When Your Husband Does Not Understand Your Menopause - How to Ask So It Lands and How to Keep Some Distance

Why Menopause Symptoms Are Hard to Get Across to Your Husband

If you want your husband to understand how hard menopause is for you, it can land better to hand him things one at a time, saying which scene of daily life is affected, what is happening, and what you want him to do, rather than mood words like "I'm worn out" or "I'm irritable." When you feel your husband does not understand, it is not necessarily because he means badly. There are also times when he simply does not know what to look at or what to do, and is answering with whatever words he has.

In the explanation for the general public from the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, menopausal symptoms are thought to arise when the decline of the female hormone estrogen, which falls while fluctuating greatly, overlaps with psychological factors and with social factors such as home and work. In other words, the atmosphere at home is not something outside the symptoms; it is one of the factors involved in how severe they are. Asking your husband for help is not being needy; it can be called one of the kinds of care you can give yourself outside of treatment.

• The symptoms come in waves. A change like being unable to get up today after doing housework normally yesterday tends to look like a matter of mood to the person watching nearby
• Even you find it hard to tell the cause. You cannot say for sure whether you are sleeping badly because of menopause or work fatigue, so your explanation becomes vague
• The picture of menopause your husband knows stops at hot flashes and sweating. He does not know it also includes headaches, dizziness, joint pain, and low moods
• By the time you say something, you are already close to your limit, and your words come out sharply. Your husband reacts to how you said it rather than what you said, and the talk turns into a fight

None of these comes down to your husband's character alone, so before deciding he is "someone who just doesn't understand," there is room to change the form of the information you give him. The definition of menopause, how the symptoms work, and treatment options and when to see a doctor are covered in the article explaining menopausal disorder. What you need with your husband is less a medical explanation than concrete requests about which scenes at home you want him to take over.

What to Ask Your Husband for, Symptom by Symptom

What reaches your husband most easily is a request in which three things come as a set: "the name of the symptom," "what is happening in daily life," and "what you want him to take over." With only the name of the symptom, he does not know what to do, and with only the request, he may take it as "why all of a sudden?" The table below shows sample combinations. You do not have to hand over everything at once; pick the one row that troubles you most right now.

How you phrase it changes just by replacing mood words with words about scenes. A husband who hears "It's been hard the whole time, can't you see that?" tends either to fall silent, not knowing what to do, or to ask back "Hard how?" and sour the mood. If you say, "I woke up twice in the night from sweating, and mornings are rough. Could you take out the trash, just on Tuesdays and Fridays?" he can give you an answer. Whether the reply is "Sure" or "Tuesdays won't work," the conversation moves forward.

Another approach is to put a time limit on requests. If you frame it not as "forever" but as "I'd like to try it for just 1 month," it becomes something your husband can see the end of, and when it is over there is a chance to talk about whether to continue or rethink it. Keep to one or two requests at a time, and bring them up not in the middle of a strong wave of symptoms but when things are a little calmer, so that your words do not come out sharply.

If hot flashes at night are hard on you, you can also think about bedding and room temperature at the same time. Specific ways of dealing with hot flashes are covered in another article, and having your husband read it with you is also one way of handing it over. If you have not yet reached menopause and are at the stage of wondering "is this menopause too?", checking the early signs from your early 40s first can make it easier to find the words to explain things to your husband.

How Should You Handle the Feeling of Starting to Dislike Your Husband?

After entering menopause, you may suddenly find your husband's voice, his throat-clearing, the sound of him eating, and even his hand when he touches you unbearable, and feel bewildered at yourself. You do not have to force yourself to cancel out the feeling of dislike. But that feeling can be a mix of a part where symptoms are shaking up your senses and moods and a part where long-accumulated frustration with your husband has come to the surface, and the two are handled differently.

Jotting down "what bothered me today" one line at a time in a notebook, then after about 2 weeks sorting each line by whether it is closer to the left or right column, can make the content of your feelings easier to see. If they lean toward the left column, there is a part you can reduce with the requests in the table or adjustments to the bedroom. If they lean toward the right column, menopause may not be the cause that created the frustration but the trigger that made it visible as your reserves of patience shrank. In that case, the frustration will remain even after the symptoms settle, so you will need to face it with your husband as a separate matter.

In either case, there is no need to rush into a big decision such as separation or divorce while your feelings are swinging strongly. Putting off a decision is not the same as denying your feelings. A judgment made while you keep being unable to sleep can differ from what you will think after your health recovers, so it is not too late to look at the right column again after treatment has steadied your sleep and moods.

During this period, some people blame themselves for feeling that they dislike their husband, and the guilt grows stronger. When that feeling is strong, it is fine to tell your doctor at your appointment. Psychological factors are also said to be involved in menopausal disorder, so mood swings are something you can report alongside your physical symptoms.

How to Answer When He Says "It's All in Your Head" or "Just Go to the Doctor"

You worked up the courage to talk, and yet your husband's reply may sound short and cold. But even the same words can come from many different things in your husband's mind, and if you misread that, the more you argue back, the more tangled the conversation gets. For each reply that comes up often, here is what may lie behind it and a way to answer that brings the talk back to your request.

What all these answers have in common is that they do not fight over whether your husband's words are right, and they return to the original request. If you answer "It's all in your head" with "It is not," the talk turns into an argument over whether the symptoms are real, and never gets to the trash, which is the point.

On the other hand, when you are told "Blaming menopause again?", look back once to see whether this is a scene where his point has some truth to it. If you had been bringing up frustrations that belong in the right column of the table as if they were about symptoms, your husband finds it hard to take in what you are saying. Bringing up the symptoms and the relationship separately is not a way to win the argument but a way to have both heard. When the two of you can no longer have a conversation that connects at all, the article on how couples who talk less than they used to can rebuild their communication can also help.

How to Adjust the Distance in the Bedroom, in Conversation, and When He Comes to Appointments

Being understood and staying close all the time are not the same thing. When symptoms are strong, there are times when widening the distance from your husband a little keeps you both from wearing each other out. When you take some distance, putting into words what you will cut back and what you will keep can make it less likely that he takes it as rejection.

Sleeping in Separate Rooms

With hot flashes at night or light sleep, even the tossing and turning, snoring, and body heat of the person beside you get in the way of sleep. When you want separate rooms, place the reason on the side of your own sleep rather than on his side. Say, "It's not because I dislike you. I keep waking up in the night, so I'd like to sleep on my own for a while and see how it goes," and add how long you will try it and what you will keep doing, such as saying a word to each other before bed. If you do not have room to spare, you can start with small forms such as moving the futons a little apart or going to bed at different times.

Adjusting How Much You Talk

If days keep coming when you have no energy left to listen to your husband after he gets home, tell him in advance that you want to talk less. If you just fall quiet, he will brace himself, wondering whether you are angry. For example, if you set it up so that the first 30 minutes after he gets home are time for you to rest alone, and in return you tell him your condition on a scale of 10 for just 5 minutes before bed, he can get a sense of how you are and you can save yourself the trouble of explaining. If you also decide that on low-score days you will add one more housework request, the burden of asking in words can sometimes become lighter too.

Having Him Come to Appointments

When you ask him to come along to an appointment, narrow the purpose down and say it. Tell him which visit and what it is for, such as "I'd like you to hear the explanation with me" or "Please come only on the day we decide whether to start treatment." Whether family members can come into the consultation room differs between medical institutions, so check when you book. If, before going, you have him decide one question he wants to ask the doctor, it also becomes a place where he has his own business. If he cannot come because of work, another way of asking is to have him take just 15 minutes to read the handout you received with you.

Where to Draw the Line and Where to Turn When Explaining Does Not Lead to Understanding

Even if you change how you put things, your husband may not change. When that happens, there is no need to blame yourself and take it all on, thinking you must explain better. What the person explaining can do is hand it over clearly; whether it is taken in is up to your husband. Think about where to draw the line when it does not get through in the following three stages.

The third stage is a different problem from whether your husband knows about menopause. Rather than piling up efforts to get him to understand, think first about ways to protect your own safety and your life. If you are being subjected to violence and feel your safety is at risk, do not hesitate to ask the police for help.

Apart from your relationship with your husband, if days continue when you feel so down that you cannot get anything done, sleepless nights pile up until your mind stops working, or you feel you want to disappear, that is a sign it is fine to see a doctor early. Tell the doctor about your moods alongside your physical symptoms. When you want someone to listen, you can call the Mental Health Consultation Dial (0570-064-556). It has set hours, so at night or on days off, turn to the Yorisoi Hotline, which is open 24 hours. You can look for services you can talk to right now at Helplines Open Now.

If you are going to take a step, choose just the one row from the symptom table that troubles you most right now. At a time when your health is a little calmer, hand your husband that scene and just one request, with a time limit. Whether the answer is "Sure" or "No way," it becomes material for the conversations that follow.