MIDLIFE (NON) CRISIS; GOOD OLD DAYS START AT AGE 35.

Byline: Ronald Kotulak Chicago Tribune 

When Dick and Diane Fox passed through their 40s and 50s, there was never a feeling that they were caught up in any midlife crisis.

In fact, the Arlington Heights, Ill., couple, now in their 60s, scoffed Monday at the idea that they're even middle-age. Midlife crisis never entered their vocabulary while their four children got married and, one by one, left the house. Diane Fox, 60, a homemaker, said she thought about it ``for about five minutes.''

``I think the idea of a midlife crisis is ridiculous nonsense,'' she said during an interview Monday at a health club in Arlington Heights. ``It's just this psychological talk that doesn't apply to us. I never want to go to a prior stage in my life. I'll look forward to the future as long as I'm healthy.''

Her comments echo findings from a groundbreaking new study that defies conventional wisdom about middle age. Instead of being a time of turmoil, unbearable stress, hormonal change, loss of control, failing health, bad backs and crumbling marriages, for most people middle age turns out to be the most fulfilling time of life, researchers found.

The study, the largest ever done on midlife - usually defined as the years from 40 to 60 but sometimes from 35 to 70 - also found middle age is the period that older people say they would return to if they had the chance.

``The surprising thing is that midlife may be the best time, the best place to be,'' said social psychologist Orville Gilbert Brim, director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development and president of Life Trends Inc., his consultancy business hired by MacArthur to conduct the study.

``We have this public image of midlife being full of stress, but, in fact, (midlifers') sense of control is good, and their sense of well-being is good.''

Midlife, despite the vast numbers of people who experience it, is the least studied and understood segment of life, almost an unexplored continent when compared with childhood, adolescence and old age.

Findings from the study demolish some cherished myths about middle age, such as the midlife crisis. In reality, few people buy red sports cars, date younger people or engage in other uncharacteristic activities in a feverish attempt to regain lost youth.

Surprise findings

Other surprising findings: menopause is not a major life event for most women, irritability and neuroticism decline in both men and women as they age, and people do not necessarily become more isolated from family and friends as they grow older.

``People give midlife a very high satisfaction rating. That surprised all of us,'' Brim said. ``We hope the factual information from this study will introduce some normality into our thinking about midlife, instead of all these fantasies and myths that abound in American culture.''

The 10-year MacArthur study involved more than 7,800 Americans between the ages of 25 and 75. Interviews were conducted with more than 3,000 people between the ages of 35 and 65 who answered more than 1,100 questions.

People in the middle years said their chronological age was racing ahead of their mental age, with two out of three people describing themselves as feeling younger than they actually are. By the time they reach the 65-to-74 age group, men feel 12.6 years younger, and women say they feel 14.7 years younger than their physical appearance.

Despite midlife's swirling changes - children and grandchildren being born and growing up, careers coming and going, and parents aging and dying - most people say they are generally contented, particularly with their marriages, children, family and jobs.

Less sex and money

Although most indicators of satisfaction go up in middle age, people say two things aren't so hot: sex and money. They don't have enough of either. Their finances are just a bit better than in their earlier years, and sexual satisfaction declines sharply, a change that is somewhat offset by improving relationships.

The term ``midlife'' is also being redefined. As people are living longer, they are pushing midlife further into what used to be thought of as the ``golden years.''

Midlife used to be considered as 40 to 60, but the respondents in the MacArthur study said, on average, that midlife begins at 44 and ends at 62.

Asked what age they would like to be, men 65 to 74 said they would like to be 32 years younger. Women in the same age group were less ambitious, wanting to be 28 years younger. Women 25 to 34 wanted to clip off an average of five years.

``The extraordinary thing about the preferred age is that older people want to be back in midlife,'' said Brim. ``They don't want to go back to the time of so-called glamorous youth.''

Among the MacArthur study's major findings:

``The midlife crisis''

Although the ``midlife crisis'' is widely thought to be an experience of psychological turmoil that hits nearly all people in their 40s, nine out of 10 people in the study never experienced one.

The study defined ``midlife crisis'' as a general feeling of dread that occurs in people who suddenly realize that life is half over and that they will not be able to accomplish everything they set out to do.

Many people confuse a midlife crisis with an event that occurs during middle age, such as divorce, job loss, job insecurity, serious financial problems, the only or last child's leaving home, the birth of a grandchild or a life-threatening health problem. Such an event is not the same as the free-fall realization that one is aging and will never achieve some goals.

Menopause: change of life?

For as much as the emotional and physical effects of menopause have been ballyhooed, most women report they are overrated. Half the women surveyed, for instance, don't have hot flashes.

Women were supposed to be psychologically traumatized by menopause because it meant the end of their ability to conceive, said Alice S. Rossi, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. But since the advent of the birth-control pill, women have long had control over their reproductive capacity, and most choose to stop having children well before menopause.

The MacArthur study found that menopause usually occurs between 49 and 51, and 62 percent of postmenopausal women report only relief. Only regret is reported by a mere 2 percent.

Sex

Frequency of sex goes down dramatically with age. People under 30 in the study averaged sex about once a week, while those over 70 reported a frequency of less than once a month. Although frequency declines with age, individuals vary: Some young people have sex less often than older ones, and some old people have sex as often as young adults.