Despite what we’ve been told about ageing, menopause and post-menopause, getting older isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it can be just the beginning – and that’s what Mariella Frostrup found when her “life pivoted” in her 40s.
Appearing on HELLO!’s Second Act podcast, Mariella revealed how she opened herself up “to receive love” in her 40s after decades of toxic relationships. She says the decade was "the point at which my life pivoted in a different direction, one that I'd longed for – to a place of security, where I felt more able to take risks.”
Prior to her 40th birthday, Mariella shared that she’d been in a cycle of toxic dating patterns that she believes stemmed from losing her father to alcoholism. As she says happens to many “girls” who have experienced similar things, the troubled relationship massively impacted her dating life.
She explained, “Losing the male figure in your life at that age has a dramatic impact on your relationships for quite some time. It leaves a big hole. You try to fill it with perhaps the sort of people who embody the very things your father, in my case, was enduring or suffering from.
“So they tend to be addictive or troubled personalities, maybe depressives. You constantly want to try to succeed where you failed with your dad,” she added.
So, one thing that massively changed her life going into her 40s was meeting her future husband, the human rights lawyer Jason McCue. She was 39 at the time and, when they started dating, she says, “I realised I’d broken a pattern. Here was someone who actually didn’t need fixing.”
She added that meeting him was “such a relief and such a change.” But in order to be “ready to receive” the love he was bringing to the table, Mariella revealed that she had to realise one thing.
“I got to 38 and I start thinking ‘all of this has happened, all this glitzy, successful stuff.’ But actually I’ve failed in the things that I really, really wanted and I need to take stock,” she explained. “I thought, ‘maybe I’m never going to have children. Maybe I’m never going to be married again.’ And I decided to make my 39th year a year where I did anything I was asked."
As well as taking more career opportunities, she also took trips and did activities she’d never have thought about before in an attempt to explore “all the ways I could be somebody else.” And, she says, “At the end of that year in the November, I went on a trek for the Children’s Society and Jason was on this trek.”
The whole thing sounds like a real love story for the ages. “I just felt at home,” she said about meeting her husband. “Because I’d thrown caution to the wind, I think that’s why I was open [to receive new love].”
What have you done differently in your 40s (or beyond)? We'd love to hear from you in the comments section below.
