10 Things That Feel Weirdly Humiliating Once You're A Woman Over 45
michaelheim | Shutterstock The other day, I spent several minutes looking for my glasses. I checked the kitchen bench, my handbag, and the coffee table, and I was already getting annoyed before I caught my reflection and realized they were sitting on top of my head.
Welcome to the Forget-It Fifties. Everyone talks about the wisdom, the confidence, and finally knowing who you are. I’m talking about the other stuff.
The reading glasses you own in bulk but can never find. The chin hair you can only see in direct sunlight. The inexplicable noises your body makes when you stand up. Two glasses of wine can now leave evidence.
There are plenty of wonderful things about being a woman in midlife. But there are also some very specific humiliations. Here are ten of mine.
The weirdly humiliating things about being a woman over 45:
1. Avoiding night driving unless absolutely necessary
Lunch is the new dinner. For some time now, my mother has told me she hates driving at night. She says she has trouble with the glare from oncoming headlights on dark roads. Basically, once the sun goes down, she’d rather not be behind the wheel.
I used to think she was being a little dramatic. Now, if I’m given a choice between lunch and dinner, I’ll choose lunch every time, purely to avoid driving home in the dark, and between you and me, I’d much rather be in my PJs by 6 pm these days.
Anyway, this is real. As we age, our eyes don’t handle glare or the switch between light and dark quite as well as they once did. Which explains a lot.
Throw in rain, a dark winding road, and some idiot who’s forgotten to dip their high beams, and I’m done. I’ll see you for lunch. So yes, Mum. I get it now.
2. Needing glasses, better light, and sometimes your phone camera just to read tiny print
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Hang on. Let me get my glasses. Speaking of our eyesight quietly downgrading, don’t you love how leaving your glasses at home now turns reading tiny print into a full strategy session?
I’ve taken photos of labels just so I can enlarge them on my phone. I need better light for just about everything now. Which is why I keep tweezers in my car.
When I’m waiting to pick up my teenagers from school, I’ll flip down the sun visor, put on my glasses, use the little mirror, and take advantage of the fact that the light in the car is better than the light in my actual house.
That’s when I find the chin hairs. And the rogue eyebrow hairs. So yeah, sometimes I sit in the school pickup line plucking my face in the car, and I honestly don’t care if anyone notices.
3. Trying to unlock the car with the garage remote
This took longer than I’d like to admit.
Click. Click, click.
What the? Is the remote broken?
Click.
Look down.
Ah. Wrong remote. You idiot.
4. Getting out of the car after a long drive
Five hours in a car and suddenly I’m ninety. A couple of years ago, I drove about five hours to the snow. When I arrived, I opened the car door, put one foot on the ground, and discovered that my legs no longer worked as instructed.
The stiffness. The creaking. The groaning as I tried to straighten myself up. What is going on?
I thought of my grandmother, who actually broke her hip and had to have a hip replacement. I don’t remember that woman complaining half as much as I do after sitting in a car for five hours.
And it’s not just long drives anymore. Getting up off the floor now requires effort, sound effects, and, occasionally, nearby furniture.
5. Discovering a couple of glasses of wine now requires ridiculous recovery
Two glasses. Two. Calm down, body. I blame my mom for this one.
One of our favorite things is sitting on my balcony as the sun goes down, surrounded by my pot plants, with the ocean on the horizon, and kookaburras, parrots, and magpies making a racket around us, and having a glass of wine.
And I always tell her: one.
Sometimes we’re having such a nice time that one becomes two, and the next morning, don’t I know about it. I’m not hungover. I haven’t been dancing on tables. I haven’t drunk enough to warrant any punishment.
I just feel ... wine happened.
There is a reason for it. As we age, changes in body composition, including less body water, can mean the same amount of alcohol hits harder than it once did. Still feels a bit unfair.
6. Going upstairs for something and forgetting why
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At least I’m getting my steps in. I must walk up and down my stairs fifty million thousand times a day because I get halfway there and forget what I was going for. I’ve always occasionally walked into a room and thought: Why am I here?
Now I can look directly at a calendar, argue with my daughter about the date, have her stare at me like, Are we looking at the same thing?, and then realize that yes, we are, and yes, she’s right. In my defense, a lot is going on up there.
I’m running two businesses, organizing teenagers, keeping track of everything everyone needs, and living with a dog who appears to believe she’s royalty and is currently above eating from an actual dog bowl.
Half the time I’m running around like a headless chicken. If I make it downstairs and remember why I went there, I count it as a win.
7. Immediately locating the toilets wherever you go
Know your exits. Know your toilets. No matter where I go, I find the nearest toilet first. Five kids have consequences.
I actually hate public toilets and will avoid them whenever I can, but sometimes there’s no negotiating with your bladder. So I locate the toilets. Always.
The funny thing is, my thirteen-year-old son is exactly the same. He cannot pass a toilet without going in. Whenever I’m out with him, I’m constantly waiting for him to come back from yet another bathroom stop.
So maybe this isn’t even a midlife-woman thing. Maybe my family just has a very committed relationship with toilets.
8. Having a public bra and a home bra
Underwire and I are having issues. I have full breasts. Always have.
My mother still looks at them occasionally and says, “I don’t know where you got those from, because it wasn’t from me.” Gotta love her. These days, I have two categories of bras.
There’s the leaving-the-house bra: underwire, supportive, everything where it’s supposed to be.
Then there’s my home bra. No wire. Nothing digging into me. Comfortable enough that I barely know it’s there. I sometimes wear it to duck down to the shops, but generally, it stays home with me.
Yesterday, I wore an underwire bra I hadn’t worn in ages, and the bloody thing tortured me all day. By the time I got home, I’d had enough. I ripped it off and actually spoke to it.
“Get off me now, you awful bra.”
9. Changing into house clothes the second you get home
Public clothes have served their purpose. Like the bra, the first thing I do when I get home is change into my comfy clothes. I cannot relax properly in public clothes.
Jeans? Off.
Proper bra? Gone.
Sweatpants, T-shirt, sloppy joe, bed socks in winter? Now we’re talking.
Nothing glamorous ever happens behind closed doors at my house. God forbid the most gorgeous middle-aged man alive ever turns up unexpectedly, because he is going to meet me in an outfit that says, I have no intention of leaving this property again today.
There are public clothes, and there are house clothes. Public clothes have no place here.
10. Having a frighteningly efficient nonsense detector
Finally, one thing is getting sharper. Okay, this one isn’t a humiliation. It’s a perk.
My nonsense detector at fifty is finely tuned.
I can smell an excuse before you’ve finished giving it. I know when someone is telling me what they think I want to hear. I know when a man is full of it. And I definitely know when someone wants something from me but is taking the scenic route to ask for it.
Twenty years ago, I might have sat there thinking, Maybe I’m being unfair.
Now? Nah. Nonsense. Next.
So while my eyesight might be going downhill, my tolerance for rubbish has somehow developed 20/20 vision. About bloody time.
So, there you have it. My eyesight is questionable, my bladder requires advance planning, my underwire bra and I are no longer on speaking terms, and there’s a decent chance I’m wearing bed socks before dinner.
But I can spot nonsense from across the room. Honestly, I’ll take it.
Kim Petersen is a USA Today bestselling author who writes about relationships, culture, and midlife insight. Her work explores independence, emotional maturity, and the psychology of connection.
