I've had similar issues. I've opened the game, the pause message was showing, yet my family had aged. Also, I got tired of all of my families being exhausted constantly and not staying in the bed (even when I pause the game) and just paused them all and quit for a few days. When I came back, everyone was refreshed and healthy. This happened with each game paused, and the game shut down completely. And yes, the pause message was displayed on the screen.