Panicking the other day about what a return to coupledom might bring, I told my husband that as the kids had flown the nest we needed a joint hobby to keep us ‘collaborating’ through the next decades.

He responded with genuine confusion: ‘But we already have hobbies.’

Now I was the confused one. ‘What, pray tell, might they be?’ I asked.

‘Cooking and gardening,’ he said.

If I could insert an emoji right here you’d be seeing the horror face!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to growing a few herbs and dahlias, and cooking is a compulsory life skill, but neither represents the sum of my hopes and dreams for my final quarter. My partner of 23 years, now in his late fifties, might want to put his feet up and tend to his ferns, but it’s definitely not how I see my future unfolding.

Neither do my female friends, now nearly all over the 50 mark. Rather, we continue to multi-task at pace, and statistics show that we are far more likely to take bold leaps after 50: Starting a business, choosing divorce, making major lifestyle changes, and so on.

A survey published last week highlighted the issue. More than 6,000 over-50s in England were quizzed about healthcare preferences, with the results published in journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One. It found that older women were more likely to prioritise quality of life over longevity.

And the men?

‘Men, meanwhile, were less likely to put quality of life ahead of simply living longer,’ commented Professor Nicholas Steel from the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School. Seems my husband is not alone.

Mariella Frostrup says that aged 63, her life is busy and thriving. She is seen arriving for a pre-Bafta party in February 2026

At 63, I truly think I’m speeding up, compelled by the inevitability of time running out. I’m busy finalising the speaker line-up for the Big Brue, a festival of fresh thinking I’ve founded with friends in Somerset. I’m also waiting for the results of the trials testing my new health and wellbeing range for midlifers, inspired by our best-selling cookbook Menolicious, and I’m recording my new podcast and working on a TV drama I’m producing. Oh yes, and next Monday I make my debut at the Edinburgh Festival in my Cracking The Menopause show with my friend, the brilliant actor Gina Bellman.

To say that life is busy is an understatement. Now I learn there’s a study showing that older women prioritise quality of life over longevity. Physician, heal thyself, I say. That’s how I live every single day – as though it’s my last.

I know countless women in their fifties and beyond who are thriving, looking forward to time spent travelling, taking on new jobs, learning languages, doing masters’ degrees, all while keeping fit and looking stylish and fabulous. Naturally, quality of life means different things to different people – work, mobility, independence, comfort. As far as I’m concerned it’s about a hotchpotch of stimulating and fulfilling work, a healthy diet, keeping up with friends and colleagues, and exercising. If there were a choice between living 100 years watching a wall or ten travelling the world, well, I know which I’d choose.

Then there’s the opposite sex.

Let me say now that I know plenty of energetic midlife and older go-getters who’ve held on to their jobs and their joie de vivre. But there are so many others that start to settle into middle age, as though it’s a beloved old armchair, or pick a sport that requires truly unattractive clothing – cycling Lycra? Golf shoes?

They talk about retirement, analyse golf handicaps, buy macho-looking electric bikes and doze off on the sofa watching crime documentaries. Hands up if your partner or husband has taken up cycling, joined a gym, started necking protein shakes, or imbibes more electrolytes than needed by a hundred humans?

In Cracking The Menopause, Mariella unpacks how women over 50 are more powerful than at any other time of life

Holidays a deux can be stressful. One friend recently travelled to Tuscany with her reluctant partner: ‘Why do we need to go away? The kids aren’t around now,’ he complained. While she explored the Uffizi gallery, he stayed in the hotel trying to get wifi to watch the cricket. But the great thing about longevity in a relationship is it frees you up to embark on solo adventures from your base camp.

Once kids are reared, we may have the time and energy to devote to passions and ambitions. There’s some science to this. Our oxytocin – the bonding hormone we produce when we give birth – drops in midlife.

In Cracking The Menopause, the show I co-wrote with journalist Alice Smellie, we delve into the history of menopause and midlife women. Where once we were relegated to a metaphorical rubbish tip in middle age, women over 50 have dragged the dismal narrative out of the cesspit and rewritten it. Now we believe ourselves to be stronger and more powerful than at any other time of life.

As the UK Government’s Women’s Employment Ambassador, I can assure you that it’s not a lack of ambition holding older women back in the workplace. It’s more likely to be caring duties, or lack of support with our more complicated biology.

Ironically, it’s around the age of 50 that many men suddenly become aware of their health. We women, meanwhile, who have been asking them for donkey’s years to moderate their fat intake/drinking/smoking, are too often expected to play nursemaid when poor choices come home to roost. When poor health is lifestyle-related, it’s very tempting to say, ‘I told you so’ – the mantra of married couples throughout the ages!

There are plenty of couples who give up boozing and take up cold water swimming together, and are happy on their journey to both quality of life and longevity.

Mariella says women mostly live busy lives caring for loved ones, and the liberation of midlife and beyond means that they can finally start living for themselves

But often, I’m afraid those pace-of-life disparities mean that many couples reach the end of the road. Most divorces are instigated by women, midlife ones even more so – the so-called ‘walkaway wives’ seeking fulfilment and realising it can’t be achieved with their partner.

A divorced friend in her late fifties tells me that she is desperate to meet a man for city breaks and good sex. ‘Men, on the whole, want someone to cook their supper, buy their kids birthday cards and stay in every night,’ she mourns. She recently went to a singles night, where the women were successful, glamorous and fun. The men all looked the same – greying, slightly tubby and thought that a strong selling point was being semi-retired.

There appears to be some disconnect between awareness, or care, over looks. I don’t mean that we should all be desperately chasing youth, and frankly we should all look exactly as we wish, but grooming is an essential life skill, as is maintaining some semblance of pride in your appearance. It’s important to maintain a feeling of relevance and self-esteem.

Whether women actively choose quality of life over longevity – I’m less sure about this. I think that we have mostly lived busy lives caring for those around us, and the liberation of midlife and beyond means that we’re able to start living for ourselves. And the good news is that the fuller and more fulfilled your life, the longer it’s likely to be.

Of course, eating well, exercising and keeping the brain busy will help to stave off disease. But fascinatingly, having a strong sense of purpose is a key to enhanced lifespan and health span.

Research shows that purposeful adults are 24 per cent less likely to become inactive and 33 per cent less likely to develop sleep problems. More purpose leads to reduced ageing at a cellular level.

My interpretation of this is that the busier I am, the longer I’m likely to live. And if I don’t, well, I’ll have had fun in the meantime. I’ve told my husband that he can work on his riverside fern orgy and master new Indian curries. I’ll keep the herb garden tidy and my life busy.

Hopefully we’ll both be fulfilled and live for decades to come.

Tickets for Cracking The Menopause (August 10-17) can be purchased at tickets.gilded balloon.co.uk/event/14:7133