Oh yeah Floydpepper it's insane.
I studied hormones in university and wrote dissertations on it. Many women actually suffer in silence and are purely ignored by GP's too when it comes to it, I've lived through the frustration of having no help myself. Or alot of GP's just push women to go onto the contraceptive pill and ignore any possibility of an underlying cause. Then there's alot of younger women who don't even seek help because they've witnessed older women get fobbed off.
And I truly believe that men (and women) should be educated on it all from a younger age.
Honestly - if any of you have the time, have a look online at the different graphs that show hormone levels at each stage of a woman's life, not just the menstrual cycle, but with starting periods, the menopause, pregnancy, post natal period, then have a look at the graphs for these hormones when an underlying illness is thrown in the mix (endometriosis, PCOS, thyroid issues etc)
The postnatal period for example - very very very ignored by society. People make such a fuss and give so much sympathy to a pregnant mother, and a mother during labour - but this almost vanishes once the baby is born and sympathy and understanding is just thrown out of the window.
It can take on average a healthy woman 2 years for her hormone levels to go back to 'normal' after giving birth, now if you've got a woman who has something underlying and isn't aware, this could take years and years, or in some cases, their hormones never return to normal.
Women experience baby blues and a lot of women go through postnatal mental health disorders (not just depression, there's OCD, anxiety - and then there's intrusive thoughts which are horrific), health professionals are very quick to push a mother into contraception as soon as baby is born - but a lot of health professionals don't explain to the mother the hormonal side of things. I am lucky to have an amazing GP - I ended up sat crying in her office when I was 6 months postpartum with my first. I felt like I was going insane. I didn't want anybody anywhere near me, I didn't want to leave my baby's side (id have him in his Moses basket in the bathroom with me when I was having a bath and allsorts) - I was convinced my partner hated me, and I just constantly felt this urge to run away. And as for my sex drive - it was non existent.
And I felt really lonely. My partner (he's much more understanding now) just kept brushing it off, and I even found that other mothers weren't so understanding either.
I had my hormones tested regularly for a few months and it became apparent - that they were not changing, they remained low after giving birth, and that's why I felt the ways that I did - the sex drive part was totally understandable, I didn't have the hormone levels to encourage me to want to have sex, so I had to start hormone therapy in order to get myself back on track.
So I say this as a person that has experienced it (and known that I did, many don't know!) that if your partner (whether a man or woman!) is struggling in the bedroom department, or in any other aspect of their life - be patient, encourage them to seek help and push the health system with them. It's really really really tough.