Do you believe this is a thing? Or is that just an excuse that some grown-ups tend to believe in to make themselves feel less bad about something they’ve done?

29 comments

  1. I’m 45. In my experience, a midlife crisis usually comes from two places. First, just the raw recognition that life is at or near being almost half over. That means I’m going to die. And probably in about the same amount of time as I’ve lived up till now. Definitely causes most to reconsider their priorities and the way they live.

    The second is more a recognition of the absurd structure of our society. That you are raised to be a worker drone and then grind out all the best years of your life, maybe take a few short vacations, enter a lifetime monogamous relationship with someone regardless for how are you will grow and change, crank out some kids, and start them on the same journey, all looking forward to when you have saved enough money to live on a fixed income with failing health.

    That midlife crisis hits hard.

  2. Guys making more money than they ever made, hot young things want to poach him from the wife, either out of spite or to be a sugar baby. Wife probably takes him for granted so he’s extremely susceptible

  4. A realisation that life is passing you by and that you only get one shot so do all the things!

  7. I thought I was going to die at 27 (cancer), so skipped that life-stage. Now I live as next year might be my last, and have been for the past five years.

    I see it as a rejection of the life one built for the first several decades of their life. If settled down, a desire to wander. If wandering, a desire to settle down. The lingering sense of “Is this all there is?” clawing away at your psyche.

  8. The brain undergoes structural changes at about 40. This brings changes in memory as well as changes in priorities. These changes cause a reconsideration in the way we have lived and where we want to place the focus going forward. It’s not so much a crisis, as a metamorphosis.

  14. Mid life crisis to me is when a 50 year old man realizes he isn’t happy in his marriage, feels old, and then Suddenly buys a sports car and gets a 20 year old blonde girlfriend to try to make himself feel young and happy again.

  17. I’m 50, and for me, it feels like the stress from realizing that your life isn’t going to work out like you planned. My parents had a stereotypical family life – married young, bought a house in the country, had me and my sisters – they still live in the house where I grew up.

    I wanted a bit more adventure, went to college, travelled the world. Focused on my career, but I always thought I’d settle in to that traditional life. I married late had a couple kids, we were together for a decade. Then she left, I’m still holding on to the vestiges of that plan. But I never planned on kids half-time. Right now I’m sitting with my cats in an empty house, drinking a beer.

    I’m just trying to kill a few hours, so I can go to bed and not wake up in the middle of the night, so I can get up and work tomorrow until it’s time to go to bed again. My kids are all I have and I try to give them fun and interesting experiences that I never had, and maybe I’ll have a little something to leave them when I’m gone. But, I don’t really have anything to look forward to, and don’t enjoy much

  18. A man who married too early and then later becomes financially attractive enough that he recognizes that if he waited till he was in his financial prime he could’ve had a better wife/life situation.

    That’s why the adage goes : a woman’s loyalty is tested when a man has nothing, a man’s loyalty is tested when a man has everything.

    Now that the man “has everything” his loyalty is being tested by his higher status in his mid-life.

  19. Divorced, 46 year-old men with teenage kids dating 26 year olds when their wife leaves. I think whether pre, mid, or post life crisis, it’s all about being able to grieve healthily. Lots of people try to drown their grief, *but grief will express itself*. So they often try outlandish or extreme measures that stand out. I think a crisis gives way to acceptance and growth if the person explores it healthily.

  20. I don’t know what mid life crisis is and how it happens, but between age 30 and 35, were the worst years of my life ever. How i got there? Well i worked in a gold mine since i was 20 years old and loved it so much that i left my home country in north africa and moved to canada to live and work.

    But before that i want to get a bachelor degree to learn more about the job i like. 4 years later the 750$ aid from gouvernment wasn’t enough to pay rent and food and had to leave school with only 14 credits left, i was exhausted and started getting depressed at age 30 now. Since i had no experience in canada, it was hard finding a good job and ended up working in a restaurant and then my depression skyrocketed. I had no choice but to keep fighting and it kept getting worse till last year at age 35 when i quit the restaurant job without even finding a replacement.

    3 months later i was contacted by a mining company that found my resume on indeed and was hired during the first interview and my life just changed like i have never been depressed.

    What i learned from all this experience is that at age 20 working as a shift supervisor in a gold mine conditionned me to always find solutions to my problems, you never skip a problem without it being fixed, which means you never fail but when i failed at school and then got a restaurant job where problems get ignored daily after one try at fixing them, was just driving me crazy and going back to an industry that put problem solving as a high priority just made me happier in general

  21. Everyone’s heard of midlife crisis but very few have heard of or even acknowledge a quarter life crisis. Speaking from experience I had one in my mid 20s and ended up being extremely depressed. Questions and concerns such as “when am I going to get married?”, “I’m not as successful as others my age”, “I don’t even have a girlfriend and everyone is in relationships “ kept replaying in my mind over and over. I’m in my early 30s now and I can honestly say that if there are any similarities between a quarter and a mid life crisis this isn’t something which is easy to just get over, you can’t just self talk your way out of it. A therapist or just time will help in my experience as I just grew out of it.

  22. > What comes to your mind when you first hear the word “mid-life crisis?”

    Shaming men.

    It has really started to irritate me lately. Guys have emotions too, so shrugging off everything with a “it’s just his mid-life crisis” feels like such a cheap shot.

  23. I’m 44 and never had a mid-life crisis. I don’t think it exists tbh. It’s just an excuse that some immature men use for the stupid things they do, because they never really did introspection before. They do stupid stuff as a compensation for the frustration they feel because they never paused along the way to think about what would make them happy, what’s bothering them and what they could do about it. It’s sad because it’s a sign of unhappiness, but it’s just an excuse.

  24. I think CTG said it best. When you get around 35-45 you value time more and how much it costs the people close to you when someone’s wastes it…

    EDIT: I’m not sure if I even hit a midlife. But around until I lost my dad I looked at life like I had all the time in the worl. Now the older I get I look at it like “how long do I have left and what will my impact be?”

  25. Tbh I find Muslims are far less prone to midlife crises because they are brought up to accept death and prepare for it.

  26. It’s funny /not funny I can’t sleep right now and I scroll past this.

    I can’t afford a mid-life crisis but I feel like this is my mid life , mid 30’s no kids no gf no good job no savings no car etc.

    So so sooooooo many missed opportunities and it haunts me sometimes knowing I could have and should have done more .

    So in short to answer your question my mid life crisis looks ,well it looks like this and believe me this is shit :).

  28. It’s the dreadful realisation that now is the right to change what you don’t like about your life.

  29. I believe when you feel shitty physically , you also feel shifty mentally. Because you no longer feel sexy and masculine, you look for things to buy (sports car, fancy watch) to help signal to others that you are doing well in life, despite being fat as hell.

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