I was recently a guest on Anél Quilliam’s podcast - Mad with the Menopause. She invited me to talk about my experience with my wife’s perimenopause journey and the broader impact that journey has on couples.
First, let me give you a little background on Anél. Anél is the creator and host of Mad with the Menopause, a podcast dedicated to breaking the silence and misinformation surrounding perimenopause and menopause. Drawing on her own difficult perimenopause experience, she creates open conversations that educate women and men while exploring the physical, emotional, and relationship impact of the transition. She was also selected as one of the 100 Trailblazing Leaders in Menopause by the Women of Wearables.
The changes men feel before they understand
Our conversation covered a lot of ground, but we kept returning to something I experienced in my own relationship.
The fact that men don’t necessarily experience menopause first as a list of symptoms. They experience changes in the person they love and in the relationship they have built together.
My wife entered perimenopause at 41. Over the next four years, she saw four different doctors. She was told she was too young. Her symptoms didn’t fit. Her labs were normal. Everything was apparently fine. Except it wasn’t for her. And because I kept hearing that there was nothing medically wrong, I started looking for another explanation.
“If it’s not her, it must be me because there’s only two people in this relationship.”
The first thing I noticed
There were physical symptoms. Hot flashes. Sleepless nights. Changes in mood and irritability.
But those weren’t the things I experienced most directly.
“I think the thing that I noticed first was a change in intimacy, both physical and emotional.”
When we hear the word intimacy, we often jump immediately to sex. But emotional intimacy changes too. Without context, the changes to both forms of intimacy can feel very personal.I certainly took them personally.
If I can’t fix it, what is my role?
Eventually my wife found an OB/GYN who recognized what was happening. She was in perimenopause.
Having a name for it helped, but simply knowing about menopause symptoms wasn’t enough for me. I could read about hot flashes, brain fog and sleep disturbance, but a symptom list didn’t tell me what I was supposed to do with that information.
That led to something Anél and I discussed during the podcast that I think gets overlooked when we talk about men and menopause.
“If I can’t fix it and there’s no solution, then what’s my role?”
For many men, providing solutions is what they are used to doing. When someone we love has a problem, doing something about it can feel like an expression of care. Menopause doesn’t work that way. So the question becomes less about what we can fix and more about how we participate.
The realization that changed things
It took me far too long to understand something that now seems obvious.
“We were having the same experience from two different perspectives.”
My wife’s lived experience of perimenopause was hers. I could never know what it felt like to experience the physical and emotional changes happening in her body.
But I had a lived experience too.
I was experiencing uncertainty, changes in intimacy and communication, and changes in a relationship that I thought I knew. Recognizing that changed how I saw my role.
Instead of constantly asking what I could do to make the symptoms go away, I could start paying attention to where the load was greatest and where I could pick some of it up.
As I told Anél:
“Stop looking for solutions and start looking for partnerships.”
What partnership actually looks like
Sometimes that means taking responsibility for things rather than offering to help with them. What I refer to as the transition from helper to partner.
During our conversation, I used grocery shopping as an example. Going to the store is useful. But who checked the refrigerator and pantry? Who decided what everyone was eating? Who made the list? That highlights just one small aspect of the emotional load that women carry every day.
Partnership also requires flexibility. What helped yesterday may not help today. Sometimes stepping in is useful, but that also requires the female partner to learn to step back. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is recognize that your partner needs space. That requires paying attention rather than assuming you know what they want.
Perhaps that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned from my own experience and from the conversations I’ve had since. Menopause may be individually experienced, but it’s lived collectively.
When something changes in a relationship, both people experience that change. Understanding that doesn’t give men a solution to menopause.
It gives us something much more useful: a role in navigating it together.
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