Helping my wife

[MikeHB]

I've a little knowledge of perimenopause but, being who I am I've no personal experience of how my wife will be feeling, only what I observe. I try to be empathetic, absorb and understand what she's telling me. I've followed articles on women's health on Flipboard for the last few years before she only recently determined she's perimenopausal and try to educate myself with what is finally becoming something that should've had more attention since... the evolution of homo-sapiens. I know I'm making and going to make many more mistakes, but I'm asking for guidance from you who've experienced this.

We've three children, two teenagers and a younger child who thinks they're the same; this makes privacy and time to ourselves pretty much non-existent. I work full-time, around 50% at home the rest in the office. In my previous job I put far too much time into progressing my career to the benefit of only my boss and eventually to no-one, missing out on some very important events, but not too many as my ex-boss was a close friend and would be supportive in the best way he knew. My new employment respects my personal requirements, our family life and we've found the right work-life balance for me now. My wife has on her own volition, with me tagging along to help, achieved weight-loss for a period which enabled her to get assistance with surgery with the NHS to help with what you'd expect after us both being far overweight and she giving birth to three wonderful children. We both lost weight though, with the events from the last few years have gained some of it again.

I know reading random articles and seeking out advice is only a small part of what I should do, most of it is communication with my wife to find out what she needs but, could anyone advise with any hints and tips on what I should be observing and how I should be responding? Or any suggestions that would be helpful? She's in a constant apologetic state for the last couple of years and I want her to know she's not at fault, that she shouldn't need to feel guilty for anything, I'm not giving up with affirming her brilliance but she's not accepting my view that she's the most perfect person I could ever hope to know.

Anyway, I could write a whole lot more, but would be grateful for anyone who can share their experiences and how they've been able to ease the pain and manage for themselves, so at least I might have more confidence to help my wife further.

Listen to her, cut her some slack, be supportive of however she feels she is best able to manage any symptoms. If you don't already, share the mental load. I felt being the person who thinks about everything, plans everything, knows and notices everything to do with the children and running the household exhausting and overwhelming.

The mere fact you've written what you have, sounds like she's luckier than alot of wives .

I’m not yet at the menopause stage, but just wanted to say it’s lovely how much you’re trying to understand.
from what I hear it’s shit. You sound like a lovely partner

If anxiety becomes a factor, be prepared for patient and repeated reassurance.
Support her choices re: hrt.
Embrace changes in body shape.
If she wants no physical contact ( ie cuddling) in bed, it's because she will become unbearably hot, not because she's rejecting you.
Insomnia can be an issue. Remember if it disturbs you, it disturbs her more!

Your wife is very lucky that she has you. You seem lovely from what I read, a loving husband

Mag Enhance Magnesium supplements for insomnia and spend time together on the Louise Newson website to discover benefits of HRT.

Register with a Gp practice with good experience of meno and consider initial appointment soonish. Also a surgery willing to prescribe testosterone too as this can be a game changer.

Don't leave all the research and appointments to your wife. Learn with her and go with her.

but would be grateful for anyone who can share their experiences and how they've been able to ease the pain and manage for themselves

It's great that you want to help your wife.
You mention she had surgery My wife has on her own volition, with me tagging along to help, achieved weight-loss for a period which enabled her to get assistance with surgery with the NHS to help with what you'd expect after us both being far overweight and she giving birth to three wonderful children but it's not clear what that was for and if it has any bearing on how she is feeling now.

Was this 'cosmetic surgery' after weight loss or something else?
Are you saying she feels unattractive to you?

You will get help here (and so would your wife if she would like to post) but it's not really clear what's going on in your marriage.
Is she having physical symptoms, like flushes, or is it more emotional like mood swings?

The surgery was mainly cosmetic. Before and after, she’s always the most attractive person in the world to me. We have a very happy, healthy marriage. I ask only to help her as best I can to ease the discomfort and affirm my love for her, that she is cherished and not forgotten. She does often say she’s pushed into a corner and ignored, which hurts me but I understand where it comes from, not just the amount of time I spent focusing on my last job which ended almost five years ago now, but also her own family growing up; and even now. I can’t change them out the past but I can try to help her to understand it’s not her fault and I support her. I do lack the practice of holding a conversation with people, I’m very quiet most of the time which I think is something I should change and who better to do that with than her. Thanks for your advice.

A lot of the current hype about menopause is just that. Hype to sell products & services. And there is lots of disinformation around - eg if you don’t take HRT you will get heart disease/osteoporosis. Don’t assume she will have problems and don’t add to the pressure to see HRT as the magic bullet to “get her old self back”. Menopause is inevitable and brings a new stage of life, with many possibilities.

I felt a bit stifled just reading your OP, sorry. I mean, you are obviously a loving and thoughtful husband and I'm sure your wife appreciates this etc etc so my opinion carries no weight at all but seeing as you've asked ...

I'd back off a little bit. It's enough for your wife to know you're supportive and there should she need to talk to you

I'd not really want this level of over thinking from my husband

It's actually quite hard to understand what you are getting at here @MikeHB .
You've not mentioned any specifics (menopause symptoms) that are affecting your wife, or that she is sharing those /confiding in you - or even asking for support.

I'm throwing this out there for you- but is it possible your relationship is not quite as you'd want? Maybe lack of communication issues? And you're attributing that to menopause when maybe your wife is just not very happy with you and the responsibilities of 3 teenagers?

If she was to post here, asking for support or empathy, what would she be writing , do you think?

A lot of the current hype about menopause is just that.
Yep- minimise women's experiences. 75% of women have symptoms that affect their quality of life. Not hype, just science.

She does often say she’s pushed into a corner and ignored,

TBH it sounds as if what you say you feel for your wife is not being communicated to her.

How much do you help around the house? Cook, clean, put the bins out, ferry your kids around? Make her dinner, talk to her about things she's interested in, go out together as a couple.

Maybe it's not the menopause at all, but possibly an increasing frustration that you aren't pulling your weight.

This is only my take, but you seem to see your wife and the menopause like some kind of science project to be observed and dealt with appropriately. It sounds weird, overbearing and a bit grim to me.....it would drive me mad.

People are living, thinking, feeling things - not just 'homo-sapiens'. She'll have her own opinions and take on the menopause....women don't come as standard and we don't know what she will want.

Why don't you just chill out and have a chat with her about it all?

Good point. I don’t think she thinks I’m thinking about it much at all, but it’s easy to overthink and for that to manifest itself at some point. I said my conversational skills are lacking at the moment so I’ll apply more effort to that to make communication more frequent, meaningful and hopefully fun. I’m glad she’s thought about how she’s been feeling and come to the conclusion she wants to talk to me about it, though she does go into depth quite passionately about how she feels at the moment, some of it rehashing personal jabs at me but, I’m accepting of my past shortfalls and happy to agree and not react to it negatively. I’m sure her frustration is one of the main drivers in that.

I do find it difficult to find a way to convince her ever to visit the doctor for anything because her main concerns are normally ignored. There’s only so much I can do for her in that respect, when I’m pretty certain a qualified practitioner can provide better advice or even treatment unavailable to me. From what she’s mentioned about conversations with a friend who is going through similar changes, options for HRT and similar treatments are not available to them unless it’s severely impacting life, which is something I would like to see change much faster.

Others have suggested I help out more not just with doing more of the housework but by being more observant of the little things and doing something about it sooner; interacting with our children more often to take the pressure off - again, I need to talk more; responding to shared situations quicker so she doesn’t feel she needs to and doesn’t think I haven’t noticed - I guess I’m a bit too laid back in that way.

Thank you all again, this is helpful for me at least right now. I’d like to say I’ll provide updates on how things go so if someone else sees this they may find some assistance too, but can’t promise that yet.

I can understand where this comes from and I did have a reply which was far too long-winded (hint taken).

My wife is going to a funeral tomorrow with my son and asked me how to work the iron so my son could iron a shirt. I spent ten minutes with my son to explain how to iron a shirt and left him with half to do himself. He's fantastically helpful and I take a small pride with that and even greater pride in what he's learnt from my wife. This is not a once in a blue-moon occurrence and I am always working with my wife with everything I can. If you would like a bit more information to confirm that I'm pulling my weight, which is much greater than it was when we both worked together to lose so much (another long story), then I will happily give you a brief review of our history together. It's not helpful for anyone here though, since the subject is - I want to help more.

My profession requires a great extent of analysis and understanding so I get that my writing style makes me seem like I'm doing that in all aspects of my life but, what I'm trying to do is get some helpful hints to make my wife's life easier not analyse our entire relationship which is wonderful at the moment for both of us which, she just confirmed before she went for a rest after the stress she's had to deal with today - something I've learnt about over the last couple of hours and previous days, after working full-time, having had to return home at lunchtime due to exhaustion and work the rest of the day from home. I've a little time to reply now before putting away the cool, cleaned iron, before feeding the cats and dog, then emptying the litter tray for one of our old cats, then cooking our dinner before she comes down.

Not everyone requires a grilling to get to the point, but I accept your perspective.

Yes, you're right, I analyse a great many things but it's not a project, my wife is my life priority, our children come next but that is a grey area, as our children's priorities are my wife's, so it's a balancing act I often get wrong. We don't live long, but what I'm committed to is what I've chosen to commit to, the one person I feel in love with and who loves me.

I may have responded incorrectly earlier to another post from someone else, but it was on a break at work on my mobile and in a hurry. I like it that you've pointed out too much attention about something in particular can be stifling, I'm reading and trying to understand all the responses as best I can. I'm not translating that into something specific I'm going to do, this is me learning more than I know now and you've helped to highlight something I should be sensitive to, thankyou.

Perimenopause, and I'm pleased to be corrected on this. She's feeling tired, has brain-fog, needs to nap during the day or everything just gets heavy and slow. She's feeling sick in the mornings, PCOS which she was diagnosed with when we were told we could never conceive, doesn't help. She wants my support and I want to give her the best I can.

She would not be writing here as she is speaking with me and her friends and has better things to do than to post on forums - she'd be saying "I'm not doing that, it's just a waste of time, I just get on with crap" and I want to help.

I'm trying to learn from all sources I can so I can help more with a change she doesn't have to think she's dealing with by herself unless she wants to.

Perimenopause and she's already certain that's what it is, we started discussing this together over a year ago.

Thanks for your updates Mike.
What comes over and it's just my take on this, is that you view of your happy marriage seems different to your wife's. You've quoted a few things she has said which give the impression she feels neglected. That's a different thing to doing the ironing and making dinner.

If she doesn't feel the need to ask for help herself, I'd back off.
Peri menopause can last for 10 years (if it starts in the mid 40s) so there's some way to go.

As long as you are aware of how she's feeling, that is enough.

My own experience of menopause is pure exhaustion. I’m a single parent and while the children are past the most full-on phase of needing to be cared for, the general ‘keeping the wheels on’ in the house is beyond me.

I think equipping your children with life skills like driving lessons, getting part time jobs, keeping their rooms tidy, laundry/dishwasher rota, gardening, etc will really keep the family moving in a forwards direction. I am glad for you to take such an active interest. It is silently seeing what needs to be done and getting it done, without looking for credit.

Thank you @JinglingSpringbells, I quoted a few things, but they're the few odd "alerts" that stick in my memory and happen when she's feeling really crappy, not the norm. It is more frequent recently. I'm not asking for help to provide her with advice nor to impose some new prospectus, I'm only asking for advice for myself to help her and what you've said is useful. It's me who is asking for help, not my wife - she's far more than capable and does ask. She has apologised for so much that she isn't responsible for and I have so much I am sorry for, that I have and do apologise for. I'm not looking for credit, just asking for a little more knowledge. She has and does feel neglected and I get that, I also get that a lot of it is from an intense few years with initially, the two older children growing up and me working far too many hours, not focussing effort where it mattered most. Also from the continual comments from her parents that she stays at home and has all the time in the world to help out with their needs even though after she moved out and we had our first child who they used as an excuse to work part-time to help out with care, in the last 16 years we can still count on one hand how many times they helped but only when really needed. After 19 years married we are still breaking barriers together and I trust her completely.

It's utter cheese, but from the film Parenthood, "life is a rollercoaster..." "...I like the rollercoaster more" or something like that. At the moment it's a dip with an ascent and I'd like to get us both going up again. We've had far more ups than downs and I guess the timing and the limited space on a forum means I've only explained the current situation with the worst bits.

Yes, doing the dinner and ironing is a tiny contribution, one of countless I do actually do every day (we do exist). I've found though this evening, after paying more attention, being more attentive, more observant I've done a little more, talked more, have more energy and she's smiling and laughing a little more. It may be short-lived, I don't know but she's smiling and I'm feeling better because of it, so I will carry on doing it.

Just to be clarify @BunnyBettChetwynd using a quote from my post including "homo-sapiens" which I used to define a time-period in which men and society should have been paying more attention - I am the project here and not my wife, she is only the beneficiary in this case.

But to all - why does asking for some help have to be met with so much negativity? We've been teaching our children that asking for help makes you stronger and more resilient, it puts you at an advantage, a little humiliation for so much gain yet so many assumptions have been made from very little and very few questions asked to reach some very wrong conclusions. I'm not right, but I am not bad.