r/AskMenOver30

Hey guys, I will turn thirty in less than 2 months. I do not have a problem with that because life goes on.

My "problem" is that many of my friends don't really want to do anything anymore. I understand. people have girlfriends, wifes etc. but I miss the years when we did something together like in our 20's.

What do you do to compensate or may be ensure your friends will still do something together. It can be still as small as: let's go out for a drink at that specific bar.

It feels more lonely when you grow up. I mean that with friends if you understand. I have a good life of course do not think of me as negative person when you read this post, but I miss the ''old times''.

Thank you for some answers. I just like to right about this. Feels much more easier your know :)

Hello,

I want to share my story . I worked in It for 3.5 years after making a career change . Soon will be unemployed at 33 .

Also luckely I put alot of money aside like more than 35k because living with parents that i am really thankful also I got unemployement benefits ( I am european by the way ) .

I am now thinking becoming an entrepreneur because I am fed up with all the corporate and especially the colleague ( They are not your friends ). And also the IT market is garbage in my country.

Did anyone done it at 33 how did it turn out ?

If yes can you share you story .

I am 24, and I always felt I was grasping for air when I eat dry food / some type of food. I always have to have a water bottle beside me otherwise I always feel food stuck in the esophageal area causing me pain and trouble breathing.

I just became aware of a surgery so to speak, where it apparently fixes this problem permanentely, anyone with knowledge on this or had this treated using this technique?

Currently in a weird spot and just about to enter the fulltime work world. This is my last summer in freedom, any suggestions on how i could make it the best summer as much as possible? What do i need to prepare mysdlf for?

The real answer is to take some time off and let everything recover. But sometimes you can't.

Topicals as in things you apply to the area to speed up recovery or make it feel better for a little while.

You had to scatter his ashes in a real nice place along with his dog's ashes.

Long story short I've been in the music industry my entire 20s.

I used to make more but now I'm averaging around 1.5-2k usd per month after tax. Isn't much in the grand scheme of things but I don't live in a western country so it goes further.

Regardless... I am thinking of my future, I want to have my own family, own a home with a garden and so on...

I've saved and I invest so I have that going on but I'm just thinking I want to be earning far more than I am so I can invest far more and so on...

I work online and travel a lot, sometimes doing tour management but mostly I produce music for singers or tv shows.

Ideally I find something I can do on the internet still as local jobs don't pay as much.

Just not really sure how to do it.

May just double down on the music and start making content to build a online personal brand and leverage that honestly. Seems like the "easiest" route right now despite it probably not being easy but natural flow of ease.

We recently put my father in law in a nursing home. Leading up to this he would spend 24/7 in a recliner watching tv, sleeping in that recliner EVERY night because it was too hard for him to get out of a bed. He also constantly drank alcohol all day, probably out of boredom. His physical condition was terrible and he could barely walk anywhere on his own. Simple things like going to the restroom, bathing, and feeding himself were extremely difficult. We didn’t know he was THIS bad until he got stuck IN the toilet for hours and his roommate had to call 911 to get him out.

That was 2-3 weeks ago and we got him into a very nice VA nursing home. Its very new, he has his own room, 3 hot meals a day, plenty of activities, and opportunity to socialize. But I get it’s not the same as home and having the freedom to do and go as you please. We hope that this place will improve his quality of life and not just have him rot away in a recliner watching fox news ALL day. That he will do PT to strengthen his body, get out and socialize with other guys, and just get out of his room.

Has a nursing home actually help your parents quality of life?

I feel strong in my Accounting work and general high capacity problem solving, multitasking, etc. but I am a shit driver and feel I always will be!!! All the men in my life are just good drivers naturally and I don’t understand why I can’t be

​

I’m 37, married, and we don’t have children. My wife and I have around $600k in assets and our only debt is our mortgage, which is about $1,500/month.

About 4 years ago, I left my full-time job as a firefighter to run my business full time. The business has been growing slowly. Gross revenue has increased, but I’ve been reinvesting heavily back into the business, so I’ve taken very little personally.

Because of that, my personal finances have felt flat for the last 4 years. I’ve still been contributing to my Roth IRA and personal trading account, roughly around $12k/year, but I can’t help feeling like I’m behind compared to others.

I know comparison is the thief of joy, but I’m trying to figure out if this feeling is rational. Maybe it’s because I’m getting close to 40 (2 more years), because I left a stable career, because business growth has been slower than I expected, or because I’m overthinking it. I do not regret leaving a safe salary considering f.f was not longer something I enjoyed, and business has given me true freedom to express myself, my desires and is pushing me to grow as a person further.

Current asset breakdown as a couple:

- Home equity: $175k

- 457(b): $175k

- Roth IRA: $80k

- Webull/trading account: $16k

- HYSA: $145k

Going into retirement, my wife should receive a public school teacher pension, and I should receive a small pension from my 10 years in fire service.

I also have some anxiety about retirement. I think part of it comes from seeing elders in my family work very late in life because they needed the job, and that has been a fear of mine for a long time.

Are my thoughts rational? Has anyone else felt financially “behind” even when the numbers looked okay on paper? Am I actually behind, or is this more of a mindset/anxiety issue from leaving a stable job and building a business?

As I approach my late 30s, it seems my stress around money has only increased even though I am further than I thought I would be when I was 27. At the same time, I still feel behind with my own vision on many days. Just trying to find that balance.. because life to me is also not about work only. Which is what I am going to really adjust starting now.. to spend a bit of cash and live a bit more.

Nobody knows and I have been feeling frozen afraid in my room thinking how could I have almost had that happen, upset, I feel unsettled and afraid to drive now. Have any of you had near impact accident. I feel so afraid

I’m on a 6 month sobriety after a decade of being an alcoholic. I have no shame that’s who I am.

Just wondering if any former alcoholics snapped out of it and just learned to tone it down and can have a couple drinks for specials events and life moments.

The thought of this no drinking sobriety streak seems unrealistic.

I noticed that a lot of men's wardrobes seem to be made up of black, white, grey, and “earthtone colours”

Why don’t many men, especially over 30, wear anything other than blacks, whites, grey and sometimes dark brown

Why not neon colors, bright construction reflective shirts outside of work, purple, etc ?

Is it because of wanting to “blend into the crowd”, or some arbitrary gender role expectation?

I make exploration videos around the UK, the problem is, I genuinely cannot tell whether anyone actually wants that sort of content anymore. It feels like travel videos now only work if it is Japan, Dubai, a £500-a-night hotel, someone spending loads of money, or a list of places TikTok has already decided are hidden gems….

Part of me thinks ordinary UK towns are far more interesting than people give them credit for. The other part thinks I am putting real time into making videos about places nobody cares enough to click. So be honest, would you ever watch someone explore a random British town properly, including the boring bits as well as the interesting ones or is this type of travel content completely saturated now and I should probably accept that people do not care and go back to my day job?

Have a young family (dad of 2) and seriously considering quitting…

Examples of my videos in comments (for context on type of video)

I didn't really think about it for myself because I'm mostly an introvert, but after speaking with a few friends and catching up with some other friends I haven't spoken in a while, I started to realize how much of a "black hole" the past 5-6 years have been for men between 30-35 (not saying other age ranges weren't affected, but this sub is for over 30). The common themes I heard were:

- Being at their peak in 2020 and then losing their "best" years when everyone had to do social distancing.

- Postponing career or home ownership plans

- Unable to get back into their 'prime' after 5-6 years and/or feeling that they got too old now.

Do you agree with these sentiments and how did it affect you specifically?

I do the dishes sometimes, more often I'm sweeping or picking things up and organizing living spaces. But I do dishes.

And sometimes I don't. It's a task both me and my wife do. She never says "please do the dishes", or "can you do the dishes?". She always says "don't forget to do the dishes." Even if we hadn't specifically planned who would do them.

If she's in a bad mood she will start out with "you haven't done the dishes!" Or some form of what feels like an attack to me. I can have a broom in my hand or the garbage and she will start telling me about the chores I am not doing.

She says I shouldn't need to be asked. It's another thing for her to keep in mind that she shouldn't have to think about. She says that she always does them without me asking, but recently there are weeks where she doesn't do any and I do have to ask.

I have to work at home today so I'll be home and she is going to the beach with our daughter. She says I need to do them because she is out taking care of our daughter, but when I'm at home watching her it's the same, I should have done the dishes or some other chore anyway. It feels like a double standard because when I'm caring for our kid I am accused if not doing enough, and when she is she is "doing all that work" so I should just do the chores.

So am I supposed to just do them? Am I out of line in wanting her to ask me, preferably nicely, instead of tell me?

I've been reflecting on a shift in my personality lately and I'm struggling to make sense of it.

When I was in my early 20s and going through college, I felt incredibly confident. I was comfortable being loud, taking charge, and acting like a leader. I didn't second-guess myself much.

Now that I’m in my early 30s, that feeling has almost vanished. I find myself being much more careful and deliberate about exactly what I say and how I say it. Over the last decade, I've gained so much more experience through travel, reading, and building different social connections, but instead of making me more assertive, it seems to have made me more hesitant.

I can't tell if this is just "the curse of knowledge" or if having more wisdom has actually become a mental block. When I was younger, my naivety and that "ignorance is bliss" mindset allowed me to be filter-free and confident. Now, because I know how much I don't know, I feel like I lack the authority to lead. It’s like I can't step into any real leadership role because I no longer have that unearned certainty.

Has anyone else experienced this shift? Is it possible to regain that drive without reverting to being reckless or overconfident?

Would love to hear how anybody here managed to move past this plateau and turn your experience into a different, more mature form of leadership.

Not neglect. More like the quiet guilt that you should be more present, more energetic, more patient, more fun, more financially secure, more everything.

How do you keep perspective and still try to be better?

I’m 38 and beer is starting to feel like way more work than it’s worth. Had a few at a BBQ this weekend just normal cookout beers, food, home early and water before bed because I knew I had family stuff the next morning but still woke up feeling like I was moving through mud. Not puking not even what I’d call a real hangover just slow and heavy. My wife even asked if I had more than I said because my face looked rough lol. The part that annoyed me most was losing the morning. I kept thinking coffee would fix it, then a shower, then breakfast and next thing I knew half the day was gone and I was mad at myself. It feels like the math changed. A few beers used to just be a few beers but now it feels like I’m borrowing energy from the next day. For guys around this age did you just cut way back or did you find some boring routine that made the next day less of a write off?

Nothing is more demoralizing and makes one feel super awful than being literally surrounded everywhere (work, shopping, going to festival/sports, out to eat etc) than seeing everyone seem so young and healthy and fit when you have passed that age and are not older and sicker and compare your old fit young self with these college students. How does one cope and learn to be happy on was blessed to have been that young fit beautiful person and now are in a totally new age and not feel jealous or resentful for those youth?