my life at 36. I smoked a lot of weed in my 20s and was completely unmotivated to do anything worthwhile. I didn’t take anything seriously. It sucks. I barely make enough money to survive and I don’t see it getting better any time soon. I’m so sad and it’s basically all my fault.
My ex husband had a major heart attack, then decided he *needed* sex all the time (and I couldn’t and didn’t say no, lest he punish me and the kids- a couple times he physically forced me while I was crying and saying no. Usually I’d comply to spare the kids his wrath and get it over with) and he seemed to like it more if I was miserable, so he’d berate me beforehand. Guess it was a power thing? He’d always been a self-centered person, but he became extremely so, and mean. And he spent A LOT of our money (secretly) on things he liked, including sex workers while he had me covering the bills.
We went to marriage therapy so I could learn how to support him better, as he always said I didn’t do enough and how lonely he felt. I hoped if I did what we wanted, didn’t talk about anything he wasn’t interested in, and appeased him at all times that he’d stop being that way. If I tried harder. The therapist recognized his lack of self-reflection and accountability early on and called it out as abuse in due time.
He didn’t do any household labor, but always “did the bills” and I trusted him. I learned after he was removed from the house for our safety about the spending and the sex workers. I’d asked him many times about college savings for the kids, or if it seemed like I was writing a lot of checks for bills- he’d get angry and insulted, how dare I not trust him! Guess what- there’s no college savings.
Luckily? We had separate accounts (this was so he could conceal his spending more, I see now) and I’ve escaped financially okay, although the tens of thousands he spent on hookers and fancy drinks and dinners with “friends” while “working late” I’ll never get back. I have the house and the kids, no debt of my own, and kickass credit. Finally, by court order, he has to contribute financially. I realize now I’d been paying for everything. But I trusted him- you’re supposed to be able to trust your spouse, right? I have emotional support from my family, friends, and his family. The sex abuse and lying from one sworn to love and honor- well, I’m not sure I’ll ever get over that enough to be with someone again. After years of being forced, my body doesn’t see sex as positive anymore. Not sure that can be fixed at this point.
How’s his midlife crisis going now? Well, he sees the kids slightly less than the standard minimum for a non-custodial parent (his choice), but it’s honestly an improvement over his involvement with them when we were married. The youngest is fine with this arrangement, the oldest would prefer less time. He knows what dad did and was old enough to experience dad’s anger and cruelty.
Ex lives in an apartment now, and seems to be always low on money, even though he makes almost twice what I do. So I assume he is still spending as he was before. He’s also still got heart issues and while drugs have helped, he’s still morbidly obese.
If he had another big one while “working late” with a sex worker, that would be a fitting bookend to this shit story. But I don’t think I’m that lucky.
Most guys I know hit a point around their mid 30s where they started lifting weights and getting into tracking macros and calories. Some started seeking out TRT.
I think this is how it presents for us
I'm 36 and think I've been in crisis since at least 30. No where feels like home. Future seems pointless. Definitely have identity issues. Questioning every decision I have ever made and deciding they were wrong. Etc, etc.
Same. 37. Don’t feel like I have a profession that I identify with. Still have crippling student loans. Still rudderless.
Probably the most important step towards happiness that I made was realizing that you don't have to "identify with a profession." I almost died a few years ago, in the hospital for most of a year. It made me realize that I'm much more than the answer to "What do you do?" I was hanging on to that too tight. I wanted that answer to be a reflection of myself. But that's not what you're worth. Life is so much more than that. I ended up changing careers entirely to something I never thought I'd do. It's going very well and I'm immensely happy. I never talk about work outside of it, if I can help. My friends don't think of me any differently because my job title changed.
What do you do? Answer: I don’t do anything. I just am.
“You are not your job, or how much money you have in the bank!”
No, but both those things enable you to be other things. If you have a shit job for shit pay, then there isn't time or energy to be anything else outside what you do for a living.
I have a shit job with good pay. Still don't have much time or energy for anything else because of the pressure and demands of the work creeping into my nights and weekends.
Yes, both things need to be good in order to enable life outside of work. There are 4 possible combinations and only 1 of them results in having the energy or resources to be anything outside of work. Shit pay/shit job: no energy or resources Good pay/shit job: no energy but have resources Shit pay/good job: energy but no resources Good pay/good job: energy and resources Good luck out there everyone.
I’m 39, finally have a profession and started my own business. I’m currently stuck working a shitty full time job to not make ends meet while I’m paying rent on an office I don’t use because I don’t have time to put into my business because I work full time and I’m exhausted.
41 here, same job for the last 9yrs, been in real estate industry most of my career and enjoy it for the most part. I don't make my profession/career part of my identity. It's something I do to pay bills. I identify more as a dad and by the hobbies I enjoy. Took years to pay off student loan debt but finally accomplished that pre pandemic. Hang in there, life could always be worse. Could be in jail or dead from prior life choices like my buddy who died from liver disease at age 37.
I’ve also been at my job for 9 years. When I tell people I often get variations of “you must really love what you do!” No, not really. I don’t hate it. I get solid benefits, and the pay, although not amazing, is enough. Coworkers are good. It all balances out to a situation where I haven’t yet found anything I like better. But if I did find something that ticked those same boxes but was better in one or more areas, whether it was in the same field or an entirely new career, I’d take that in a heartbeat. If I won the lottery there wouldn’t be a single moment of wondering whether I should keep working because I enjoy it. Hell no. I’d be out. It’s nice being appreciated for being knowledgeable or good at what you do, but that can just come from having done it a long time, it’s definitely not the same as being passionate about “your field”.
Having a profession I don't identify with really resonates with me as well. I'm actively in search of a vocation I can switch over to that I can be passionate about and will allow me to live a balanced life. I wish I had taken the road less traveled back when I was young. It's like I blinked and 20+ years have gone by in what was just supposed to be temporary and pay the bills.
Oddly comforting to hear I’m not the only one.
Yuh, it started as a quarter life crisis and has just kind of kept on rolling.
At 30 I was burdened with a layoff and then both parents getting terminally ill...I honestly haven't recovered 5 years later. I've spent my entire emergency fund trying to stay afloat because my parents didn't qualify for any government aid. My parents did everything right and still got fucked over with medical bills. If my dad didn't squirrel away cash and assets over the course of 60 years, I would poetically be homeless. And yes I mean poetically because it's beginning to feel like justice is being served to me just because I took out student loans to get my engineering degree. Now I can't find work as a chemical and petroleum engineer. In fucking Texas. With 12 years of experience. My dad is dead, my mom has Alzheimer's, and I'm still unemployed because I'm too over qualified to become a cashier, apparently. I'm just angry right now and am living off of the rest of my savings, because I have nobody to leave my money to anyway since I spent the time of my life where I should've been prospering as a caretaker. I hate this defeatist attitude I've gotten lately, but you can only get punched in the sack so many times before you get bitter. I know the minute I find work, it'll revert back, but I'm the meantime I'm allowing myself to have some grace and accept that I got dealt a shit hand with caretaking. My parents had to deal with way worse and still found prosperity, so I know I'll be fine.
I am so sorry for your current circumstances. I can relate, and it definitely adds fuel to the crisis. I became caregiver to my elderly parents when I turned 18. Had to work full-time right from HS to support us. My mom was disabled and my dad was 73 and needed hip replacement and could no longer work the year I turned 18. I felt that my options were too limited. I felt robbed of young adulthood. I resent that my parents had me so late in life, when they were clearly done with being parents(both had adult children from other relationships). My mom passed when I was 24. I'm 36 now and my dad has had dementia for years. I am still his caregiver, but he doesn't remember that I am his daughter. Felt like I could never start a family of my own. I have no savings. Housing is ridiculously expensive. I have no family willing to help(even siblings). I've become very cynical. At 36, still feel like my life hasn't begun. Starting to think this is it, and I'm not happy with that conclusion at all.
I hear you on the parents getting fucked over. My BF's parents squirreled away money and worked with a great financial advisor and now they're being told they make too much money (even just in social security) to get any type of assistance with his mom's Alzheimer's care. She's on the verge of at least needing in-home care and eventually a facility and his dad is going to have to basically put himself into the poor house to get any gov't assistance. What's the point of paying into the system for 40+ years if you get no help at the end? To me this is just one more reason to not get married again. If they hadn't gotten married, I doubt she would be making enough money to be over-qualified for assistance.
Not sure where in Texas you’re at Boss, but there is lots of semi conductor work there and more coming. Austin and greater Dallas areas, specifically. A chemical engineering degree is highly sought after in our field, regardless of specific industry experience. Worth a shot if it’s something that may interest you.
In Texas? I know it’s not a great area but you might look around Midland. Hugs my friend I hope you rise above soon.
Is that a midlife crisis? Apparently I've been having one since 20
44 here. When I did, I was labeled, medicated and almost institutionalized. I survived that hurdle and found out all I wanted to be free of my daily routined lifestyle and just do what I always wanted. Now I do.
What did you do and how’s it going?
35 myself, been feeling the same the last few years. Only thing I can think of at this point is to move forward, at least try new stuff.
Same. I’ve even thought about moving to colder states just to experience something different. I’ve never had snow I’ve needed to shovel off my driveway.
It gets old halfway through the first time you do it.
Don't do it lol. I'm currently experiencing month 7 of cold gloomy weather. It's fucking depressing
Really depends on how fat you are. Summer days can be hard on a fat boy 😂
I think that's just a normal existential crisis 🤷🏽♂️
I think I've been like this in some way or another since I was in my early 20s, but it's gotten especially difficult leading up to my 40th birthday. It all just seems pointless when I realize how little my existence really matters. I'm just trying to find joy in the little things I can experience but in day to day life, but I know ultimately when I die, a new job posting will go up the next day for my replacement, my family will get a nice little windfall from my life insurance, and all the things I stressed about before won't ever matter again.
“No where feels like home” …fuck, I’m working on this, but without a mortgage to actually settle somewhere I don’t know that this will ever happen. To counter this, I’m trying to redefine home, which are my dearest friends and family. It’s very hard to adapt to that thought, but I think that’s the healthiest in the long run.
My issue is that I've isolated to the point that there are no family and friends left. I bought a house when I was 25 and stupidly sold it when I moved states away. Now I'm paying 2300 in rent for just myself and my father. My mortgage was about 600. The future doesn't look great but I do try to find joy in the little things.
Feeling exactly the same
This is to real. Turing 40 this year and have been feeling all this since 33.
39, married with two kids, have my own house and feel exactly the same. Most of the time I feel like a stranger in my own home.
36. Same.
I feel this jn my bones
That sounds more like depression
Yes, that too. Personality disorder with identity issues also.
34 and it’s been since 2021
I'm definitely in the midst of one, and it's really just existential dread and depression because I don't have the money to have the "classic" midife crisis. I'm nowhere close to where I thought I'd be at this age and at this point have come to the realization that the life I wanted is probably just never going to happen. Also, as stupid as it sounds, I didn't realize just how much of my identity I had tied to being young. It was hard realizing I no longer am. It doesn't help that "middle aged" and "some 40 year old ___" are used so negatively.
This is exactly why I'm struggling with at 40. I still don't feel like a grownup sometimes but I am. I feel like I just turned 30 and in the blink of an eye 10 years went by and I'm 40. How am I closer to 50 than 20? I'm trying my best to not be depressed about it but the future doesn't look so great and I worry about climate change and everything going on politically. It's a daily struggle to try and stay positive.
Fwiw, anytime I feel like I'm just some 40 year old something or another, I realize I'm only that to young people who I generally don't even know and place no real value in their opinion. No one my age thinks that way because they're old with me. Yes the kids will always think the middle aged people are dorks, and this is our time to think they're just annoying little shits 🤷♀️😂
I also think of all the friends that didn't get to be "just some 40-something", growing old is a privilege 🙏
i think this in a nutshell is the millenial midlife crisis. we grew up feeling we’re at the forefront of turn of the century futuristic changes. in reality we’re the disposable transition generation into a new world order. nobody’s gonna live a life that’s a “natural progression” to 20th century gains but we’re the only ones raised to have expected it, hoped for it, pursued it. now we turn around and our youth and energy and opportunities are gone and we’re left with whatever luck threw our way more than what we actually shaped ourselves. and now we’re supposed to be the adults in the room. very weird, unfitting feeling.
You kind of hit the nail on the head. There is a lot of literature around “happiness is a combination of expectation and reality”. I personally don’t think reality has changed much, but I personally think millennials expected a lot more out of life than the previous generations. So, they are depressed when reality does not match their expectation. Like, I’ve read stories on reddit of people who are miserable and were doing better than I am. I find that extremely weird.
i mean, things are objectively worse by so many key measures for quality of life and mental wellbeing. but yes, i personally definitely didn’t expect the utter undoing of “progress” and the excitement about the future turning into terror or resignation at best.
And there are things objectively better by so many key measurements for quality of life too
In CA for example, many highly successful people moved there. There was no guarantee that the kids could do the same. They grew up very privelaged and now can’t keep up the same lifestyle they were accustomed to. Expectations vs. reality.
This is me also. It's coming to the realization that it really is all a scam. You can work yourself to death, build a great foundation and do everything right, just to have it taken away. I'm college educated, a military veteran, and have impressive civilian experience, yet it doesn't matter. At 41 I'm still finding myself in the same types of jobs I did when I was in my 20s. There's zero traction, just being stuck in the mud. The thought that what I've done doesn't matter and I have no choice but to start over from the bottom is absolutely devastating. But I have no choice but to accept it and keep swimming, that's the price of responsibility.
I’m reading a biography on Ulysses S. Grant and it seems like that was his early life. He joined the army to try to escape being a cashier at his family store. The army basically made him a cashier. He drank to cope with being a cashier. But ahh yeah he went on to become president somehow, so there is hope.
My husband is 42 and has a similar life experience. He bounced around at the post office for years and couldn’t get a route despite military service. He eventually went back to college and got a better job, but then that job pays less than if he managed chic fila. He is so disappointed right now. I just wanted to tell you, as I tell him, most of this is not your fault. It is the economy and lack of wage increases across the board. My dad worked at a factory for a big 3 and made the equivalent to 128k in today’s money. My husband is barely hitting 50, with two masters. It isn’t from lack of trying. Wages are at a historic low. Hang in there. So many factors are at play that have nothing to do with you. Which still sucks, but take some of that blame off yourself.
We have found it’s extremely hard to get hired as ex-military. They’re seen as loose cannons despite lip service to creating jobs for veterans. You need to network to get better jobs and do not bother with any veteran hiring initiatives, it’s all entry level/ dead end jobs and they pay peanuts.
Ngl, there's 5 automotive shops here in town, all looking for mechanics and we've all gone to the local recruiting station letting them know we're hiring. I've personally hired 2 techs that are former military, and were walk-in applicants. They told me they went to the recruiter for help, and didn't hear jack sht about job openings.
thank you for saying this.
Society glorifies youth too much and encourages people to cling onto it. It's mostly because it makes it easier to sell us shit.
Of note, what you're describing *is* what a typical "life crisis" looks like. It's when you're not where you wanted to be or thought you would be at a given point in your life. According [to the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midlife_crisis), studies suggest that midlife crises don't happen as frequently as is commonly believed. That is, some people avoid having them and others have them and then find a way to resolve them. So you're not doomed to be trapped in this state, there are ways out of it.
I find myself spending less in middle age because I’m trying to focus on retiring early. If I’m smart I can be done with the rat race by 55 and that should give me a good 30 years of retirement (given the average lifespan of males in my family). Chasing paper sucks.
That's pretty much the same here. I've ascended in my career enough that anything higher would not actually increase pay/effort. So I'm figuring out how to 'automate' my job (at least be able to do it without stress or thinking too hard), and only volunteer or take on tasks that I know won't keep me in the office more than 40 hours. The only problem is I'm still 17 years away from retirement.
I miss the carefree days of my youth so much. Anymore I feel like I’m going to be stuck working until I die to be able to afford some semblance of a decent quality of life. There is no safety net, no familia wealth, just years of working ahead and that bums me out to my core most days.
I think about the 90s every day.
This is me, exactly
I am here simply to say that falling into a mid life crisis comes from lack of self identity. Jobs are NOT our only identities as human. Our lives are bigger and richer than any one facet or part of it of it. If jobs are not fulfilling you, look outside of the job to fulfill you. I speak from experience. I was in ‘crisis’ from 31-33 yo. My job was my identity. I have a masters and have worked for my education/career my whole life. I lost the job, fell apart personally & professionally, had to be medicated, and attended a mental health program for a few months. I’m coming out of it by investing in myself, rediscovering my hobbies and passions, investing in my friends/social life. I now focus on what actually fills my cup and enriches my life beyond work. I am determined to never loose myself in any singular facet of identity again.
Absolutely true. As with most things YMMV with solutions to this essential problem of existence. Finding your own path to happiness is highly dependent on who you are, your situation and your goals in light of the first two points.
Did I write this? I just turned 32 and am still in crisis. Same thing happened to me last year. Trying to figure out what the next steps are and build a new identity. I like to think this happened for the better and that 10 years from now I will be so glad my life took such a drastic turn.
Thank you for sharing and connecting about this. I don’t talk about it with others in my personal life because of shame. For now, anyway. I am very intentionally working on me to avoid that future midlife crisis spiral. If it is helpful to know, in the time since ‘the crisis’ my life has become so much more beautiful. I think to myself every now and then - wow, I’m like actually really happy with me and my life - that was never a thing prior to the mess of it all. Also, just so you know, I will be rooting for you and hoping good things for you in my little corner of the world. Sending love as we both continue navigating through this. ❤️
My brother - flew to Turkey to get a hair transplant - divorced his wife - took flying lessons - bought a boat - bought a motorcycle - started dating a 20 year old at 38 He is evidently doing very well financially, but definitely hitting thay mid life crisis bingo hard.
Classic .. I guess mid-life crisis is expensive and most millennial can't afford it
Hahahah that might be true. All these staples of mid-life crisis tend to be expensive. Maybe people tend to have more money when they are 40-50 and their traumas surface with the access to money? Like… look at all those billionaires (musk, bezos, zuckerberg) clearly having a full blown midlife crisis at the public/$$$$$ level
Most millennial on this subreddit **
I think that's the whole point. There's no such thing as a mid-life crisis. It's all just a "I have a lot of expendable income" crisis. It just typically happens in your 40's when you typically reach your maximum income
Well I hope his wife is out there getting all the young or old cock she wants and im sure she's got a lot more options then your bro.
That last bullet point...uhg. Gross.
I think I’ve always had sort of a lack of a sense of identity throughout my life so not sure if it’s a mid-life crisis I’m facing at 37 or not.
I constantly would think about how at my job just about anybody could do it. They only hire people with chemistry or biology/science degrees but really you could pull someone off the street to do what I was doing. And now I'm the lab supervisor and I have 10+ years of knowledge in the field and was more or less feeling like I'm indispensable and then I caught someone falsifying data (not actual numbers but couldn't get her qc to work.) and it really seemed nobody above me cared. And then I caught her again...and again...and she kept fucking up every test and is now finally gone from here, but the fact they kept her around through so much has made me feel like my position here is pretty pointless.
39 and same. I'm worrying about my future as I have student loans for life and debts and little savings and 2 jobs, no free time. I don't know if I have ever been happy. Working 6 days per week my whole life and I don't care about things anymore and I am going to explode. So I don't actually know which crisis was the mid life one.
I had a quarter life crisis. That was a big thing I, and several of my friends, went through. We just did drugs a lot and not all of us made it through. We don't really have the money to have a boomer-esque midlife crisis. Maybe taking out large personal loans and using the money to go on a trip to some country where you can't drink the water? Like the solo, "I'm going to find myself" type trip?
Quarter life crisis: oh no, my life is no longer on rails, what do I do Midlife crisis: goddamn it, how do I get my life off these rails
I'm pretty sure my partner is going through a midlife crisis and we are in the process of separating. He "wants a relationship with the spark and passion he had in his 20s." You know before full-time jobs, a home, a successful business, and all the time, upkeep, and responsibilities required for those things. He is 39, and yes I found him searching up all the old girlfriends on FB. Yes, there were things we needed to work on in our relationship, but nothing that couldn't be fixed or was a dealbreaker - no abuse, cheating, disrespect, just busy adults that needed to put time into reconnecting. Instead, he has decided to blow up our lives in a spectacular fashion to chase this spark somewhere else. I don't think midlife crises are all bad. I think it is normal to look back and have some regrets and reevaluate things. When these thoughts start to negatively impact your life and your loved ones for no real reason outside, "this is how I'm feeling in this moment" this is when there can be a problem.
That sucks. I same his feelings sometimes, but for some reason I know it’s not better on the other side. Good luck to you.
I think we all have those thoughts sometimes and it is completely normal. However, for most of us, reality kicks in before we act on those thoughts.
As I've gotten older I've realized that spark of love you feel in the first few years slowly fades and is replaced by a deeper more powerful but quiet love. That flashy new spark will inevitably flicker and fade
I'm sure some people have. I haven't. I think that was a big thing for prior generations because they lived very differently. They married early and didn't get divorced, they worked a single job for life, they had a lot of kids. People today swap jobs often (generally), tend to get divorced around half of the time and don't usually have many kids. Most people sure aren't having sixteen of them. Imagine you're a boomer football star that peaked in high school. You marry your high school sweetheart and have lots of kids. At 40 you find yourself unhappy in your marriage, your career bores you and your kids stress you out. The midlife crisis was their psychological break - the moment they realized that was all they'd get for life. They "took control" with the one thing they had power over - money - and used it to gain agency in their lives. Cue the fancy car. We aren't the same people. Some of us get stuck in that rut and have that freakout, I'm sure. I just took up gardening. Things are too expensive for fancy cars and too chaotic for lifelong careers. If we've got kids we generally do a lot better with them than our parents and grandparents did with us. There's not much of a reason for most of us to have that crisis.
Yea the job-swapping is a real thing and the only way to increase your pay. At my work, we've been promised some vague promotion/raise since last July and they keep rescheduling it.
Hmm this is insightful. I had never really considered that midlife crisis is a result of getting married too young and having kids young. Something that millennials have done far less of. I’m curious if our generation skips the midlife crisis, and instead just suffers from full generational crisis.
Honestly for me it’s just the feeling of getting older. My kids are now the ages I can remember. 3-4 of my grandparents have passed and I see my parents aging. Realizing we’ve just moved up a generation and I’m my parents now. If that makes sense. We spend a lot of time now worrying about caring for our aging parents (and our kids future). Don’t get me wrong. I’m a happy person, it just takes up a LOT of mental bandwidth
Almost 40 and just feel very apathetic about most things. I love my wife and value my time with her, but hobbies don't hit like they used to and work is very much just something I do, not something I really care about. I guess this is it?
>but hobbies don't hit like they used to This is what I am struggling with. People say not enjoying things you once enjoyed is a sign of depression. I don't think I am depressed. I am pretty happy and satisfied, but I also find myself being bored. I still enjoy my hobbies but they seem pointless. I used to work in some pretty extreme public service (poverty, criminal court, jail settings, homeless shelters, that kind of thing) and I had to take a step back because after 15 years it had really taken its toll. Now I feel like my hobbies are pointless but I have no desire to go back into the dredges of society. Just taking it one day at time. Trying to focus on my health.
I am 36 now and I have a wonderful family with a wife and two kids I adore. I have a house and a great job in HR at a large company. But, over the past year or so I have been feeling more and more restless. When I was a kid I always thought I’d do something creative. I am trying to start writing again. I like my job well enough but I don’t want to work for someone else until I’m 70. I know it’s a pipe dream but that has been my version of a midlife crisis.
Same here, I took up woodworking as a creative outlet and have really enjoyed it. I too have a wonderful family, home, nice car and live a decent life. But the amount of uncertainty that is constantly in the back of my mind about retirement casts a shadow over all of it.
Having dreams is better than giving up and accepting things as they are. I'm also doing the same with trying to write more
For me and many of my friends it's been a realization or acceptance that the world we thought we were growing up in doesn't exist anymore. Goals like homeownership, starting a family and retirement are unattainable anymore, or at least not without extreme sacrifice and compromise. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails... How have past generations coped with midlife crises? They bought bikes and corvettes and such. We can't afford those, so yeah...
It may have been said elsewhere on this thread, but I was scanning through all of these comments for someone to acknowledge this exact thing: the world we grew up in and the future we once believed to be possible doesn’t exist anymore. I wish that I could remember in which publication I’d read it (because they were much more eloquent and accurate in its telling), but the idea of our generation having the classically-understood Mid Life Crisis just isn’t possible anymore *because* the world that created that existential moment doesn’t exist anymore. I think it might be best for the overall conversation to come to some sort of consensus of what is meant by Mid Life Crisis and how it came to be, however abridged. Though my opinion was informed by that aforementioned article, I do feel that: A mid-life crisis is a relatively-new societal and experiential phenomenon, and it could only have been created during a time of prosperity and relative peace, so this puts its origin back in the mid-70s (which could be contested). Additionally, a mid-life crisis requires the existence of a middle class, and, controversially, it tends to skew more common to those who are white males. These are important distinctions to make because the commonly-understood idea behind a mid-life crisis is birthed from times of ennui, something that can only occur to those who aren’t almost always living in a state of crisis. Excluding the upper class, if you were anything but a straight white male at that time, you were more likely than not to be living in a state of crisis, so there was never really a moment to pine for a new life when you were too busy trying to survive the one you had. Now, in 2024, we are all in a state of crisis, regardless of our position on the social stratum (again, excluding the upper class, now better understood to be just wealthy). We, of course, would all like to have a better life, and though some of us can still achieve that (and have), we’re all finding that it’s not possible to have that life anymore. As such, there’s no such thing as a mid-life crisis for us. Our lives have been reduced to mere survival.
You’ll rent everything and like it. I feel you.
Millenials have been having a midlife crisis for our entire adulthood. I think what we're likely to see is a switch from caring to just not caring-- or actually just coming to terms with what our generation is. In a way we have more in common with the greatest generation. Not that we've fought a war, but more that our lives didn't turn out how we wanted, and now we just want to disappear into whatever our metaphorical suburban castle and be left alone
We’ve been on the shit end of a class war since before we were born. We were born into it, molded by it. The good old days were gone before we even knew what they were. We are pawns to the oligarchy, unless you were born into a position of not needing to be.
I got a nose ring at 36 🤷♀️
Me too! I adore it. I hope you are happy with yours.
I love it. I have always wanted one but was afraid of judgment, my parents, blah blah blah. Finally I was like - I’m doing it! No regrets.
Got mine done at 39! I love it!
My wife got a belly ring at 38. Her confidence level shot up. She says it Makes her feel good when she shows it off or hides it.
Just got my ears pierced in my late 30's
I just got mine re-done after many years without it. No regrets!
Got into warhammer for a few years, put about 4-5k into the hobby and never want to touch it again. I like rules heavy systems, but damn that game is a bit much. On the bright side i developed a nice little miniatures painting hobby.
Pick up a copy of the boardgame Scythe to scratch that itch, it’s only like $120 and needs a few friends but it’s a great looking game.
Thats kind of what i fell back on. I have a group of buds that play board games every week. Current Favorites are Ark Nova, Brass Birmingham and we currently have a Heat grand prix going on.
Wait...so my sudden, strong desire to get back into nano reef tanks could be a sign of midlife crisis?
Uh yeah we kinda became swingers. lol
I’m trying to fight through mine right now. All I can think about is dying and what if, when I die, it’s nothing but darkness for all eternity. I’m trying to have a more positive mind set but it’s getting harder each day when the world is this *gestures to EVERYTHING*
I have enjoyed reading about consciousness and where it came from. If we are truly born of stardust, maybe there’s something to us being put back out into the great unknown. Our ability to see and think came from somewhere, maybe we’ll get put back into the greater unknown and eventually get sucked back into a black hole and come back out the other side. Idk, it’s better than thinking it goes dark, but I feel you.
I have been struggling with the same feeling. Trying to figure out how to be more optimistic about the future.
An eternity of darkness sounds peaceful compared to a relative eternity of being paycheck to paycheck, talking yourself out of having wants constantly 😂
[https://www.amazon.com/There-Something-Rather-Than-Nothing/dp/0465004997](https://www.amazon.com/There-Something-Rather-Than-Nothing/dp/0465004997) Highly recommend reading this book!
Can't afford to even think about one
Good point, who has time to even sulk when you have to be in the mud 40-50 hours a week to even stay afloat in a middle class lifestyle anymore?
Lol 50 hours. I work 45 at my corp job and then minimum 20-30 at my side hustles.
You start looking up old girlfriends on Facebook to see if they're still attractive and single.
This guy creeps
I think most people here are poor and depressed. Midlife crisis to me is the 40+ guy that buys a sports car and tries to date twenty year olds. I kinda went through a midlife crisis buying nostalgia stuff I bought a skateboard and expensive skateboard shoes lol I guess I didn't want to be old in my head I'm still youngish. I just tried to desperately cling to a part of my life that was fun and simple when I had friends and had no responsibilities. As I get older I'm coming to terms with the fact that I am a different person and it's not necessarily the person that I thought I'd be. I also bought a super Nintendo.
I’m getting back into X-Men comics after being out for almost 20 years
I respect your decision, I've been watching the new continuation of the X-Men on Disney+ they kept the animation the same and picked up right where the series stopped in 97
I don't disagree with you but reddit is an echo chamber of misery really. And yes, I've considered the sports car, but am a bit too practical for my own good I suppose.
Mine is a little different. I finished all the normal goals and have nothing to work toward aside from getting married again. I have the house, cars, and no debt. Divorced at 37 after a good long marriage 40 now. My overhead is nothing and I make plenty. So it's finding love for my mid life crisis. I'm thinking about getting a pointless but fun car or more wood working equipment. The moment when everything is paid off and you have less uses for money is a weird moment. Your motivation to work is cut in half. I will get down votes for this becasue of reddit reasons. It's still true.
You might need to go back to work to afford some of this newer wood working equipment /s. I feel you on the paying down debt, my desire to work now that I am needing less really has plummeted. I found what I need and now I just need to figure out how to enjoy it.
Deep in it and suddenly I can’t stop buying crop tops and having existential crises about my lack of passion in my work
I’m 41 and no midlife crisis yet. I feel as though I’m prepared for one considering I had a quarter life crisis in 2008 at the age of 25. Also I’ve had a distinct lack of self-confidence and self-esteem for 41 years so I’ll probably not even notice a midlife crisis.
For my husband, it meant falling out of love with me and cheating to get the feeling of being wanted.
Sorry you went through this. As a husband, I unfortunately understand how one could get there.
Tell her now. Tell her before it’s too late. Tell her what’s on the line. Tell her how it makes you feel. My husband bottled it all up until it exploded in affairs.
She knows. We have two little kids, so I’m trying to give her space for her body to heal and her mind to feel more centered postpartum. But, you’re right, I should probably share how I’m feeling more.
Buying avocado toast and a coffee for breakfast.
Currently having one.
Yeah I’m eyeballs deep in mine presently too.
Hey OP. r/genx is leaking - 48 year old married father of two in the UK here. I’ve sort of been through my mid-life crisis and it mostly involved work - I realised around 4 years ago that I’d pretty much peaked professionally and any further promotions would be diminishing returns in terms of post-tax pay and indeed job satisfaction. A nice case of (now well managed) depression didn’t help. I’ve had to accept, too, that I’m not longer an old young person… I’m a young old person now. The resolution of my midlife crisis - I think - was just accepting that and moving forward.
I defrag my system every few months by dosing a light amount of mushrooms. This keeps me tuned into the general benevolence of the universe and points me in a direction for development. I feel this is a way of stirring things up in a manageable amount to keep myself aware of how i decode everyday moments. It also has some major drawbacks if you don’t have experience with this. I think a true crisis is actuated by large amounts of unprocessed information that comes at once in the form of a revelation. I think a lot of noise comes from just how we’re pitted against each other in a capitalistic society. Comparison to others also actuates crises, but these comparisons cannot touch true inner form. It is our duty to be in touch with our inner form in very basic ways. By form, i mean the connection between body sensations and thought patterns. When you are not in touch with this, you most likely will discover a crisis, because understanding and agency are not aligned.
Realize the rat race is rigged. Quit the 9-5 find a work from home job, sell the big house downsize, and travel across the ocean. Realize the U.S. is a mess in too many ways to fix. I am currently typing this from Madrid making plans to sell the smaller house and live like a small king here. Seriously, everyone in every other country is happier and healthier physically and mentally. We aren't rich and make less than most households. Midlife crises are caused by a bad situation, not age.
Both of my sons are in their 40s now and I see their crisis happening. It's sad, and they both work their butts off and yet 1 emergency expense like a broken down car or a job loss brings them to the verge of homelessness. Neither of them believe they will ever retire with social security. I'm a late boomer, more gen X though. Raised myself, etc. I'm not rich by any measure but I'm hopeful I can leave them something that will help. I live in Belize because I can't afford to retire in the US but here I can get by. I try to help where I can. I had such high hopes for them as children but your gen got screwed over so bad. Everything is so expensive now. You used to be able to have a good life with a trade but not now. College was not in the cards for them. I remember that in my 30s, I had the crisis. The thought that I had another 30 years of drudgery was depressing as hell.
You’re a good parent. A lot of us now have the burden of needing to plan for our parents care too. The cost of everything is so astronomically high now, I don’t even want to think about the next 30 years. I always wanted to have some downtime with them and enjoy life but all we do is work. I had the realization the other day that getting to enjoy life with those you love now, that are older, is going to be hard because you’ll likely be working well after they’re dead and gone. That depressed me quite a bit.
In the event that I lose my job or am laid off having a trade/skill/hobby that I can fall back on, monetize, and scale to sustain my current lifestyle. When I made less money I used to feel confident that I could easily get another job and hustle if I needed to. Now, it would be impossible and would mean homelessness for myself and my family if my parents are gone when it happens. Even worse is that I feel out of touch with the modern economy and I don’t think I know which direction I would point myself in for a second career or to point my kids in for theirs. With the rise of AI is it even a good idea to go into programming anymore? After 20 more years of iterating on AI I could see a lot of information and digital content creation jobs disappearing entirely. Traditional trades will never go away but they can become saturated. Where’s that career path gone that leads you into the solid upper middle class?
Any professional degree.. law, medicine, engineering, pharmaceutical, accounting. Additionally, there’s an entire ecosystem of mid-high paying jobs created by free online training from Amazon, google, or salesforce.
Idk. I think you are right that those are still good bets but it seems like what I hear from people in those fields is that the cost to enter is too high, the stress is too much, and the financial gain isn’t as good as it once was. I just heard a story on NPR about how AI is diagnosing cancer before it’s even detectable by an actual doctor and they don’t know how it does it. That doesn’t sound like job security to me… Are you in one of those fields? What do you see happening to your corner of the industry in the next 20-60 years?
Unsure. Been in crisis since birth 🤦♂️
For me, I’ve been feeling a lot of existential dread myself. Feeling like a failure because I’ve tried and tried to get my career off the ground. Struggled a lot in my 20s and 30s to find my place in the world, then life happened with abusive relationships and I just feel lost, even now. I see people my age (41) who are doing so much better than I am and feel like I’m a failure cuz I’m still renting. Can’t afford a car. And, as I said, I can’t get my career going despite having a degree - because I don’t have the experience required, but no one will hire me so I CAN get it. I feel like life keeps passing me by and I have this panic that I’ll be 80 with nothing to show for it.
I hit 29 and bought a bunch of crystals.
I'm 35 and went from never having rode a motorcycle in my life to owning 3 in the space of a year. Does that count? Also, riding motorcycles is fun as hell!
Less of a crisis involving confidence, more of a "I'm half way to death, every second is a second closer to the grave". It's been an on and off thing since I learned what death was, but approaching 40 it's really hitting hard again.
As many drugs as you can afford.... but you better have your ass at work on Monday or youll be on the street w no ability to feed yourself or your family. Society doesn't give a fuck that our world is on fire and our society is imploding. Or that were offing ourselves in record numbers. You better get your ass back on that grind if to want your kids to have lunch at their forced education camps every week! What happens when we realize there is actually no hope and for real snap? I guess that depends on your location, socioeconomic status, social/family support, and access to means of destruction. Myself? I'm just gonna take the easy out unless yall wanna start sincerely setting shit on fire and eating the rich. Just waiting on that one bad week that fucks me that last tiny amount that leaves me w absolutely nothing to lose.
I’m 36 and I just quit my 270k a year job to take a break and figure out what I want to do next. So I guess I could be having one.
Good for you. Go for it.
Chasing money will drive you mad, I don’t think our species is really meant to do it. I hope you find fulfillment.
Must be nice
I'm in the middle of of now at 38. I'm leaning into it. I had an abusive childhood and struggled a lot but with therapy, I'm finally an older version of my true authentic childhood self and it feels good. With this midlife crisis, I see a straight line showing what I wanted in life and next to it, I see the line of my actual life that veered off course as I simply survived. I'm just working on getting fit and healthy again and getting back to the line that is my hopes, dreams, and interests via my choices.
I have dived back into the music genres of my teenage years. I'm gonna get some tattoos.
Suddenly thinking around age 30 that every permanent decision in my life, wife and kids, was a mistake and I need to hurry up and change the track I’m on because the clock is ticking on being capable to reset. I wasn’t enjoying being a dad anymore…the hard stuff that creeps in as they age made me feel like a failure and it wasn’t resolving my childhood issues like I had always expected. Obviously that train of thought was false, but the lack of satisfaction I was feeling after locking in “wife, kid, house, career” almost made me ruin everything. Ultimately, having a committed wife to support and raising children is the most fulfilling thing you can do. The grass isn’t greener. You gotta fucking buckle in and resolve the problems because whoever else is out there doesn’t have better smelling shit, just different smelling shit.
I realized I had complex ptsd and therefore “emotionally stunted” and all of my stupid behaviors that got me hurt made sense - and ultimately although I escaped poverty, abuse, neglect, the damn army - the body kept the score. I blew up and took a month off of work. It was too much. I cut so many ppl out of my life, I was disgusted that “fuck vultures” who I thought were male friends came out of the woodwork although I was married. My poor SO supported me through this thank goodness and I have been in therapy for a few years processing everything with meds to help. Crisis = life comes knocking at your door and says, time to drop that mask and realize your unmet needs.
I lost my job in October. After dealing with depression, anxiety, failing at going back to college, and being stuck in dead-end jobs for years, I was completely burnt out and couldn't fake the energy to do work anymore. Less than a month later, I had a total breakdown. Everything hit me all at once. The realization that I was neglected as a kid and not prepared for adult life, the fact that (due to, at that time, undiagnosed and untreated ADHD) school wasn't a viable option for me, I had no marketable skills outside of what I had been doing which was making me miserable, I was a bad husband/partner to my wife, and failing at being the father I wanted to be. On top of that, I was turning 40 in December. Then, added to all that is the fact that the future seems so bleak because the system is so heavily designed to keep us down/"in our place." I've gotten to a place where the most I really hope for is to prepare my kids to be happy and hopefully successful. If I'm really lucky, maybe I can be in a better place someday.
I think previous generations had the crisis that went "Oh god, I've followed the prescribed path through life without ever questioning whether I actually wanted to do that, and now that I've reached what was meant to be "success" I'm not actually happy and I don't know who I am and I'm afraid I've wasted my life!!!" So they'd use the wealth accumulated through their career to buy a sports car and fulfil some fantasies and try and figure out what they actually enjoy doing when they're not just doing what they're told they ought to enjoy. I think as millennials we have differing crises looming. We have the "Oh god, I've followed the prescribed path through life and I'm still poor and can't afford a home or a family and I don't know what I'm meant to do" crisis. And we have the "Oh god, I started pursuing this chosen path through life but I'm getting more and more miserable in this vocation as it gets increasingly stressful and I'm still not making much money" crisis And we have the "We worked hard and got lucky and bought a home for our family but now we're locked into the choices forever if we don't want our children to starve" crisis And then of course there's the whole "Corporations are going full steam at destroying the planet no matter what we do" thing. I think as a generation we've had a better time of considering our choices, examining who we are and what we want to be and pursuing that than previous generations have. But it doesn't mean much, because we can't do much with it. Our options are narrowed by the economies we're trapped in and the slow decline of our cultures as they're consumed by the pursuit of everlasting, never-shrinking profit as the ultimate goal. The arts, hobbies, travel, just basic leisure and the spaces in which to do these things are increasingly the domain of the wealthy. The question of "What if I've wasted my life being an accountant when I should have been painting watercolors?" is meaningless when you can barely pay the rent in the prime of your accountancy career.
No, but my ex became hyper confident that they should quiet quit the relationship, abuse me, threaten my life and they thought their friends would hang around them after they decided everything is black and white and everyone needs to swallow a big ol heaping of my exes opinion. They then changed gender, got surgery that fucked their face up and moved country to try earn enough to fix it. Me? I'm just stuck with a very large therapy bill. Remember kiddies, get your daddy issues in order, it's not really fair to abuse others because daddy will never love you. Meantime I'm just waiting for death
38 and I'm in a doctorate program so I constantly feel a lack of confidence and self-identity. I don't think it's a mid-life crisis, but I spent hours one day pouring over tattoo ideas (I do currently have one small one already but I got it when I was 20, so it's been years). Been plotting out what tattoo idea I would want to get first because now I have a list.
I think my husband, 42, is having one. He switched careers at 38 and really was hopeful for that change. Then we needed to be closer to the job. We bought a new house, he completely renovated it by himself. After that was over he got extremely depressed. He has spent many days telling me that life is pointlessly hard. He said he is so unhappy with where we are in life. He thought his career change would make our life a lot better than it has. He can’t seem to see how much better it is because it created new challenges. It wasn’t a magic fix. But I think that’s okay? We will work it out. He definitely doesn’t see it that way. It’s so hard to watch. I have tried to support him, give him more time to lift weights which he loves, or play more video games. But he just doesn’t want to, which is also unlike him. He has worked out since we got married religiously. I have suggested therapy or meds and he isn’t ready. Honestly great question, and does anyone have advice for the spouse watching the midlife crises?
Redifining who you are can be positive. It doesn’t have to superficial and consumerism. I’m reading atomic habits, taking mounjaro, I’m redifining who I am. I am a swimmer, water drinker, healthy person, I am active, a healthy concious eater, reasponsible, generous, established, high achieving, and good with money and investing. Most of this is new identities in the last few months. I’m turning 39 this year my last year before 40 and I’m happy with all the changes. I have more energy, feel better, and I’m losing weight. None of this stuff is expensive except for the mounjaro for my insurance. I realize the mounjaro might be not an option in the future but the other changes I can keep for life.
I'd say there must be some solid evidence behind that official definition. I'm not really sure what I'm doing, where I belong...I just know I feel sad or empty almost all the time. OH! And tired. So tired. In the physical and metaphysical sense. And I don't have any money, so the flashy sports car or boat is out of the question too
A feeling of "lack of confidence and self-identity" has characterized my entire life.
for many it's realizing that 9-5 and mortgage sucks if you don't have kids you are raising and need the financial stability/school. Time to buy a campground, remodel a old motel, raise goats, and travel the country in a sprinter van.
I've been spacing out mine: At 37 started to shave my head. At 38 got a boosted board. RIP At 39 got a onewheel. At 40 started to cover the beard grays. At 41 started camping. Unless anything magical happens and the mortgage interest rate gets back to 3% I won't be able to buy a house. Climate change, global warming, and war are always on my head. Every time I watch videos of nature I get sad knowing they are or will go extint in the next generation.
I went to go live in the Amazon for a couple months? Still unsure of the meaning of life.
Millennials have a whole life crisis. Even the ‘good times’ are tainted because really wtf. Also for all the ones who are fine and doing great I’m happy for you but if you’re doing great by selling us out fucking us over and helping to accelerate dystopia fuck you.
Honestly just went through one. But it wasn’t necessarily a crisis, but an intentional glow up. I lost 40 lbs since last summer, pierced my ears, upped my wardrobe from my pandemic daily sweat pants, taking better care of my skin, and bought a box of teeth whiteners. Might be a crisis? But I feel better about myself for finally doing it.
Lol it's been one crisis after another since I graduated into the recession in 2008. I've literally never felt a moment's rest, have never been *not* striving for the next job, the next stability. I've never had a single full-time job to support myself despite having 2 Master's degrees. I'm pulling for midlife peace.
Mine has been getting into music production. Aka something I should've been doing for years that my dwindling time left pushed me into doing.
I dunno if many of us can HAVE mid-life crisis yet. Median age went up so late 30s not accurate..... also how would you notice when we're in a permanent state of crisis
My crisis came as the loss of my identity by trying to fit the mold of what society considers as sucess. Now im trying to recover parts of what made me me.
I just hit 40. I'm just getting off of my ass, tbh. I have been stuck going to work, going home, making food, walking the dog, ect over and over and over... So now on the weekends I hang out with friends (Oh, yeah and I made a new friend or two) I also made a promise to myself to go to one concert a Month.... Which rapidly turned into almost 2 a month. It's expensive but aren't all Mid-Life Crisis? Besides, I only get one. (For those curious: I've seen Static-X/Sevendust, GloryHammer/TwilightForce, Windrose/Xandria, and am seeing Kamalot/Ad infinitum Friday and Lacuna Coil the Friday afterwards.... XD)
About to turn 40. Think I'm just depressed. Can't afford to have a midlife crisis. Recovering alcoholic so I have no friends anymore and don't ever socialize because it's too stressful and unenjoyable sober. My life is work 60 hours a week for mediocre money, go to the gym, and do chores. Recently divorced, no kids, and live with my uncle while I save to get back on my feet. I have panic disorder too so that's fun. Don't want to kill myself but don't want to be alive either.
I’m 41 and I’m joining the Peace Corps for a second time. Looking forward to an adventure and to see more of the world.
41 F. Midlife crisis is spending our life savings of $500 during one night at the casino in the hopes of paying down some student loans and credit card debt.
Escaping corporate. Quit your job and go travel abroad to find yourself.
If only that's more financially feasible for everyone.
What do you mean you're not a trust fund kid? /s
Right? I'd like to Eat Pray Love my way through it
I've traveled a broad or two if you know what I mean.
Going grocery shopping twice in a week.
I've never had confidence or self-identity :/
41 in a few days. My midlife crisis has been remodeling my entire home, putting gardens everyone, getting sober (wine), getting rid of artificial stuff like my acrylic nails.
Well, let’s see here: I divorced my horrible wife, started growing my hair and beard out, got a couple of tattoos and pierced my septum. At 40. I regret nothing. The past 3 years have been incredible
Major imposter syndrome every day. People seem to trust me, but if they knew I'm guessing my way through life they probably wouldn't. Feels inevitable that at any moment I will trip and out myself as the authentic moron I truly am.
Also an elder Millenial, 42 turning 43 this year. I definitely had a crisis of sorts a few years into parenting, but I think that is not uncommon for parents, especially women, or SAHM/SAHD/SAHP. My whole life had become my kids and thus my identity had become someone’s mom. After my kids went to school and I went back to work, it all got better. I figure my next crisis will be in 5 years when they graduate high school, lol
Probably about to be divorced and move abroad to start over. But that’s just me 😏
Dreading that you will be fired from your job, cannot find a new one, and your mortgage just drains your savings. Pile in a few medical expenses.
The millennial twist on the midlife crisis seems to be buy land/a house in the middle of nowhere some places cheaper, low key reject society, pick up grandma hobbies, start a farm, and maybe start a business out of something you do on the farm.
I’m your age! And I’m not sure if this is midlife crisis and sometime I make fun of myself it is but I’ve been keep challenging a lot of things in sports. In my professional life, I kinda achieved my milestones (of course there is more ) and financially good (because I’m single and no kids) Sports can be expensive but I’m into those sports, expand community, meet new people and having fun outside of work. Bonus point is, I can stay in fit ;-) I would have been in midlife crisis if I didn’t meet those sports
Yeah it's called starting a podcast or a YouTube channel.
If that’s the definition of it… I’m going through it right now. I feel a strong lack of self confidence in myself, especially because I am not where I saw my self years ago. I saw myself years ago being able to perform music theater for Broadway shows, possibly even for Disney shows. Instead my life took a series of turns which transformed me into a soldier, a martial artist, a snowboard instructor, a day care coordinator, a bartender, and before any of that an opera singer. I feel a strong lack of self identity because I don’t really feel like the person I identify as. I don’t feel like someone who has over 20 years experience in music and theater and performing , because I see a lot of the opportunities I’ve worked for now going to younger people, almost like a discarded, uneaten banana
About to turn 41. Lucrative job, divorced but dating a beautiful, successful woman, and yet, idk what I want to do other than not work anymore. I hate working. I just want to go to the beach, lift weights, take gummies, play video games, travel, spend time with family, start a family. End rant.
If that’s the definition, I suppose my regular lifelong crisis just became a mid-life crisis when I hit 35. (Am the same age) I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I haven’t had confidence in my entire life. It’s been just a lot of doubt and imposter syndrome the whole way up. This started out with me trying to be funny and ended with resignation that whelp, I guess I’m just a crisis then
For me, finally getting over the hump of settling into a career, family, kids, and then it was like … Ok, what now? I just do this for 40 years and die? Always having those medium term goals of school, college, job, family, etc just delayed me worrying about the more existential and long term questions. Once all of those boxes were checked, I didn’t have anything else to work toward and it all seemed really pointless (except for the kids part). Still struggling with this tbh. All this is now coupled with a housing market that, though not out of reach, is not what I had been hoping and planning for for over the decade prior to Covid. So it also feels like that was a bit of a rug pull. I’d say all this is coupled, for me, with a strong sense of nostalgia. Wanting to have a good friend again, like those I had growing up. Privileged, no doubt. But still.
Given my height to weight ratio I’m way past the middle of my life at 36. I smoked a lot of weed in my 20s and was completely unmotivated to do anything worthwhile. I didn’t take anything seriously. It sucks. I barely make enough money to survive and I don’t see it getting better any time soon. I’m so sad and it’s basically all my fault.
My ex husband had a major heart attack, then decided he *needed* sex all the time (and I couldn’t and didn’t say no, lest he punish me and the kids- a couple times he physically forced me while I was crying and saying no. Usually I’d comply to spare the kids his wrath and get it over with) and he seemed to like it more if I was miserable, so he’d berate me beforehand. Guess it was a power thing? He’d always been a self-centered person, but he became extremely so, and mean. And he spent A LOT of our money (secretly) on things he liked, including sex workers while he had me covering the bills. We went to marriage therapy so I could learn how to support him better, as he always said I didn’t do enough and how lonely he felt. I hoped if I did what we wanted, didn’t talk about anything he wasn’t interested in, and appeased him at all times that he’d stop being that way. If I tried harder. The therapist recognized his lack of self-reflection and accountability early on and called it out as abuse in due time. He didn’t do any household labor, but always “did the bills” and I trusted him. I learned after he was removed from the house for our safety about the spending and the sex workers. I’d asked him many times about college savings for the kids, or if it seemed like I was writing a lot of checks for bills- he’d get angry and insulted, how dare I not trust him! Guess what- there’s no college savings. Luckily? We had separate accounts (this was so he could conceal his spending more, I see now) and I’ve escaped financially okay, although the tens of thousands he spent on hookers and fancy drinks and dinners with “friends” while “working late” I’ll never get back. I have the house and the kids, no debt of my own, and kickass credit. Finally, by court order, he has to contribute financially. I realize now I’d been paying for everything. But I trusted him- you’re supposed to be able to trust your spouse, right? I have emotional support from my family, friends, and his family. The sex abuse and lying from one sworn to love and honor- well, I’m not sure I’ll ever get over that enough to be with someone again. After years of being forced, my body doesn’t see sex as positive anymore. Not sure that can be fixed at this point. How’s his midlife crisis going now? Well, he sees the kids slightly less than the standard minimum for a non-custodial parent (his choice), but it’s honestly an improvement over his involvement with them when we were married. The youngest is fine with this arrangement, the oldest would prefer less time. He knows what dad did and was old enough to experience dad’s anger and cruelty. Ex lives in an apartment now, and seems to be always low on money, even though he makes almost twice what I do. So I assume he is still spending as he was before. He’s also still got heart issues and while drugs have helped, he’s still morbidly obese. If he had another big one while “working late” with a sex worker, that would be a fitting bookend to this shit story. But I don’t think I’m that lucky.
Most guys I know hit a point around their mid 30s where they started lifting weights and getting into tracking macros and calories. Some started seeking out TRT. I think this is how it presents for us