I know some of you here are menopausal, some past that stage, and some looking forward to it. (Ha!) I am working on something and I'd like your comments. No names or identification will be used, and I'll let you know when it's done and online.

Tell me, please, what issues a menopausal woman has and how her spouse/partner can make life easier, better for her?

If you're cranky, do you want hugs or alone time? If you're hot, do you want your man to bury under extra covers while you open the window and sleep with a sheet?

Tell me what a man needs to know about living with a menopausal woman. Serious and humorous responses are all welcome!

Thanks in advance,
Kathy

No one has an opinion on this? Things a man can do to make you feel better? What do you do to make yourself feel better? Products you've used that actually work? How friends have help you out?

Thanks!
Kathy

Be inclusive in your remarks.....for women who have a good menopause...meaning very mild bodily reactions.

I don't allow my partner to make menopause remarks if I:
*do something stupid/forgetful. It's just that I was simply stupid/forgetful at that moment.
*get stressed out. It really is me not adjusting to a conflict with another person, work situation, etc. Or it's something between myself and him that we need to talk it out, not use menopause as an excuse for me not listening, caring, etc.

serious comment, but I just tell him menopause it's coming occasionally in early morning...it's like a fever that lasts for a few minutes..then it's gone. No sweats for me, no fainting, etc.

There genuinely hasn't been any menopausal theatrics at home. He's just glad my period..is fading away calmly month by month. I mean he's thrilled..

And it truly is. He's happy by the way, to eat tofu with me (for different reasons for him)... as the folk's tale goes, those women who have eaten tofu for many years.....it may be helping them at this stage in life.

I haven't asked my sisters yet on their experiences....I have several just 1-2 years younger than I. Later..one day..I'll ask. My mother did not suffer much..she might have had hot flashes..she did have a pink face occasionally. Or maybe it was too much housework.. I think she worried more about her backache compared to menopause stuff.

If I remember kathy, I'll ask a friend she is menopausal. She is visiting me... She is 50, a boomer,but like myself, Chinese-Canadian, born in Canada but probably for first 20 years of life was raised on a heavily Asian diet which would have included some tofu. (ie. oh, wait, maybe her parents ran a tofu-making business in Calgary in 1970's..)

Since she's single, her life is simpler re menopause.

I sent Kathy my replies...join in girls! Its painless.

Sometimes I just want to be left alone. Men misinterpret this. Mine does. He considers it rejection. It's not.
When I feel crowded, I need space. It's not about a person, or persons. It's a feeling. I need air - my own!
BTW, I am post menopausal by 10 years, if that makes a difference. I think going through the change (plus other factors) contributed to my change from being needy (as in wanting him around all the time) to needing solitude every so often (often enough to be considered not at all needy).

Okay, here I am. I've got some symptoms!! Yes, it's a group effort!
I am in my forties, on the other side of 45. I have not had a period in one and one half years.

My husband and I went through record breaking PMS before my period stopped. He had to help me when I bled so heavily that my clothing was sopping wet in PUBLIC! I had to stop going where I was going for the bleeding had ruined my clothing and I took every precaution I could!

My temper was so bad before Menopause that he would hand me old jars he had cleaned out for the purpose of me hurling
them against a brick wall and yelling out just to get the raging hormones to stop. He was brilliant to find glass for me to break! It was better than our china.

Now, I have no period so no PMS. My husband helps me by blocking me when I have to open the grocery store freezers to cool off a hot flash! He hands me cold, wet wash clothes when he sees me in a sweat that I cannot control and gets me out of places when my face is sweating so badly that it is noticeable and embarrassing.

I have hot flashes with enough power to power our home!
I am having every single symptom a woman can have since I started PERI menopause! My husband has been there every step of the way.

He was there when Menopause started and I missed my period and my breasts grew two sizes in about four months! He made me feel beautiful when my body started to blow up breasts like implants! It was awful for a dancer! A night mare.

He suffered through my sexual ways when taking hormones and my lack of sexual ways without hormones. Only once did he say that I was a bit sexual to my doctor and embarrassed me, the rest of the time, he beared up.

Now I am losing a bit of the elephant breasts that I grew in Menopause and he is going to loose his little, tiny belly he put on for me when I loose these gongas!

Yes, I am in the middle of it and I have no shame! I'm just proud to be a part of it.

dancer

Issue: he needs to shut up when I'm plucking those ubiquitous facial hairs. He needs to not knock on the bathroom door, which I lock to keep him out when I'm doing my tweezing ritual. He needs to not make what he thinks are cute comments about my mustache.

He needs to stop all of the above, or I'm throwing him out the second storey window. If I'm brought to trial on Murder 1, I'll demand a jury of my peers (middle-aged women) and just blame it on the hormones.

When I first started menopause, I took Rejuvex. It helped a lot. Then the stores around here stopped carrying it. Oh well.
As far as men living with menopausal women, men will never understand women, menopausal or not. Guys are the center of their own universe, until or unless they want something!
Then they turn sweet, till after they get what they want.
Hot flashes, sweats, grouchiness-mood swings, depression,
cramps: they don't get it!