Do I want a divorce or is it *just* menopause?

Navigating peri and menopause symptoms is not for the faint of heart — or their partners 😶

Meno rage?

Let’s talk about the link between menopause and divorce

By Amy Gesenhues

My husband is bent down on one knee in front of our corner kitchen cabinet where we keep the Tupperware. The cabinet has two Lazy Susan shelves that spin, making it easy to organize whatever is stored there — easy unless the cabinet is so cluttered that some of the Tupperware has fallen off the shelves, blocking the Lazy Susans from turning. He is irritated.

“Why do we let this cabinet get so messy?” he asks no one in particular. “We’ve got too much in here. We don’t even use it all. Some of these bowls don’t even have lids.” By the time I make my way into the kitchen to see what he’s talking about, he is holding a garbage bag nearly full of Tupperware. 

“This is all going in recycling,” he says when he sees me. 

“No, it’s absolutely not,” I say. Without warning, I am defiant and indignant. Unsurprisingly to no one in my house, I am, almost instantaneously, mad and ready to fight … about Tupperware. Not just Tupperware, but Tupperware we don’t need that my husband has taken the time to declutter and recycle.

This is my menopause. 

Which menopause symptoms impact our relationships?

In addition to menstrual cycle changes (or lack thereof), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) lists three — yes, only three — primary perimenopause symptoms on an FAQ page under a section of its website titled “The Menopause Years.” The three “signs and symptoms” are hot flashes, sleep disorders, and vaginal and urinary tract changes. The generous use of the word ‘changes’ in that last symptom immediately makes me rageful. The Mayo Clinic confirms a few more symptoms beyond the obvious three, including chills, night sweats, weight gain, and slowed metabolism, thinning hair and dry skin, loss of breast fullness, and mood changes. 

The phrase “mood changes” (I consider this a generous use of the word “changes”) feels closer to what I’m going through. After reading the limited number of symptoms provided by the ACOG and Mayo Clinic, it makes total sense why I feel so much menopausal rage. My body isn’t just changing, it’s metamorphosing, and the only thing that comes close to explaining how I feel is Mary Ruefle’s essay “Pause” published in Granta Magazine eight years ago:

“Reading this, or any other thing ever written about menopause, will not help you in any way, for how you respond to menopause is not up to you, it is up to your body, and though you believe now that you can control your body (such is your strength after all that yoga), you cannot,” writes Ruefle.  

I’m finding that not only can I not control my body, I struggle to contain my emotional responses to events that wouldn’t even generate a beep on my cognitive radar a few short years ago. It’s as if my menopausal body is now a divining rod for my soul’s lowest possible vibrational frequency. My marriage is the unfortunate casualty of all this rage because my husband is usually in the room when I go off the rails. 

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Meet Laura Wingate, 44

The founder of Meno Plan, the global community for menopausal women

I am a mum of one lively 6-year-old, a wife, and owner of Meno Plan, a community for women in menopause.

I lost my mum and my dad within six months of each other a year ago and am working through grief and beginning to blur the edges of the hole in my life that their loss has left. It’s a process that will always be a work in progress. So I’m told. 

I started my working life as a lawyer, then moved into catering and event management before running a film location catering company for many years and then saw friends going through the torment and fear that was menopause and set about trying to find a way to help women navigate this stage of their lives.  

I was raised in the South of England and now live in Monaco and got here via Clapham, Richmond, and Africa. It’s been a helluva journey and I cannot wait to see what awaits in the future. The only thing I know for sure is that it’s unlikely to be what I expect it to be. 

I am in the midst of: Overwhelm!

Being a mum, managing grief, moving country, perimenopause, and running a startup. Like many women my age, there are huge demands on my time and attention and right now there are some biggies in the mix that are demanding a lot! It’s tough sometimes to feel like you are enough and to give yourself a break.

We’re in the midst of building the Founding Midster program into a membership program — one step at a time. To help build The Midst community and be featured in Meet a Midster, sign up to become a Founding Midster here on The Midst Substack. We’ll email you with more details. If you have questions, email feedback@the-midst.com.
❤️  Amy Cuevas Schroeder

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