Part 1 - Understanding Menopause
Perimenopause or Menopause?
We all have women in our lives, mothers, sitters, daughters, friends, co-workers, strangers, wives, girlfriends, and lovers and whether we live with them or not, at some point they will experience menopause.
So, it's helpful to know what perimenopause and menopause are, their symptoms, and how this natural and normal biological transformation affects women and your interactions with them.
With understanding comes empathy, so you can have better relationships with the women in your life.
Here are some important terms and common questions.
What Are Perimenopause And Menopause?
Menopause is the season of life when a woman is no longer sexually reproductive.
Once she is in menopause she no longer produces eggs. Her body no longer cycles through a 28 day chemical process to ready the body for supporting life. She no longer has periods. Her hormone levels change dramatically and so do her life priorities.
Perimenopause is the lead-up to menopause and the part of the journey where many of her biological changes begin to occur gradually over time.
You can think of perimenopause as the process of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, although some days it may feel more like she’s turning into a werewolf.
These changes can be extremely stressful and volatile for women. That’s why it is vitally important for you to keep in mind that she doesn't fully understand it all herself and she needs your strong, calm, confident love and support now more than ever.
It’s not personal. Some days it feels personal, but I can guarantee you, it’s not.
She’s never been here before and there’s no guarantee that another female in her life has prepared her for the changes that are taking place in her body, mind, and spirit right now.
The struggle with perimenopause and menopause is very real for both her and you and it will make you both doubt your sanity at times.
She needs your love, support, and strength now more than ever. You may feel like you can’t give her that right now, but hang in there because we will talk about how you can love and support both her and yourself in Part Two of this course.
Keep in mind that women have to deal firsthand with the intense physical, mental, emotional, and energetic effects of perimenopause, while we men are indirectly affected by them. That means that sometimes she will seem like a totally different person to you. You may even wonder where your sweet loving wife has gone.
Depending on a woman’s age, relationship health, and midlife crisis status, the addition of perimenopause symptoms can be like throwing lighter fluid on her red-hot feelings of discontent.
For example, imagine she is already unhappy in her life, marriage, or romantic relationship and then she looks in the mirror one day and isn’t happy with herself. She doesn’t know who she is, where she’s going, and what she wants.
She may battle with body image issues. Her youthful looks may be fading. She may even be going through a midlife identity crisis and while she may not know exactly what she wants at this very moment, she knows she doesn’t want the next twenty years to be like the last 20 years.
Then POW perimenopause hits and everything feels like it’s falling apart.
She feels like SHE’s falling apart.
Overnight she starts experiencing joint pain, hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, intense mood swings, irritability, rage, daily cramps, bleeding for weeks on end, no bleeding for months on end, vaginal dryness, pain during sex, sore boobs, no sex drive, lack of energy, mental fog, anxiety, panic attacks, adult acne, and the list goes on and on.
Now she is in full-on survival mode, all the time.
She’s just trying to keep her head above water so she doesn’t drown in her own pain, sadness, fear, anxiety, and depression.
At the very moment that open communication is needed most, that’s when she becomes withdrawn, confused, fearful, and upset with everything.
She doesn’t want to talk.
She seems irritated all the time and you have no idea what’s going on.
Unfortunately, most women are not willing or able to share what is going on with them during this season of life because either they have never experienced it before and they don’t know what’s going on, or because most women are taught that it’s taboo to discuss their female issues openly or both.
Trust me, there are feminine things the woman in your life deals with all the time that she doesn’t discuss with you. You may think you know what those things are, but most likely you only know the polite pop-culture versions. She’s not telling you all the graphic details for your sake, to preserve the romance, and because it’s embarrassing for her to share.
The perimenopause struggle is real and it complicates overall communications and relationship conversations because it’s overlaid on top of any existing negative relationship issues.
If a man thinks his lady is in this season of life, the best thing he can do is give her space, be patient, educate himself, care for himself, find a community of supportive men, turn his focus to working on himself and take his focus off of her.
Congratulations, that’s what you are doing here.
Give yourself credit for caring about her and yourself.
Now, let’s look at some of the most common questions related to perimenopause and menopause in the next lesson.
Have Questions?
Ask your questions in the comments below.