Midlife Crisis at 30

Just as girls reach puberty earlier than do boys, apparently women face a midlife crisis earlier than their male counterparts. I remember turning 35 and feeling as though my life was finished. I thought I hadn't accomplished enough (though I'd owned my own business,) or attained financial independence (though I'd been supporting myself comfortably for the previous seven years.) Fortunately, I re-invented myself based on choices important to me. With that experience behind me I can now view my husband's ups and downs with the understanding that midlife gyrations are part of a larger process of re-evaluating and re-energizing one's life.

A new book, Midlife Crisis at 30, written by two media professionals, label the components of 30-something angst. It sounds very much like the male midlife crisis.

I quote Dr. Jonathan Dohenty, a male senior citizen, who concluded

"... While contemporary women may be having their midlife crisis earlier than men do, and there are some significant differences in the way they experience it from the way men do, it is surprising that many of the questions they are asking themselves are similar to the questions men ask themselves when they experience their own midlife crisis. Unfortunately, men going through their crisis tend to do so silently and in secret, while the women are intelligent and clever enough to be more open and conversant. Men should take a cue from this. They might suffer less."

Dr. Dohenty writes, "I won't hesitate to recommend this book to the male reader either, since, being the progressive-minded senior citizen that I am, and having come of age in a far more restrictive generation when it comes to career women, I think it's high-time for us members of the opposite gender to try to understand just what it is that our partners-in-living are going through when they experience their midlife crisis."

Remember: A crisis is only a crisis if we react and don't respond to changing life circumstances.