Something Needs to Change: When You Feel Stuck in Midlife
Sometimes you know exactly why you're struggling: your relationship is in trouble; you've had enough of your job; menopause has knocked you sideways; or something has happened in your family.
But sometimes there isn't one obvious thing. From the outside, life might look pretty good. You may have a relationship, a career, a home, friends, family, holidays. Your social media might tell a particularly convincing version of the story. And yet underneath it all is a growing feeling that you can't carry on like this.
You may feel stuck, trapped, agitated or low. You've become less tolerant of things you used to put up with: your partner irritates you; work feels increasingly unbearable; or you're resentful of how much everyone seems to want from you.
Perhaps you're taking some of that frustration out on the people closest to you. Or perhaps you're putting on a brave face and nobody has any idea how unhappy you are.
Or maybe nothing is that bad. You just don't feel very alive. You’re asking: Is this it? Something needs to change, but I don’t know what?
Why can midlife bring things to a head?
You don't have to reach a particular age and suddenly have a 'midlife crisis'. But there are reasons why things can come to a head during these years.
By midlife, we have accumulated quite a lot of life. There may be ageing parents and children who need us in different ways. Our bodies are changing. For women, perimenopause and menopause can bring significant physical and emotional changes. Work may bring greater responsibility at precisely the point when our enthusiasm for it is diminishing.
Relationships that have lasted for years can also start to feel different. Sex and desire may have changed. Perhaps your partner doesn't seem to want you anymore - or you don't want them. You might be questioning your attractiveness or sexual confidence, or wondering whether intimacy has disappeared for good.
And there's the simple fact that you've been doing some things for a very long time. A job that once felt challenging can become repetitive. A relationship can become predictable. Roles that once gave you purpose can start to feel restrictive.
Perhaps something from your past has caught up with you. Something that has remained unspoken is becoming harder to ignore. Or the straw that breaks the camel's back finally lands.
Then there's an uncomfortable awareness that can become harder to avoid: time isn't unlimited. There may still be decades ahead. But 'one day' doesn't feel quite as infinite as it once did. The thought of spending another ten, fifteen or twenty years living in a way that isn't working for you can feel increasingly intolerable.
The life you 'should' be happy with
One word can become particularly troublesome around this point: should.
I should be happy. I should be grateful. I should love my job - I've worked hard to get here. I should be happy in my relationship. I shouldn't still be affected by something that happened years ago. I shouldn't want more.
We absorb ideas throughout our lives about what success looks like, what a good partner or parent does, what we should have achieved by a certain age - and even how we're supposed to feel once we've achieved it.
Some of those values may genuinely be ours. Others may have been inherited from parents, partners, culture or the people around us without ever being examined very closely.
So there can be something particularly unsettling about reaching a point where you've achieved many of the things you thought you wanted and discovering that you're still dissatisfied. You may even feel guilty about it.
How much of the life you’re living reflects what actually matters to you now?
Who am I when I'm not fulfilling a role?
After decades of being someone's partner, parent, son or daughter, manager, breadwinner, carer, organiser, peacemaker or responsible one, identity can become surprisingly role-centred.
Who are you when nobody needs anything from you? What do you actually enjoy? What would you choose if you weren't immediately considering everybody else's reaction? For some people, there has been very little space simply to be.
You may also learn something about yourself in midlife that makes you look backwards differently - perhaps recognising later in life that you're neurodivergent, for example. And sometimes there is a more uncomfortable realisation: that someone you thought cared about you seemed much more interested in what you provided for them - money, care, organisation, status, emotional support, sex, security or keeping the peace.
Are you valued for who you are, or mainly for what you do for everybody else?
When changing means you no longer quite fit
I've experienced something of this myself. Following a relationship breakdown, I realised that changing my circumstances wasn't going to be enough. There were things about myself and the way I had been living that I wanted to change too.
What I hadn't anticipated was how painful and uncertain that could feel. As I changed I sometimes felt I no longer fitted comfortably into parts of my old life. I felt that people around me saw a version of me that I no longer wanted to be.
At times the anxiety was intense and very physical and the bodily reactions felt alarming. There was something almost outside myself about the experience - as though something in me was screaming that I couldn't carry on in quite the same way.
Meaningful change can involve an uncomfortable period between identities: the old version of your life no longer fits, but you don't yet know what the new one will look like.
I know what I want. I'm just too frightened to do it.
Not everybody who feels stuck lacks an answer.
You might know perfectly well what you want: you want to retrain; apply for the job; travel on your own; join something where you won't know anyone; tell your partner what you really think; set a boundary; start dating again; end something that isn't working; or begin something you've wanted to do for years.
But knowing what you want and believing you can actually do it are very different things. What if I fail? What if I can't cope? What if everyone thinks I've lost my mind? What if I leave and regret it? What if I'm rejected? What if I can't afford it?
By midlife, decisions can have significant consequences. There may be mortgages, pensions, children, established careers and shared finances involved. 'Just change your life' isn't particularly helpful advice when you've spent decades building it.
So perhaps the work isn't discovering what you want. Perhaps it's understanding what stops you from moving towards it - and what you might need in order to do something differently.
I just want to feel alive again
Sometimes the longing is harder to define. You want to feel curious, excited or spontaneous again. You want more freedom, challenge or possibility. You want to feel that you still have choices.
That's when newness can become enormously attractive: a different job, travelling, moving somewhere else, changing how you look, taking a risk - or sometimes a new relationship.
The external change may genuinely be needed. But it can still be useful to ask what you're hoping it will give you. Do I want a completely different career - or challenge and recognition? Do I want to run away - or do I need something in my life that feels like mine?
Newness can feel intoxicating, but newness eventually becomes familiar too. If we don't understand what we're moving away from and what we're looking for, some of the same difficulties can follow us into the new life.
If relationship difficulties, staying or leaving are central read the related insight: When Your Relationship Isn't Working - Or Has Ended - What To Do About It
When the life you expected suddenly changes
Sometimes there isn't a gradual awakening. A relationship ending, redundancy, illness, children leaving home or retirement can suddenly unsettle a life that had felt established.
The practical consequences matter, but so can the bigger question underneath them: Who am I now?
Major changes can force questions about identity, choice and the future into the open. The event itself may be only the beginning of the adjustment.
For a deeper look at retirement as a life transition, read the insight: Adjusting To Retirement & Planning For Life After Work
What part do I play in the life I'm unhappy with?
This can be an uncomfortable question.
It's much easier to look at the unreasonable boss, difficult partner, demanding parent or circumstances that constrain us. And sometimes other people genuinely are behaving badly.
But greater understanding can also involve becoming curious about our own part in the dynamics around us.
What have I tolerated? What haven't I said? Where haven't I set a boundary? What have I put off because changing things felt frightening? What have I accepted because it was comfortable or familiar? Do I actually tell the people around me how I feel? What might I need to learn to do differently?
This isn't about blaming yourself for everything that's happened. It's about recognising where you have influence. Changing partner, job or location won't necessarily change a pattern that we don't yet recognise we're helping to create.
The life you didn't live
Midlife can bring regret. Perhaps you wish you'd changed career twenty years ago; stood up to a parent; left a relationship; stayed in one; had children; not had children; travelled; taken more risks; saved more; or worried less.
You might look at somebody else's life and think: That could have been me.
But we're comparing the complicated reality of the life we actually lived with an imaginary alternative in which everything conveniently worked out. We'll never know how the road not taken would really have turned out.
And not making a choice doesn't protect us from choice either. Staying is a choice. Putting something off is a choice. Continuing to tolerate something is a choice.
Sometimes we may need to grieve what didn't happen. But perhaps we can also look backwards with more compassion for the person who made those decisions with the knowledge, confidence and circumstances they had at the time.
Understanding why we made a choice doesn't mean we have to keep making it.
You probably can't tick every box
Comparison can make dissatisfaction considerably worse, particularly when we're comparing the inside of our own life with the outside of somebody else's.
Envy isn't necessarily something to be ashamed of. It can contain useful information: What is it that I want?
But there's another question worth asking: Can I actually have all of it?
We might want freedom and security. Independence and somebody to take care of us. Excitement and stability. More money and less work. Children who don't depend on us and the feeling of still being needed. We may even want opposite things on different days.
Part of becoming more content can involve recognising that choices have trade-offs. No version of life allows us to tick every box.
Acceptance isn't the same as giving up
I keep coming back to acceptance.
Not resignation. Not telling yourself to stop complaining. And certainly not tolerating something intolerable.
Acceptance can mean recognising what cannot be changed, understanding what can, and gradually becoming clearer about the difference.
It can mean accepting yourself rather than constantly trying to become the person you think you should be. It can mean acknowledging grief, anger, fear, loneliness or regret rather than immediately trying to make the feeling disappear.
Sometimes we're so frightened of discomfort that we'll do almost anything to avoid it. But there isn't always a route to peace that bypasses the painful bit.
The challenge can be learning that we can experience difficult emotions without allowing them to make every decision for us.
How counselling and coaching can help when you feel stuck
You don't need to arrive at counselling knowing the answer.
'Something needs to change, but I don't know what' is enough of a starting point.
This is also one of the reasons I integrate counselling and coaching in the way I work.
We can look backwards where that's useful: at experiences that have shaped you, expectations you've absorbed, patterns that keep repeating, and things you've learnt to tolerate, suppress or avoid.
We can look at the present: what's happening now, what you're feeling, the dynamics you're part of, what is within your control and what isn't, and what matters to you now rather than what you think should matter.
And we can look forwards: what might you want instead, what choices are actually available, what's stopping you, what might you need to learn or develop, and what could you try?
Counselling can help us understand what has brought you here and what may be keeping you stuck. Coaching can help us explore possibilities and what moving forward might look like. We don't necessarily have to decide at the outset which one you need; we can move between them.
Sometimes that work leads to substantial external change. Sometimes it changes how you think about or respond to a situation. Sometimes acceptance is part of what allows you to move forward. Often it's a mixture. And you don't necessarily need to discover the perfect answer and then execute it. Sometimes you learn what you want by trying something, noticing what happens and adjusting.
What might change?
I can't promise that counselling will change your relationship, your job or your circumstances. And I can't make changes for you.
I can provide somewhere to explore what is happening, help you notice things that may be difficult to see from inside your own life, and challenge you where I think that could be useful. What you do with that understanding is ultimately yours.
The change might be visible: making a decision, setting a boundary, trying something you've lacked the confidence to do, or changing how you spend your time. Or it might be quieter: understanding your patterns more clearly, becoming more accepting of yourself, expressing what you need more readily or feeling less controlled by thoughts that keep you stuck.
You may become more able to notice what's happening now rather than constantly replaying the past or worrying about the future - not because you've constructed the perfect life, but because you feel more present in the one you're actually living.
Something needs to change
The feeling that 'I can't carry on like this' deserves to be taken seriously. But it doesn't automatically tell you what the answer is.
You may need to change something around you. You may need to understand something within you. You may need to accept something that can't be changed. Or you may need some combination of all three. You don't have to know which before you begin.
Sometimes the first step is simply being willing to look at what's happening - and to ask yourself, perhaps more honestly than you have for a while: What do I want the next part of my life to feel like?
Feeling stuck - or know that something needs to change?
I'm Nicki Wakefield, an integrative counsellor and coach at Perspective Practice based in Eastbourne. I work with adults who want to understand what is keeping them stuck and explore what they want the next part of life to look like.
I offer counselling, psychotherapy and coaching face-to-face in Eastbourne and online across the UK.
