The Perimenopause Husband
Perimenopause Help for Husbands: The Night I Went Looking
My wife gave me the word, perimenopause, after an appointment I hadn't gone to. It was a long while after that before I went looking. Not that night. Not that week. I had the word and I did nothing with it.
Then one night I sat down and typed it in. Symptoms. Hormones. Doctors, lists, what's happening inside her, what the stages are. Perfectly good, some of it I read twice, and not one bit of it connected with me. All of it was about her. None of it was for me. Nothing said, right mate, it's Tuesday, she's gone quiet, here's what to do.
My part in this. I'd left it that long because I decided it was her thing. She had the doctor. She had the word. My job was to keep the place running and stay out of the way. It sounded like respect at the time. It wasn't. It was me not wanting to go near it.
The hormone side of this is real, and it's hers and her doctor's. If it needs one, see a doctor or a specialist in this field. Your side is what happens at home, and nobody had written that down.
So I started paying attention. Not the noticing I'd been doing for years, the way you notice it's raining. Paying attention. Her body language. The length of her sentences. Her tone. Who got the best version of her that day. Watch long enough and you'll see it isn't random. It comes in five weather patterns. Storm Warning, Overcast, Fog, Clearing, Sunshine.
I got it wrong constantly while I was learning. She had the patience to let me learn, at a time she had less patience to spare than ever. That was her end of it. Mine was accepting it was real and doing the watching. That's respect both ways.
One of the tools is in the episode. It costs nothing, and nobody has to know you're doing it.
Chapters
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:46 Nothing Was Written For Me
- 2:12 My Part In This
- 3:08 The Turn
- 3:21 Paying Attention
- 4:58 Her End Of It
- 5:45 Watch The Length Of Her Answers
- 7:09 Outro
Start With the Weather
The Weather Report is the two-page guide to reading these days: five weather patterns, what each one looks like from your side of the house, and the one thing to do in each. Free, on your phone in thirty seconds.