Britons in their late 30s and early 40s are unhappier than any other age group,
suffering from loneliness and depression as work and relationship pressures
(take their toll), according to a survey on Wednesday.

周三发布的一项调查显示，相比其他年龄段的英国人来说，四十岁前后的英国人最不快乐，
因为来自工作和家庭关系的压力让他们感到孤独和抑郁。

The research, by relationship advice charity Relate, found a fifth of those
aged 35 to 44 wished they had a better relationship with their family,
with nearly a third saying these relationships would improve if they could
work fewer hours.

More than 20 percent of that age group said they felt lonely a lot of the time
and 5 percent said they had no friends at all.

"Traditionally we associate the (midlife crisis) with people in their late 40s to
50s, but the report reveals that this period could be reaching people earlier
than we would expect," said Claire Tyler, chief executive of Relate.

"It's when life gets really hard -- you're starting a family, pressure at work
can be immense and increasingly money worries can be crippling（削弱，受损） ."

immense                                         crippling
[i'mens]                                    ['kripliŋ]
adj. 巨大的, 广大的, <口>非常好的           adj. 造成严重后果的
                                            动词cripple的现在分词形式
take the toll
1. 起作用  起作用破坏性的.

Relate found that 22 percent of 35 to 44-year-olds had suffered depression because
of a bad relationship, and 40 percent had been cheated on by a partner.

The survey of 2,004 adults showed that, across all age groups, money worries and
redundancies（冗陈，裁员） were the biggest strain on people's relationships with
their partners, while communication problems, working long hours and the division
of housework also put pressure on couples.

The ways in which people communicate with their friends and family have changed
with the growth of modern technology, the survey found, with emails and text
messages more popular than face-to-face communication for staying in touch with
friends.  A quarter of parents said they used social networking sites such as
Facebook and MySpace to keep in contact with their children, while one in 10
parents said they had no face to face contact with their children at all.

Relationships with dads have particularly suffered from changes to family structures,
the charity said, with a third of dads who are divorced or separated never seeing
their children, compared to 10 percent of mums.