I am often asked in different ways, ‘How old do I have to be?’ However, it is not a question of age. 

There is no certainty about when this phase will start or finish for a particular woman. It is much more about growing awareness of how you feel about your life. And how much you can do about changing things in your life for the better.

Women usually start to become aware of this phase between 45 and 55, but it can start as early as 35 or not hit you until your 60s.   

The good news is that, at whatever age you decide and accept that you are moving toward becoming a midlife woman, your life will start to get better.  

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The first and most obvious sign is a feeling of dissatisfaction and resentment toward certain aspects of your life.

This may or may not be combined with the onset of the Perimenopause. This is an unmistakable sign that your body is changing, and the physical symptoms can come as a shocking surprise.

However, the feelings of dissatisfaction and resentment are not just related to your body changes. 

You may think your feelings of irritation are caused by your children, your work, or your health. Or it could be your partner, parents or just your exhausting lifestyle. In due course, probably all of these are likely to cause you dissatisfaction to some extent.

These are sure signs you are entering the transition process to becoming a midlife woman. 

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You can tell from the name that Transition is a change from one state to another. However, during this time of change, there are many elements in your life that will change. 

These will include Health, Children, Partnership, Work, Parents, Confidence, and Aspiration. With each of these changes can come conflicting emotions. If any or many of these get on top of you at times, it can feel like a Crisis. However, it is up to you to keep control and take action to prevent it from becoming a full-blown crisis.

The key to this is understanding what is going on. In the Butterfly Club, we separate the typical changes that can upset you into Six Areas that affect and afflict women and hold them back during this time of change. These are:

1, Health & Wellness – Your new body will have different needs and care routines to thrive in future.

2. Money & Wealth  – You may have been able to rely on someone else in the past, but now you would be wise to start looking after your own money.

3.  Love & Intimacy – Falling in love and what came after seemed easy when you were younger, but now established relationships and obligations complicate things.

4. Confidence & Image – You may wonder what happened to that free and easy person of 20-25 years ago and the confidence you seemed to have then. She is still there, but time has left its mark.

5. Friends and Family – As they grow older, children, parents, and Friends change, but want you to stay the same.

6. Passion & Purpose – For the first time, you can think of what the future holds for you. Are you going to do what others expect of you, or are you going to carve out your own destiny?

If several of these flare up at the same time, and you don’t understand what is happening, then it can feel like a Midlife Crisis. The most obvious sign of that is fear that these issues will get worse, and you will not be able to cope and will crack under the strain. 

Fortunately, women are much tougher than they realise, and it rarely happens that they have a breakdown. 

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Women often attribute the signs of the midlife transition to perimenopause, which precedes complete menopause. 

This is understandable for women having a bad time with their Perimenopause as it demands so much of their attention. 

However, the signs of the midlife transition can start before Perimenopause. 

The onset of Perimenopause brings about major physical changes and emotional upset. It can also have many other physical side effects. 

Even now, these are barely acknowledged by the medical profession. This is because they minimise or ignore the condition and have no solutions, and can only mask the symptoms with anti-depressants. 

There are natural ways to alleviate and relieve Perimenopause, but because the subject has been kept hidden, these are not well known or used. 

Losing the ability to conceive a child through Perimenopause is part of the woman’s midlife transition. It can have a strong psychological impact. 

Perimenopause often hides or diminishes awareness of the other changes and issues that are going on for midlife women. However, dealing with all of these is necessary for a successful midlife transition. 

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Many women approaching middle age spend money and time trying to get back the body they think they had in their youth. They believe the extra weight and inches are temporary and can be got rid of. 

This leads to anxiety and stress about their appearance and acceptability. This often results in loss of confidence and dressing down to be less noticeable. 

As midlife women, our bodies change naturally to become more solid and mature. At first, you may resent these changes. However, nature is equipping you with the kind of body you will find appropriate for the different roles you can adopt in middle life.

This midlife body needs more care and management with better eating habits,  nutritional supplementation, and regular exercise to avoid getting overweight and losing skin and hair condition. 

The benefit, however, is that you no longer need to compare yourself with younger women. You have moved beyond the need to compete. You are free to make your way in the world without worrying about comparisons. 

You do not have to be ashamed of your maturity. Midlife women can develop their own image and allure, which is different from that of younger women. 

Midlife women can use the tools of sophistication, elegance, and glamour to make themselves feel good and attractive. 

You are still far from being a ‘middle-aged woman’, which does not have very good connotations in most people’s minds. You can enjoy the stability and confidence of middle life. 

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The term “Midlife Woman” only started to be used at the beginning of this century.

Before that, women saw themselves as moving directly from being a ‘Young Woman’ who is beautiful, attractive and desirable to being a ‘Middle Aged Woman’ who has lost those qualities. Therefore, women worked hard to maintain the appearance and behaviour of youth to put off the time when they would be considered middle-aged.

The idea of a ‘Midlife Woman’ opens up a window of 20 to 30 years for women to reinvent themselves to live the life they choose, neither a young woman nor a middle-aged one. This new phase of life goes with longer life expectancy, where most women can expect to live into their 90s. 

The woman’s ‘Midlife Transition’, which we talk about, is a journey to the next phase of your life. It is similar to the way being a teenager transitions into becoming an adult. In the same way, it does not happen overnight. There are four distinct phases which most women go through on their journey, which are explained in the video linked below. 

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Yes, they do, but it is very different from what women experience. It is mostly psychological. 

When men reach middle life, their Testosterone flow diminishes, and they feel they are losing their virility and zest for life. This can make them withdrawn and moody.

Depending on what they feel they have achieved by their 40s, they can feel disappointed that they have not achieved as much as they had hoped for, and that time is running out and leaving them behind. It can lead them to try to put the clock back. Typically, this means looking for a new car, a new sport or even a new partner.

They can become much more self-centred, uncooperative and even lazy.   These midlife changes can lead to hardened attitudes, stubbornness and even bitterness.

Another common phenomenon is the pursuit of time-consuming hobbies, such as music or sports.

These are generalisations, and while you can observe these characteristics in many may midlife men, many others continue to be good husbands, lovers and fathers.   

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You could say the midlife transition is a journey to becoming a self-determined woman. 

She wants to find herself. She is tired of being thought of as someone else’s mother, daughter, partner, or employee. She realises that for too long she has put herself last.

This starts as a quiet desire but becomes stronger until it becomes a definite frustration with her present life. 

The midlife transition is a journey to a new and hopefully better life. I often use the metaphor of changing from being a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly.

For women who have shed the responsibilities of children and parents and managed to secure their financial future, there is a bright future of opportunity, light and laughter. 

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First, the idea of a midlife transition for women is still little recognised. The term has only come into common use in the last few years. Although most older women looking back can see they went through a transition process, for younger women, it is unfamiliar and even frightening. 

As said earlier, it is often masked by and blamed on the menopause, which has been widely suffered by women over many years, but was little talked about in public and ignored by the medical profession. 

The reason why the medics ignored it was that they saw it as a natural process. All they could do was mask the symptoms with antidepressants. There are natural ways to alleviate and relieve the Peri-menopause symptoms, but they are not well known or approved by the medical profession. 

Many of the social issues of the midlife transition have been buried or lumped in the menopause process.
Women going through them need, first of all, to understand them and secondly to take gradual and measured action to deal with them. 

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The biggest initial danger in the midlife transition is feeling isolated and lonely. Not understanding what is happening leads to shame and guilt at what’s happening and how you feel. 

The loneliness comes from feeling there is nobody you could talk to who would understand. Sadly, this often includes your Doctor. 

The Midlife Butterfly Club provides information, inspiration, and guidance about what is happening in your life. 

Second, it encourages hearing about what other women have encountered and overcome on their journeys. 

Thirdly, it provides information and awareness of other women who have gone through, or are going through, a similar transition. 

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You’ll have heard of The Change of Life. That was the euphemism that people used for the Menopause before they were brave enough to say the word.

Now we can see that it is a very accurate description of what is increasingly called the Woman’s Midlife Transition. 

You will become a midlife woman just through the passage of time. Unfortunately, many midlife women live humdrum and unfulfilled lives because they haven’t found a role to replace being a mother and homemaker. 

A New Midlife Woman has overcome or is overcoming the predictable challenges of this change of life.  These usually hinge around Health and Wellness, Money and Finances, Love and Intimate Relationships, Personal Confidence and Self- Image, Friends and Family, and finding their Purpose and Passion. 

These are the areas where we explain, guide and inspire our members through their transformation in the Midlife Butterfly Club.

A New Midlife Woman has been reborn and knows Who She Is, Where She Is Going and, most importantly, Why she is going there!

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