The Perimenopause Husband
Perimenopause Signs That Go Unnoticed by Husbands
She'd stop halfway through a sentence. The word just gone.
You could see her reaching for it.
And I'd jump in with the word. I thought I was helping.
That was one of the quiet ones I could actually see. Most of them, I couldn't.
What perimenopause signs go unnoticed by husbands?
The ones that don't make a noise.
The heat, I noticed. The tears, I noticed. A sharper edge in her voice, I noticed that too. Those ones come out into the room.
These didn't. The word going missing mid sentence. Tingling in her hands and down her arms. And a worry underneath all of it, about having no control over what was happening to her.
Not every one there is. Just the quiet ones from our house. The full list from our house has the rest.
What did I get wrong about the quiet ones?
Noticing and paying attention are not the same thing.
The loud ones, I at least noticed, even if it took me a long time to pay them proper attention. The quiet ones never got that far. They went straight past me, because nothing about them was asking for me.
And the one I did catch, the lost word, I got wrong. I filled the gap and moved the conversation on. In my head that was me being useful. It never crossed my mind to ask her what it was like when the word went.
Why didn't she tell me?
My wife has never wanted to be a burden to anyone. Her first instinct, on most things, was to say she'd be fine.
And for a while, neither of us had the word for any of it. She didn't know what was happening to her either. It is hard to tell someone about a thing you can't name.
So she carried it. Not to keep it from me. Because carrying it was easier than explaining it.
What is the tingling in her hands about?
In our house it came with the headaches. Pins and needles in her hands. Tingling running down her arms. Numbness.
From across the room, that looks like nothing at all. She's just sitting there.
It was part of what took us to scans and a specialist, and that story is its own post. I'm not telling you what it is in your house. Tingling or numbness is one to get checked, every time, by a doctor or a specialist in this field.
What does the worry of no control look like?
From the outside, it doesn't look like anything.
Nothing in particular was bothering her. That was the point. Her body was doing things she had no say in, on no timetable, and the not knowing became its own exhausting worry, all on its own, on top of everything else.
She still got up. She still went to work. She still did the day.
That worry, and the morning it came to work with us, is in the post on anxiety with nothing attached.
How do I find out about the signs I can't see?
Here's one of the tools. There are plenty.
Ask about the quiet ones too.
Not "what's wrong". She can't answer that one, and it only adds weight. Something smaller, on an ordinary day, not in the middle of a hard one.
Is anything going on that I wouldn't see from where I'm standing?
Then take what she gives you. If it's nothing today, that's an answer too. You've told her the door is open, and you can ask again another day.
Same fine print as always. It sits on top of the honest conversations, the first one and the small ones after, through the day and the evening.
Does asking actually change anything?
In our house, once the questions got smaller, she started answering. Not everything. Not every time. More than she ever had when I was asking the big one.
She was carrying more than I could see.
Yours might be too.
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