I am the trifecta: Fortysomething, long-divorced, childless. Although I’m ensconced in a relationship, on occasional insomniac nights, listening to car alarms, boisterous teenagers, and ambulance sirens outside my window, I wonder, "Who will be there for me when I’m old?" Come morning the anxiety eases, but in the back of my mind the fear lingers.

Having children isn’t necessarily enough to offset such primal fears. Single mother Lynne Andrews confesses, "After being divorced two full years the gnawing fear of growing old alone still creeps into my mind-set daily." Adds the 41-year-old Atlanta-based entrepreneur, "I worry my children (9 and 11) will grow up and be gone, and I’ll be alone in my rocking chair living vicariously through them."

Andrews married at 28, "settling" for an incompatible mate due to a fear of otherwise remaining childless. Her current ‘aging alone’ fear is even more intense: "It was easier being single in my 20s. There are fewer potential partners out there now. It shocks and scares me that I’m entertaining the notion of going back to a guy I dated a few times who was controlling like my ex. That’s how much I hate being alone!"

This fear is common for both sexes but perhaps more potent for women since, historically, we live longer and many men tend to gravitate toward younger partners, giving them a wider pool from which to choose. However, when panic steers our decision-making, warns integrative psychiatrist Tracy Latz, MD, MS, "We make reactive choices that we would not likely make if we were living [in] a place of love and compassion for ourselves." The co-author of Shift: 12 Keys to Shift Your Life continues, "We grab at the first opportunity for partnership because of constant faulty thoughts such as ‘What if nothing better comes along?’; ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’; and ‘Any warm body is better than nobody.’"

Unfortunately, this negative thinking has a reverse-jackpot effect. See yourself as unworthy and — bingo! — you will attract people who treat you that way.

Carol Brody Fleet, author of Widows Wears Stilettos, offers, "Oftentimes it’s not simply a fear of being alone; it’s not knowing how not to be one-half of a couple." Fleet, who was widowed in 2000 at age 40, adds, "You can stay in the fear by settling for what turns out to be the wrong person, or [you can] surround yourself with people rather than simply one person."

This suggestion is not a proposal that you indulge in a menage a trois or menage a quartre. For many midlife women, the knight in shining armor isn’t male. Since women at this stage are not obsessed with having children, the need to find a partner is not primary — and what we value instead are female friendships. Indeed, nearly 50 percent of women aged 45 to 59 polled in a 2006 AARP survey regard living with girlfriends to be an appealing lifestyle. Think Golden Girls. Rebecca G. Adams, a University of North Carolina sociologist studying adult friendships, has reported on the trend of midlife women being seduced by memories of college dorm-style living, "Many women who lived a very traditional married life are feminists and likely want to return to an all-female environment."

Humans are social beings and connecting to others is healing — but not a cure-all for crippling fear. That’s an inside job. Instead of depending on others to give you a reason to get out of bed, fill your days with hobbies, volunteer activities, a fascinating career. Hopefully you’ll soon be too engaged (not in the diamond ring sense!) to stay caught in loneliness and fear.

I’m not promising endless contentment. We never know what is around the corner. All we’re sure of is that aging and, yes — cue the morbid patrol! — death is inevitable. But simply Krazy Gluing someone, even the right someone, to your side ultimately won’t vanquish the fear. But you can greatly temper those tumultuous upheavals. How? When self-pity bubbles up, squash it by celebrating the years you’ve lived and looking forward to the ones you have left as a gift.