Midlife Is a Phase, Not an Age

Someone said to me recently that midlife only happens at 40 and that it “can’t happen at 60 because no one lives to 120.”

It’s a tidy idea.

It’s also not accurate.

From a developmental psychology perspective, midlife is not a single age marker or a mathematical midpoint. It is a stage of adulthood, generally understood to unfold from the early 40s through the early to mid-60s, shaped by health, longevity, and sociocultural context (Lachman, Teshale, & Agrigoroaei, 2015).

Midlife is defined not by chronology, but by developmental tasks—the internal and external work individuals engage in as they integrate past experiences, reassess priorities, and orient toward the years ahead.

What Characterizes Midlife?

Research consistently describes midlife as a period marked by:

• Re-evaluation of identity and long-held roles

• Increased awareness of mind–body changes

• Shifts in values toward meaning, purpose, and contribution

• Psychological integration rather than expansion for expansion’s sake

Rather than representing decline, midlife is increasingly understood as a pivotal period—one that balances growth and loss, strength and vulnerability, continuity and change (Lachman et al., 2015).

Importantly, midlife is defined by developmental work, not by age alone.

Midlife Is Not the Same as Menopause

Midlife is often conflated with menopause, particularly for women, but the two are not interchangeable.

Menopause is a biological transition, defined by the cessation of ovarian estrogen production and typically occurring in the late 40s to early 50s, with perimenopause often beginning years earlier. It brings real and sometimes disruptive physical and emotional symptoms.

Midlife, by contrast, is a developmental life stage. It encompasses psychological, emotional, social, and often spiritual recalibration. While menopause may coincide with midlife for many women, it does not cause midlife—nor does it fully explain the identity shifts, value realignments, and meaning-making processes that characterize this stage.

If midlife were simply menopause, men would not experience it, and women would not remain engaged in midlife developmental work well into their 50s and 60s.

Menopause may influence how midlife is felt in the body.

Midlife determines how it is lived.

Rethinking the “Midlife Low”

Longstanding cultural narratives have framed midlife as a period of inevitable dissatisfaction or crisis. However, contemporary research challenges this assumption.

A large longitudinal analysis of well-being across adulthood found that happiness and life satisfaction do not follow a simple downward curve toward midlife. Instead, experiences of stress, satisfaction, and meaning vary widely across individuals, reinforcing that midlife is a flexible and extended phase, not a fixed point of decline (Galambos et al., 2020).

This variability underscores a critical truth: midlife is not something that “happens to” people at a certain age. It is something people engage with, often consciously, as circumstances and self-awareness evolve.

Midlife at 56

At 56, I am very much in midlife.

Not because I am “halfway done,” but because I am actively engaged in the developmental work of this stage:

• Listening more closely to my body

• Letting go of roles that no longer fit

• Re-aligning daily life with what truly matters

• Choosing depth over performance

This is not a crisis.

It is not an expiration date.

And it is not defined by hormones alone.

Midlife is a season of recalibration and for many of us, it arrives precisely when we finally have the clarity to hear it.

Note on sources:

The research cited below comes from peer-reviewed journals in developmental psychology. DOI links are included for accuracy, though access may depend on journal permissions or institutional availability. Article titles can also be searched directly in Google Scholar for full abstracts or available copies.

References

Galambos, N. L., Fang, S., Krahn, H. J., Johnson, M. D., & Lachman, M. E. (2020). Up, not down: The age curve in happiness from early adulthood to midlife in two longitudinal studies. Developmental Psychology, 56(9), 1664–1671. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000990

Lachman, M. E., Teshale, S., & Agrigoroaei, S. (2015). Midlife as a pivotal period in the life course: Balancing growth and decline at the crossroads of youth and old age. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 39(1), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025414533223