Anyone else go off their DH/DP as part of PMT each month?

[littletent]

I've noticed that I seem to go off DP every month, for the week before my period, as though it's part of PMT.

I get moodier, more irritable, sore boobs, cramps, a bit edgy/paranoid, etc, before my period - nothing unusual about that I don't think. But I'm beginning to wonder if actually feeling a bit sometimes quite a lot hostile towards your partner is normal too, or if it's just me.

We have our stresses and strains like everyone, but most of the time seem to potter along pretty contentedly - and then predictably, a week before I'm due on, he can't do anything right, I'm questioning our relationship, we argue, I don't want him in the same bed ... God, I feel awful just writing that. But it is how I seem to feel most months; for a week or so, our relationship feels like Hard Work. It's like I see it through totally different eyes, and wonder if I should even be with him.

And then usually within a day or so of coming on, I feel OK about him again.

Can hormones really influence perception this much? And if so, why would our hormones have us go off our mates and destabilise our families every month?! Maybe it's just me.

I feel guilty about my behaviour towards DP. I feel confused by my changing feelings most months and about how much my perception must be out versus how much DP is genuinely being irritating/unreasonable/whatever. And I wonder if anyone else can relate to this, and if there's anything we can do about it. (I bloody hope so, otherwise what will the hormonal upheaval of menopause be like for poor DP?!)

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Women, pleeeese do try all the things suggested to combat this awful condition.
I feel like, because we are seen as being controlled by our hormones, we sometimes think this is just the natural order of things.
I don't think it is. The way we live, in the modern world, is not very natural sometimes.
A thousand years ago, we wouldn't have had refined sugar and alchohol to tip our hormones off balance.
Even 100 years ago we would have got much more iron from the spinach grown in our gardens than we ever could now out of a plastic bag.
I honestly feel, when the pre menstral time approaches, that I am more my "animal" self. More emotionally tuned in, needing to be outside, more sexual (I know not everyone gets the horn with PMT though).
I think if you try and give your body what it needs, this condition can be treated, and maybe turned to the positive.
I feel quite passionately about this, as doing the things I suggested has really improved my life (and my child's, who sadly was bearing the brunt of my badly suppressed rage).

I am a fitness freak. I eat v healthily. I take supplements. I am a self helpaholic. I cut out sugar, caffeine and alcohol for half my cycle.

I still plunged into depressive paranoid self hating despair for 7 - 10 days of my cycle.

Tried various birth control pills each one sent me crazy. I tried prozac. No help. I did cbt helpful in general but not preventative. I convinced myself it was all in my head.

I tried it all. I too blamed myself.

But, when pregnant and bfing it didn't happen?

I attempted again with the gp a couple of years ago thinking that I'd just start the process of hysterectomy. I had read about yasmin being helpful so she said I should try it. I had been reluctant to go on the pill again due to the horrendous effect of the pills I had tried in teens and early 20s.

I no longer have pmt. I have suffered with a very difficult ovulatory cycle since the age of 13.

Unfortunately I don't get the creativity and intensity that my cycle provided but I will trade for control of my life.

I also had horrendous pain when menstruating. Couldn't walk. Would be a ghost walking through life for 2 days. This was dismissed by women who assumed I was just making a big deal of the general discomfort they experienced. I have had no period pain since birth of my first child I now have the discomfort. It is not the same.

Just because your experience of your ovulatory cycle is irritability do not assume it is the same for everyone. It is not. The rages and the anger and the inability to deal with stress was with anyone in my life. I could avoid everyone else but not my dh.

"Just because your experience of your ovulatory cycle is irritability do not assume it is the same for everyone"
I hope that isn't aimed at me, because I have experienced really severe PMS. I found the supplements/excercise and dietary things very helpful, and I think everyone who is a sufferer should at least try them, rather than accept it. Obvs these things don't work for everyone. Glad you found something that helped.

No wasn't aimed at you or anyone in particular just in general to women who assume those of us who struggle with a difficult ovulatory cycle are just not coping with normal irritability.

I was also just posting for other women who may have, like me, felt that the fact they were suffering from severe pmt was because they weren't doing something right. That it is because they had that caramel wafer yesterday or they don't exercise enough.

It didn't matter what I did. It still took over. I have spent 25 years of my life struggling and I've fried pretty much everything.

Im glad i found this thread although its too late for me to save my relationship wi dp as he left me this morning and has said hes had enough. To be fair so have i pmt is/has ruined everything. For 2 weeks a month i am mega bitch evrything gives me the rage, i depressed i cry im tired fed up irrational paranoid miserable suicial i would rather be in pain. Dp has took as much as he could he has tried and i have pushed and pushed. I am now alone with 3dcs and its all my fault. Im gutted.

Oh no ruineditall... Have you spoken to your gp. Are you getting any treatment. It is awful for partners. Just awful.

No yet but i will ring gp in morning i cant ruin anything else the only things i have left are dcs i couldnt live if i lost them. Although at times i think they would be better off. I have to do something to sort this out. My childhood was shite due to my mums pmt and i swore i wouldnt be like her.

I would try and write it down before you go in to your gp. I'd also try reading up on it too. Different gps have different approaches. Some can be instantly dismissive. Don't let it put you off.

Also don't blame it all on you. Just as many have said before on this thread, pmt for me would just remove any rationality when arguing but the argument itself would often be worth having. The anger you feel during pmt is an extreme reaction but the break down of your relationship won't be all your fault.

I don't recall how I felt towards ex at that time of the month, but I do notice that for a few days beforehand I feel really despondent and oversensitive to everything. Am about to come on and it is usually like a lightbulb turning on - I suddenly feel so much cheerier.

I'm on Microgynon for heavy periods but am seriously considering coming off it because I don't remember feeling so bad before I started taking it.

To be honest I go off everyone when I have PMT. Some months it's a living hell. People at work make me want to walk out. Why do they say good morning in that false cheery tone? DD can't do a thing right and deliberately forgets stuff to get on my nerves. I start to question my relationship in my head and I KNOW DP is doing everything within her power to aggravate me. She only washes up to prove a point (what point exactly I can never quite extrapolate but that's how I feel). My mother appears needy and indecisive (she's neither of these things) and I can't be bothered.
I know this is all utter nonsense btw. It is my head torturing itself. Then I come on and the world is beautiful again.
MrsG gets it just as bad. When it happens in the same week, one of us should book into the Travelodge.