12 Common Female Midlife Crisis Symptoms

Have you lost your spark for life? Feeling stuck in a midlife rut?

Insanely irritated by the sound of your other half… breathing?

Perhaps you’re suddenly falling apart over dirty dishes, despite years of success and achievement, or thinking maybe Thelma and Louise were onto something..?

Don’t worry, you don’t need medication. You don’t even need a social media life coach, and you certainly don’t need any healing crystals. You’re simply experiencing classic female midlife crisis symptoms, and—bear with me while I plead this case—it’s the doorway to a beautiful reinvention!

Doesn’t a Midlife Crisis Involve a Porsche and a Secretary?

Hey, sports cars and secretaries are both wonderful things. Let’s not knock them. But that classic stereotype was created years ago by frustrated housewives forced to deal with their Mad Men-era husbands. And frankly, their needs get enough air time.

It’s time for us.

We’re here to understand the female midlife crisis, which runs pretty deep and tends to hit out of the blue.  So let’s look at signs you may be experiencing it.

12 Classic Female Midlife Crisis Symptoms

Time to try some of these on for size (and ladies, if you need to self-reflect with a little glass of something chilled and delicious, you do you, there’s no judgment here.)

1. You’re a typically vibrant, action-oriented, successful woman who is suddenly feeling a little “stuck”.
2. You’re still hearing that morning alarm, but you’re now inclined to whack it with a heavy, blunt instrument, rather than leap out of bed.
3. Your charming partner may be suddenly irritating you beyond all rational explanation. 
4. You may not recognize the woman who greets you in the mirror. 
5. You’re distracting yourself from big questions and a loud voice in your mind saying things like… “do I need a midlife gap year? Or just some better shoes?”
6. You’ve recently experienced big life shifts, such as a divorce or separation, your children leaving home, or maybe coming to the end of a first career.

Nodding along? OK, so here are 5 more classic female midlife crisis symptoms:

7. Sudden life dissatisfaction. Maybe even a little self-pity. 
8. A change in your weight. Listen, you can be as Twiggy-like or as gloriously Rubenesque as you choose, but… big changes can be a sign.
9. You just cannot be bothered. With any of it. With the stuff, the people, the books, the projects and the ideas that usually light a fire in your soul. Alternatively, you might be behaving rashly (restrain this woman)!
10. You’re suddenly saying “no” to things. ALL the things.
11. Your sleep is shot, and you’re having an existential crisis at 3am because you forgot to buy milk.
12. You’re feeling invisible, bored, and maybe a sense of loss, like your best years are behind you.

If any of these symptoms resonate, firstly, congratulate yourself. No, really! You’re an authentic, complex, human woman, and you’re moving to a new act.

And this difficult, uncomfortable and downright infuriating stage is absolutely essential. It will give you time to breathe, reflect and work out where to go next.

So sit with it. But not for too long. An active, successful woman like you isn’t made to waste time.

Female Midlife Crisis Symptoms When Single

If you’ve hit midlife and you’re single, this very natural stage in your life can feel especially bitter. Particularly if you listen to society’s opinions about your ability to manage your home, finances and career, have a social life (how dare you) and generally thrive without a partner. (“Perhaps you brought this on yourself”, says an imaginary Great-Aunt figure disapprovingly, from about 1883.)

Are your female midlife crisis symptoms a sign that you need to get onto a dating app and find yourself a solid guy with a truck, a plan and a jawline to match? (Up to you, it sounds delightful, but it’s also not remotely essential for navigating this phase of your life. Dating’s a side-quest right now as you re-set the course of your life!)

Female Midlife Crisis Symptoms in Marriage

Maybe you’re the married friend with the perfect lawn, handsome husband and apparently perfect life… losing your mind because you feel utterly frustrated, bored, tired, irritated and ready to flee.

Even worse, these symptoms have exploded out of nowhere, and now you feel so incredibly guilty. I mean, if you have it all, what are you complaining about right?

Female midlife crisis symptoms in marriage really are a fast track to feeling 100% rotten!

This is Normal!

If you are feeling any of these female midlife crisis symptoms in marriage, in a relationship or on your own, just know that you are in great company.

Pretty much every woman aged 40+ is feeling the same.

The fact is, you can have a beautiful house and family, a loving marriage, a fabulous appearance, a successful career, and the ability to parallel park perfectly under pressure. But even then, you’ll still hit midlife, and suddenly you’ll start to question everything.

You may well feel a little like you did when you hit puberty. (I love the term Middlescence.) Remember how the ground shifted under your feet? That life you were enjoying so much just suddenly changed overnight, with all those hormones flying around and making you feel crazy?

(Midlife hormonal changes hugely affect how you feel right now too, of course, and we’ll come back to this in another blog article.)

Embracing the Female Midlife Crisis

As women, we are so used to change. We glide through life like swans, unruffled up top, legs paddling like hell underneath. We raise our kids, care for our families, support our coworkers, and somehow find the time, energy, talent and skill to build thriving, meaningful lives of our own.

Then life’s call to change comes again and hits us like a lightning bolt!

Keep in mind that this is a very temporary phase. Handled right, it becomes a necessary transition, designed to strip out all the stuff in life that isn’t serving you as you move into your second act, filled with purpose!

There’s nothing you can do about time’s relentless march. But if you embrace this phase as a chance to ask deep questions of yourself, focus on what really matters to you, and prepare yourself for this new beginning, everything changes.

The apathy becomes excitement.

The sad and tired lady in the mirror switches out for a vibrant, glowing woman, who is probably dashing out the door at top speed, on her way to something fun.

The anxiety-driven lack of sleep transforms into the deep rest of true fatigue and satisfaction.

We begin afresh.

What Should I Do to Escape This Phase?

Controversial as it sounds, I’m going to say – just pause a minute. Don’t start dieting. Don’t bleach your hair. Don’t tell your boss to take this job and shove it. Yet.

Just sit with these feelings and thoughts, and check in with yourself, rather than ricocheting off in a random, reactive direction! Maybe do a little reading or journal. Get outdoors, move your body.  Perhaps work on reinventing yourself through my Midlife Reimagined Mastermind; designed for successful, action-oriented women like you who are ready to climb out of their midlife rut!

But know that it’s going to be OK. You won’t feel like this forever. And I will soon be sharing more expert content on what we do to tackle female midlife crisis symptoms in marriage, singlehood… or all shades of situationship!

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