When Midlife Feels Like More Than You Expected
For many women, midlife can arrive with a sense that life isn’t quite as straightforward as it once was. The responsibilities we’ve carried for years — at work, within families, in our friendships and community roles — haven’t disappeared, and yet something in the background changes. Sleep feels less restorative. Thoughts feel a little foggy. Tasks that once felt manageable now feel heavier. It can be hard to put a name on it, but you feel it: a sense that there’s more to life than you can easily juggle, even when nothing obvious has fallen apart.
A recent survey of women aged 50 and over in Britain has given words to many of these experiences. Almost two in three women in this age group say they are struggling with their mental health as they navigate the changes that come with midlife — from menopause and sleep disruption to relationship shifts, caring for ageing parents and adjusting to children leaving home. For many, this is accompanied by anxiety, poor sleep, “brain fog” and a loss of the zest for life they once took for granted.
Perhaps most striking is how quiet this struggle often is. The survey found that almost nine out of ten women dealing with these challenges don’t seek help. Many feel they have to cope alone, or minimise how they’re feeling because the idea of asking for support feels somehow like giving in — even when the weight of it all is real.
What’s Underneath Overwhelm
This isn’t just about menopause. It’s about transitions that happen gradually and simultaneously: shifts in our bodies; shifts in our roles; evolving relationships; changes in energy and emotional resilience. Each of these on its own can feel manageable, but woven together over years they can create a deep and exhausting pressure that’s easy to overlook until it becomes hard to ignore.
Many women simply don’t talk about this. Society still tends to treat emotional struggle — especially in midlife — as something that should be handled quietly, or something to “power through”. But the survey reminds us that these experiences are common and human, not a personal failing.
The Cost of Keeping It Quiet
When emotional strain isn’t acknowledged, it doesn’t disappear — it accumulates. It affects sleep, concentration, relationships and the simple joy of everyday moments. It becomes harder to notice when you’re depleted, because you’ve become accustomed to pushing through. And without space to reflect on what you’re actually feeling and why, it’s easy to blame yourself rather than understand that what you’re experiencing is a response to real emotional load.
That’s why finding the right kind of support matters.
What Support Looks Like — Beyond a Quick Fix
For some women, support might be practical — medication, hormone therapy, lifestyle adjustment, or changes in work or caregiving arrangements. For others, it’s about having someone to talk things through with — not someone who offers quick answers, but someone who helps make sense of experience and emotion in a grounded, non-judgmental way.
This is where emotions coaching can fill a gap that many traditional services overlook. It isn’t therapy in the clinical sense, and it isn’t a promise to “fix” everything overnight. Instead, it’s a space designed to help you:
notice what’s been building beneath the surface
make sense of emotional patterns rather than dismissing them
recognise what’s reasonable to expect of yourself — and what isn’t
develop a clearer sense of how you’re feeling rather than just that you’re overwhelmed
For women whose lives are woven with responsibility and care — often for others — having someone who listens deeply and reflects back what you’re actually experiencing can offer clarity and grounding rather than pressure to perform better or be more resilient.
You’re Not Alone in This
The survey’s findings are a reminder that many women are living with these feelings — often quietly and without support. That doesn’t make your experience any less valid. It makes it human.
If this resonated, you might like our occasional reflections and conversations on emotional life, wellbeing and what it really feels like when life feels like a lot.
And if you feel ready to explore your feelings with someone — not to fix you but to understand your experience more clearly — learn more about emotions coaching and how I might support you through midlife.
