Menopause is a tumultuous period that just about every woman will have to go through eventually. Their male partners are often left bewildered and at a loss about how to help them, since this experience is so very alien to them—the women they love are suddenly suffering horribly, they don’t know how to help them, and they may feel like their partner has become a stranger to them.
Although this is a difficult transitional period for everyone involved, know that your loving support is appreciated more than you’ll ever know. Below are 12 ways that you can support your partner as she goes through menopause, avoiding the missteps that many men get wrong along the way.
1. Ask how you can help her.
Although you might think that you know what she’d like, or what would be most useful to her, ask her what you can do to help instead. You may be surprised to discover that what would be the most helpful isn’t something you would have considered.
For example, if she’s feeling anxious and overwhelmed, the most important thing you could do for her at that moment might be to walk the dog or order a pizza for dinner so she can lie down in darkness briefly to recalibrate.
2. Avoid offering unsolicited advice about her body changes.
During both perimenopause and menopause itself, most women lose breast density and gain weight—especially around our midsections. According to the Mayo Clinic, this is due to decreased estrogen, muscle loss, and inability to exercise as much due to fatigue and dizziness.
This can lead even the most self-confident woman to feel shame and self-loathing, as her body is now unfamiliar, and not functioning the way it used to. Suggesting that she eats less (or differently) and exercises more can be both unhelpful and downright damaging.
3. Write down reminders and set timers.
Your partner may have always had a mind like a steel trap, and never lost track of bill payments, birthdays, dental appointments, or anything else for that matter. Now, however, she’ll forget why she walked into a room about three seconds after doing so.
According to Harvard Health, women going through menopause experience estradiol depletion. This is the main form of estrogen found in the brain, which regulates memory performance. As such, keeping track of important events and setting reminder timers can be immensely helpful.
4. Don’t take it personally if she’d like to sleep separately sometimes.
Although the two of you might have always slept comfortably together, the sleep disruptions she’s experiencing during this time can be difficult for both of you. Night sweats, insomnia, frequent bathroom trips, and other nighttime issues can keep you both awake, leading to irritability and relationship strain.
If she goes to sleep on the couch because it’s cooler out there, or because she wants to read for a while without disrupting you, let her. She still loves you dearly: she just isn’t sleeping like she used to.
5. Tell her often how much you love and appreciate her.
Many peri- and menopausal women suffer from intense depression—not just because of the hormonal roller coaster, but because they increasingly feel invisible and worthless in a world that values youth and beauty above all else.
Emphasis is placed on a woman’s potential fertility, and once that bloom has faded, she may feel unattractive and unwanted. This is why it’s more important than ever to tell her everything you adore about her. Encourage her creativity, reassure her how much you love her, tell her she’s beautiful.
6. Don’t make fun of her struggles, even if you two often roast each other playfully.
You two may exchange playful banter on a regular basis, but there are some subjects that can be hurtful if joked about. Even if she’s making light of her own issues, she likely feels intense discomfort or shame about some of menopause’s more humiliating side effects (like “pee sneezes”).
Similarly, this is not the time to joke around about potentially trading her in for a newer, less temperamental model. She’s already feeling awful about herself, and doesn’t need to worry about you abandoning her when she’s at her lowest.
7. Learn new ways to enjoy intimacy together.
You may be worried that she isn’t interested in you anymore because you aren’t being physically intimate as often, or because she turns you down when you try to initiate things. The reality is that she loves you dearly, but in addition to a lessened libido, menopausal hormonal changes can also make the act itself painful.
As a result, you may need to change how the two of you experience intimacy together. You may need to introduce a bit more foreplay, for example, or she may benefit from using estrogen cream.
8. Empathize with what she’s experiencing.
If you’ve ever felt irritable or unable to sleep during a raging summer heat wave, you would have likely gotten really upset if someone told you that you were overreacting and it really wasn’t that bad, right? Now imagine that discomfort is happening internally, and can’t be avoided by running the air conditioner at full blast.
Although hormone replacement or herbal therapy can help a bit, many women are unable to take these for medical reasons and simply have to suffer through it all.
9. Be adaptable with food options.
You might have made plans to have a roast dinner on the weekend, but the smell of meat cooking is making her violently ill right now. Perimenopausal and menopausal hormonal lurches can be as intense as those in early pregnancy, and may include scent and taste sensitivities, nausea, and vomiting.
Foods that she has loved for decades may now disgust her, and she may crave items that she previously had no interest in. As such, please keep an open mind as far as meal planning goes.
10. Help to keep her cool.
Literally. Hot flashes are no joke, and in addition to being horribly uncomfortable, they actually increase a woman’s risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular issues. Invest in some reusable cold packs and keep them in the freezer for her.
Additionally, buy first aid chemical cold packs and keep them in the car, your bag, etc. That way, if a hot flash hits when you’re out somewhere fun together, she can shake one up and use it as needed. She’ll appreciate this more than you can imagine.
11. Remember that she has no control over what’s happening in her own body.
Imagine that the car you’ve been driving for 40+ years suddenly isn’t functioning properly anymore. The heater blasts without warning, the engine stalls, warning lights are blinking on the dashboard, and mechanics can’t offer anything except temporary fixes, but you still need that car to get to work on time, run errands, and so on.
This is what your partner is dealing with, only she’s trapped inside that malfunctioning vehicle and is still expected to keep on going like she always has, as if there’s nothing wrong. Please be patient and understanding.
12. Approach menopause as a transitional period the two of you are experiencing as a team.
Although you may not be having hot flashes or panic attacks, that doesn’t mean that your partner’s menopause isn’t affecting you. Her sleep disturbances will disrupt your rest, and you may feel hurt if and when she lashes out with disproportionate anger or despair.
As such, try to approach this hurdle as something you’re working through as a united team, in the same way the two of you would deal with any other health challenge. Show supportive, loving care to one another, and you’ll get through this just fine.
