Midlife Crisis Perimenopause / menopause

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]What role, if any, does perimenopause and menopause play in a midlife crisis?

[00:00:05]And I think this is something we don't talk about enough.

[00:00:08]And I know it's a big question for people because sometimes things seem to coincide with what's happening during that period of time. So, first, I think trying to understand perimenopause and menopause and some of the challenges that go along with it emotionally, uh anxiety, brain fog, um depression at times, mood swings. There are all kinds of things are happening and especially at a time in life where people are evaluating or reevaluating where they are in life. So, this can certainly play a role. And if someone is trying to decide how [snorts] did I get here? Where am I going from here? What do I want my life to look like?

[00:00:48]So, I think a lot of times in midlife, whether it's uh male or female, what happens is you are getting into the space of trying to figure out life and where it goes from here. And so, when you have all of these other things are happening at the same time, sometimes we'll talk about uh on the on the other side of it, major life events that are happening, milestone birthdays, children getting older, job loss, illness, health and wellness challenges, losing people, uh death in in the family. All of these things are contributing factors to what could be a midlife crisis breakdown. Because a midlife crisis could also be someone just redefining their life and kind of taking the smaller things and deciding to make some shifts in their life, but not necessarily walking away from a marriage. It's when it becomes bigger than just the little shifts that we start to worry about, okay, is this midlife challenge going to be a refresher of life and kind of tweaking some things or is this going to end a relationship? And so, I think that when we look at perimenopause and menopause as being extremely challenging, now we're looking at is that person trying other things first before they leave the family. Are they looking at maybe a a new hobby or interest, re- reconnecting with some friends, paying attention to health and wellness.

[00:02:15]Trying to figure out what the next part of their life is going to look at look like now that they're not necessarily uh taking care of young children anymore or or or the marriage, the relationship.

[00:02:26]Now it's kind of time for themselves to say, "Okay, I've done all of these things. I've raised my family. I've been a good uh wife in this relationship. And now what about me?" So the identity crisis can kind of go hand in hand with this very difficult roller coaster of emotions that are happening during perimenopause or menopause. And so this can absolutely contribute to maybe not giving a person time to really consider what do I do first? What are some of the smaller changes? Do I go straight for the bigger change? And so I think it's important to start having conversations about whether you're the person going through it or you're a person married to someone who's going through it, conversations should begin of I can see this is a very difficult time in life. There's a lot of changes that are happening. What can we do to ease into the next part of life and start discussing little things that you can change first and foremost to kind of bring a happiness and a balance back into life before people go about leaving the relationship and possibly getting into an affair, which happens at times for people going through things like this.

[00:03:41]So keying yourself into this is something people can talk about even though I think a lot of people hold off on talking about that because it's it it it's just been a societal thing where we don't really have an open discussion. I think a lot of women actually when they're going through it, haven't really even had a conversation with their own mothers about what that could look like.

[00:04:03]It wasn't something that was talked about very often. And then when a when a woman hits it, she really feels like she's going through something that she didn't expect. She didn't know how it was going to feel and didn't have a lot of information as to how to get through it as as easy as possible. So very challenging time for people, for women, for families, for everyone involved. And so opening the conversation a little more than we used to. I think we're getting much better at that when it comes to talking about, "Hey, what does my life look like for the next however many years? Because now I'm at this point and I feel like I'm at a fork in the road. I feel like I want to go one way or the other or how do I kind of get myself on a road that I can develop myself and get through this really difficult time but not make too much of a mess of a relationship that I worked hard to nurture over all these years. And so even conversations about sometimes things that women were dealing with in those marriages that they didn't really speak up about and now they kind of have the feeling of, "I want to speak up about some things. I have things to say.

[00:05:06]I kind of buried my head in the sand and went about my life but now I feel like there has to be some change and it has to happen now." Hopefully slowing everything down until we can kind of get our balance and like I said, open conversations about what to try first before we go ahead and kind of throw the uh marriage out the window. So I think it's a very big conversation that has to happen.

[00:05:31]Hard one to happen because it's hard for people to discuss things that over the years have not been um it's kind of been frowned upon to discuss some of those things but it absolutely can play a huge role in a midlife either a refresh of your life or a complete change of life. Something to talk about, some something to think about, and always brings us back to if people can slow things down during midlife, they have a much better chance of keeping the family intact than they do kind of going off, making an impulsive decision, and then being so far outside of the family that's very difficult to come back to the family. So, slowing everything down, pumping the brakes, trying to understand what is actually happening, making smaller changes, rather than big changes right away, opening up conversations, possibly even therapy for a while. These are all things that people can do to kind of help themselves through very difficult times. So, whether it's you know, people going through a change of life because of all those events that I just mentioned earlier, the milestone things are happening, the identity loss when people are figuring out, you know, I lost myself over these years. I don't know who I am anymore, and I need to find myself and come home to myself again. Can we do that as a family, as a couple, or do I feel like I need to do this on my own? And slowing things down helps you navigate through that. Trying the littlest things first, and then going into the bigger things if and when necessary. So, a pause is always something that I think helps, especially when you've invested so much time into the relationship and the family and the marriage and everything else.

[00:07:21]You just don't know where it's going to go. So, sometimes taking your time and letting it play out, rather than feeling like you have to make a choice today. I think that's the best piece of advice for anybody going through that. Open up the conversation, give it as much time as necessary, and take some other actions first. You might save yourself with your whole marriage and family.

[00:07:42]You really can. So, um There's a big conversation to be had, and I'm here for it. So, hope that helped a little bit.