"As I get older, I feel like I should be more confident, more comfortable with me. But it's the opposite! The older I get, the more pressure I put on myself and the less confident I feel."
In my circle of cronnies I have found that the women who are either working or kept
up their careers until they retired have a much higher self esteem and are more confident than their counterparts who were/are totally dependent on their husbands for their financial needs. That applies to my widowed and single friends as well, the more financially independent they were throughout their lives, they more content they are today.
SAHM's seem to somehow lose their confidence as they age, might be because their children leave the nest, and they do not have a new/another career to replace the one of being a mom, it is especially difficult for some SAHM when the husband dies, they are totally lost. The husband worked, the husband handled all the financial issues, the husband made all the major decisions....the list goes on and on. Many of my aged widow friends now depend on their sons to make all their financial decisions for them, and several don't make any decisions unless they consult their sons first...it is weird to me.
Just my observations, could all be my own convaluted thinking.