20/08/2026
When I did my MSc in psychology, part of my dissertation work involved extensive interviews with women about loneliness. It was eye opening...
Women who could be alone without feeling lonely and women who could be in a room full of people and feel intensely lonely.
As a coach and mentor who speaks to midlife women almost every day, I’ve sat with clients crying as they try to navigate transitions in midlife because they have been convinced they are the root of the problem.
They never are.
Midlife women (by which I mean those over 40) were raised in a system that equated productivity with safety, and prioritised grades, titles, achievements and badges above almost all else.
Those same systems did, and still do, repeatedly seek to blame individuals for structural failures. Many women reach midlife carrying the full weight of social, cultural, educational, workplace, political and patriarchal systems that weren't designed for women to thrive.
They arrive at midlife burnt out and exhausted having done everything right, but asking 'is this it?' The woman she assumed she'd be and the life she hoped for by this stage feel completely at odds with how she starts to feel. This can further increase her sense of loneliness, even when she has people around her.
Strategies, coaching and mentoring can absolutely change your life in midlife. That support matters and, imo, half the problem is that so many midlife women have to navigate huge mental, emotional, physical, social and relational changes in midlife feeling so alone.
But what I see too often is a midlife woman, who has taken responsibility for almost everything for decades, also assuming responsibility for her failure to fit into systems and structures that have no interest in her wellbeing and growth in midlife. Those systems would prefer she quietly disappear.
And that brings rage. Valid, justifiable rage. She did everything right and then the system asked her to just leave the room (or, more commonly, pushed her out)...
Her grief is real as is the realisation that she's spent decades being convinced to chase something that was not what she actually wanted for herself.
The middle line starts with midlife women finding a path to turning rage, sadness and confusion to confidence and excitement to enter a new era whilst ensuring the structural and systemic failures of society don't consume her during that transition....
Do you agree? What would you add?
➡️ Follow for all things midlife psychology and midlife identity - this time with the destiny YOU are choosing for yourself x
