Female Midlife Crisis: Stages, Symptoms, and What It Really Means
Is a midlife crisis real?
The late Elliott Jaques (1965) is believed to have coined the term ‘midlife crisis’ in the year 1965. He offered anecdotal evidence, and psychoanalytic arguments, for it. But little research backs of his observations with real data.
Jacques, a psychoanalyst, called midlife “a critical stage of development” and noted the ‘midlife crisis’ begins around the age of 35 and can last for years, but varies person to person. In his anecdotal study of 300+ creative types (painters, composers, poets, writers, and sculptors), he described the midlife crisis expressing itself in three different ways:
Creative career may simply come to an end, either in a drying-up of creative work, or in actual death
Creative capacity may begin to show and express itself for the first time
A decisive change in the quality and content of creativeness may take place
A few years ago (2023), In the journal Economica, and article The Midlife Crisis was published. You can read the article for free here.
One might think that residents of today’s most affluent nations (US, UK, Europe, and Australia) are some of the happiest. But what the researchers found is, despite not having yet encountered significant illness or disability, being at or close to peak lifetime earnings, and living in some of the safest, most stable parts of the world, midlife is a time when people:
have trouble sleeping,
find it hard to concentrate,
forget things or experience memory problems
feel overwhelmed in their workplace or experience significant job strain
become dependent on alcohol.
Are clinically depressed
feel life is not worth living
spend time thinking about suicide
disproportionately take their own lives
suffer from disabling headaches (other research suggests migraines can be brought on by stress)
While not everyone will experience a midlife crisis and while some may experience a gentler transition into midlife than others, there is a clear phenomenon that happens during this time in life.
So, what is a female midlife crisis?
To his credit, Jacques noted that the transition that follows the midlife crisis “is often obscured in women by the proximity of the onset of changes connected with the menopause….”
For women, midlife coincides with perimenopause, a time in life that women start to experience a multitude of symptoms (related to fluctuating hormones and their interaction with neurotransmitters in the brain) and including the majority of symptoms the researchers identified above. To date, there are 34 identified symptoms of perimenopause, including:
brain fog and memory lapses
depressed mood, mood swings, and irritability
difficulty concentrating
fatigue and sleep issues
A female midlife crisis is akin to a whole system reboot. A period of emotional, psychological, neurological, and biological changes that can lead to identity reevaluation. Women often question long-held roles, beliefs, priorities, expectations of the self and others, and her sense of self.
Questions around meaning and purpose, loss and regret, success and failure, identity, and those around life, death, and mortality may arise. And these questions may be accompanied by emotional symptoms like:
Mood changes, increased irritability or sadness
Feeling detached, bored, unmotivated, empty or disconnected, “Is this all there is?”
Grief over aging, time passing, missed opportunities, bodily changes, Increased awareness of mortality
Heightened anxiety and fear about the future, aging, health, finances, or purpose
What Triggers a Female Midlife Crisis
Relationship imbalances, changes, or endings (separation, divorce)
Caregiver fatigue and burnout
Children becoming more independent
Career plateaus, dissatisfaction, or job loss
Perimenopause and menopause
Overwhelmed, overloaded, or burned out from any combination above
Leading to emotional numbness, distance, or avoidance
New onset anxiety symptoms or amplification of previous symptoms
New onset depressive symptoms or amplification of previous symptoms
Not feeling like herself and a strong urge to escape or reset life
Why Midlife Crises Look Different for Women
Women’s identities are often role-based (caregiver, partner, professional)
When those role shift (becoming a parent, getting divorced, empty nesting, career changes), questions of “who am I now?” arise
Cultural expectations discourage women from prioritizing themselves and many women internalize self-prioritization as “selfish”
Hormonal shifts during perimenopause, which can begin as early as 35 years, amplify emotional awareness
Common Signs, Symptoms, and Stages of a Female Midlife Crisis
While there are no formalized stages that women experience during a midlife crisis, women may experience a combination of thoughts and feelings related to:
Dissatisfaction or restlessness in their lives
Identity questioning (“Who am I outside my roles?”)
Emotional upheaval, overwhelm, or burnout
Grief and loss, not just death, but a multitude of non-death losses
Reassessment and experimentation
Reinvention and Clarity
What are the stages of midlife crisis for women?
Women’s midlife crises may unfold in stages or steps, beginning with dissatisfaction and moving through identity questioning, grief, reassessment, and eventual reinvention.
Restlessness and Dissatisfaction in Midlife
Are you:
Feeling “off”, not yourself, or unfulfilled in roles the used to fill you up?
Feeling detached, empty or disconnected?
Feeling bored, unmotivated, uninspired, or going through the motions
Questioning daily routines and “Is this all there is?”
Identity Questioning in Midlife
Are you questioning:
“Who am I now?” After achieving all the roles in life you always wanted? Or questioning long-held beliefs, values, or life narratives?
Feeling disconnected from any of those roles (career, parenthood, partnership, self-image)
Losing enthusiasm for previously meaningful roles
Feeling trapped by choices that once felt right
Not recognizing yourself anymore or observing yourself though a harsh self-critical lens?
Emotional Upheaval and burnout in midlife
Are you experiencing:
Emotional volatility
Mood changes, increased irritability or sadness
Fatigue and emotional exhaustion
Less tolerance for emotional labor or people-pleasing
Grief and Loss in Midlife
Are you:
Mourning past versions of self
Noticing an awareness of unmet needs
Feeling unseen or misunderstood, even in close relationships
Grieving over aging, time passing, bodily changes, or lost possibilities,
Experiencing actual endings - death, divorce or drifting in relationships
Reassessment and Experimentation in Midlife
After all the questioning, the upheaval, and the grief, comes the opportunity for growth. The term Post-traumatic Growth comes from the work of psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun, who studied how people can experience positive psychological change after a traumatic event in life, a loss, or some other adversity—not because of trauma, but in the struggle, the work, the processing, the reconstruction of meaning after it. The five pillars of Post-traumatic Growth are:
Deeper appreciation for life
Improved relationships
Increased personal strength
New possibilities
Spiritual or existential change
Midlife Reassessment Is Not a Failure
It signals growth and self-awareness
It reflects changing needs—not weakness
This phase is a transition, not a breakdown
After Reassessment and Experimentation comes…
Reinvention and Clarity in Midlife
Here are the five pillars of Post-traumatic Growth in action:
Deeper appreciation for life - the transition though midlife and perimenopause can offer a sharpened awareness of what truly matters and less tolerance for bullshit, urgency, or misaligned living -
Improved relationships - the transition though midlife and perimenopause can deepen empathy, compassion, and ncrease authenticity and emotional intimacy in relationships
Increased personal strength - the transition though midlife and perimenopause can create an awareness of inner resilience, and lead to greater confidence in one’s coping abilities
New possibilities - the transition though midlife and perimenopause can offer open you to new roles, careers, interests, or identities, or help you to reimagine life path you were once so certain of
Spiritual or existential change - the transition though midlife and perimenopause can offer changed beliefs about meaning, mortality, and purpose
When to Seek Professional Support during a midlife crisis
Persistent distress or identity confusion
Depression or anxiety interfering with daily life
Feeling stuck or emotionally numb