Why Life Feels Harder in Our 30s and 40s

In part one of this series, we explored why and how life in our 30s and 40s may feel harder for a certain segment of the population: those of us who come from relational trauma backgrounds.

We explored how and why coming from a relational trauma background can create cracks in the proverbial foundations of our lives in a way that someone from a non-trauma background may not have to cope with.

In this post, I explore how and why those cracks may be unfelt and unknown for some time in adolescence and young adulthood. I explore how they become more visible and known when an individual arrives in their 30s and 40s, begins to experience the pressures of the passage of time, and the common developmental milestones of these decades.

For a while, it’s possible to build upon a faulty foundation and look impressive without consequence.

So, those of us with cracks in the foundations build up our house of life – because that’s what we all do in life as we age and move through the world.

One year at a time, one choice and attendant set of consequences at a time.

We build as we age.

First, we build one proverbial story. And then maybe a second.

And we build up around the cracks in our foundation that we are often not even consciously aware of.

Coping as best we can.

Building as best we can.

And indeed, even though we come from relational trauma backgrounds and there are cracks in our foundations, the exterior of our proverbial house may not look bad.

In fact, it can look quite impressive.

Someone from a relational trauma background can be high functioning academically and professionally but underdeveloped in their emotional and relational skills.

For example, you can get into an Ivy League university and walk away with dual degrees and top honors and still have unresolved C-PTSD symptoms that make emotional regulation feel impossible and relational attachments painful (I was a perfect example of this in my late teens and early 20s).

So again, we inevitably build our house of life, and many of us even have an impressive, shiny exterior despite the faulty foundation.

All the while, the faulty foundation may be unseen, unknown, and the consequences of those cracks not terribly felt yet.

So when do the cracks in the foundation really begin to be felt?

Usually, when we arrive in our 30s and 40s, having built additional proverbial floors on our proverbial home.

The 30s and 40s are times of increased relational responsibilities that test faulty foundations.
By the time many of us arrive in our 30s and 40s, we’ve begun to build more proverbial floors onto the foundation of our house.

These proverbial floors often revolve around increased responsibilities and pressures – professionally, financially, and relationally.

And it’s the relational responsibilities, in particular, that begin to test the foundations of our lives.

Why?

Because our relational trauma wounds took place in relationships early on in life, and it’s through relationships that those wounds will often get triggered and exposed.

When we’re younger, we may have more ability, choice, and time to avoid relationships and this commensurate triggering.

But when we arrive into our 30s and 40s, many of us are confronted with situations and choices that trigger these relational trauma wounds substantially more.

For instance, common developmental milestones and experiences of the 30s and 40s often include:

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• Feeling the pressure and/or ambivalence and biological urge of time to find a mate, a life partner.
• Feeling the pressure and/or ambivalence and biological urge of time to decide whether or not to have children.
• Taking on more responsibilities at work which often includes managing others and/or being part of a team.
• Taking on more responsibilities financially (such as paying back student loans, saving up for a down payment, and/or affording childcare expenses).
• Deciding where to root, establishing some degree of home permanence, and then attempting to build community in this place.

As you can see, these developmental milestones are all themed by more relational contact and increased responsibilities.

While these developmental tasks and milestones are not necessarily easy for anyone, they can often feel much harder for those who come from relational trauma backgrounds. It is harder because the cracks in the proverbial foundation are being stress tested in a way they previously have not before.

This is because the 30s and 40s, with all their greater relational pressures, can often reveal the maladaptive beliefs we introjected. They reveal maladaptive behaviors we developed to cope with intolerable and overwhelming experiences when young and how we cope with traumatic relational situations.

So, very often in the 30s and 40s, many of us start to find out how those maladaptive beliefs and behaviors are no longer serving us and perhaps keeping us from the very things we want.

In other words, we start to see and feel the cracks in our faulty foundation more than we have in the past.