Careers, family, marriages and individual growth all compete for top gun. We all deal with these new challenges much differently. At midlife, children leave home in many cases, for some there are multiple marriages, and widowhood for others. Society's view of old age doesn't help spur much support for midlife. At mid-life, depression, suicide, poverty, smoking and alcoholism rates all rise.
Worries increase around everything from jobs becoming dull, to lack of energy.
For men and women, social pressures climax. Many have had some reasonable career success in their eyes, some education and made some money. Added to this, continuing pressures with the balancing act between family and work, aging parents and a renewal of work and branching out for the spouse and you have a challenging time indeed. This leads many to divorce their spouses, have affairs, fall into depression, experience declining levels of energy and an overall feeling of not knowing what to do. Very few openly confront the issues of midlife.