As a relationship coach, I work with couples and singles. Each has their own unique challenges and goals. But I also see struggles and patterns that are common to many people. And one I want to share with you here is what often happens inside a relationship during menopause and midlife.
There’s a lot written about how menopause affects women. That’s good, but what’s often neglected is the fact that these changes have a dramatic effect on her partner too.
It’s a confusing time for both of them – just differently.
She’s going through hormonal shifts that can make her own body feel like a stranger. He isn’t going through those changes himself, but he’s living at the effect of them. Perhaps the partner who was once a good sleeper, a high achiever, a passionate lover now has fatigue, insomnia, hot flushes, swinging moods and low libido. She’d rather read a book than make love. Physically, among other changes, the drop in oestrogen during menopause can create vaginal dryness and thinning, and sex that used to be pleasurable can become painful. Pleasure is hard to feel when pain is present.
Meanwhile he’s dealing with his own hormonal changes as testosterone reduces. He’s aging, and his own questions about vitality and performance are surfacing at exactly the same time. This isn’t one-sided.
I often see this: for fear of getting it wrong, he goes quiet. Stops initiating. She reads that as him losing interest, when it’s often the opposite.
Two people, living together, physically and emotionally withdrawn, still loving each other, but leading separate lives. She feels pressured. He feels rejected.
The Boat and the Ocean
Here’s an image I come back to again and again with the people I work with:
The feminine essence is like the ocean – vast, flowing, capable of being both gentle and stormy. During menopause, it’s more likely to be storms and hurricanes, or flat and becalmed. He, meanwhile, can feel like he’s in a little boat being tossed around by waves he didn’t create and doesn’t fully understand. And in many ways, he is.
What’s Hard to Hear
One thing I see that’s hard for a man to hear: she doesn’t want intimacy the way they used to do it. She may have been tolerating sex before, in ways she’s no longer willing to. Or she just doesn’t want it that way anymore. Menopause has a way of stripping off the veils of niceness and accommodation from the female psyche, and he may have no idea what’s hit him.
Add in the other pressures that tend to land at the same time – money, teenage kids, aging parents, career – and you’ve got two nervous systems under real stress, at the exact moment intimacy requires softness and safety.
Some couples don’t make it through this stretch intact. But many do. And I’ve watched couples come out the other side thriving, feeling closer and more connected, and with a better sex life than before.
What Couples Who Thrive Do Differently
They seek out real information and support – medical, allied health, coaching, groups – rather than bumbling around alone. There’s genuine help available on the physical side; localised oestrogen treatment, for instance, is worth raising with your GP if vaginal discomfort is part of the picture.
They also are open to learning a different way of making love – a slower, more tantric approach, sometimes called sacred sexuality or slow sex. Instead of chasing the peak of climax, which spikes and then drops away, it’s about a sustained connection where arousal builds slowly and flows through both the peaks and the valleys.
His body is also changing, in a way that can actually help here. It typically takes longer for him to reach climax as he ages, or he may have erectile issues – both of which mean more room for a couple to explore this new territory unhurried. And if penetrative sex is problematic, practices that don’t involve penetration at all are worth exploring too – see more at The Path to Sacred Sex. Slow, soothing touch, like massage, is often a gentler way in. It doesn’t need to be expert, or lead anywhere, for it to count.
The couples who thrive also learn to talk about what’s changing, and what each of them is feeling. They stay open to the process of adjustment – saying goodbye to how things were, and orienting to what’s here now. That can bring grief, anger, confusion. A real mix of what letting go feels like.
If the masculine partner can bring devotion, and informed, steady support, he becomes an anchor for her rather than another wave. She’s also being buffeted about by the waves of hormonal change she’s going through, and for many women it’s a rough ride until they work out how to be with it, and find what their body needs. She needs someone who encourages without pressuring.
Where This Can Go
Men tell me they miss what things used to be like, and wonder whether their partner will ever feel like herself again. Honestly, probably not exactly. Though things do settle post-menopause, for some women that can take years. It won’t be the same. But it can be better, deeper, richer.
His experience is just as valid as hers and needs its own space to be heard. No one is doing this on purpose to hurt the other; it’s a natural transition that effects most couples. Approached as a team, as beloveds figuring out what’s possible together, rather than focusing on what’s been lost – then menopause and midlife can bear real fruit.
I’ve written before about my own experience of sexual maturity (and more) in The True Essence of Sexual Maturity – and spoke about intimacy through menopause on The Menopause Revolution podcast.
If this is where you and your partner are right now – or you’re navigating a different struggle in your relationship – you’re not the only ones, and you don’t have to find your way through it alone. If you’d like support navigating this together, I work with couples through 1:1 and couples coaching – you can find out more here.
Appreciating you with love and trust,
Cynthia
