Menopause - be part of the solution

As a woman approaches menopause she may be less able to cope with her home duties and workload. Brain fog, fatigue and anxiety can really reduce her ability to reach the standards she sets for herself and those set by others. As a consequence she may become unhappy, frustrated and irritable. Peri-menopause can become a nightmare for all involved when it could be at least tolerable and perhaps even leveraged for positive change.

I’ve wanted to share this case study with you for sometime. This really happened and I am sure in some years time there will be a husband complaining that his wife does not care for his needs etc….and he will have no idea why that happened.

Sally (not real name) complained of fatigue and difficulty coping. A traditional woman, she does all the housework, works full time at a demanding job and does all the bookkeeping for the family. Her two teenage children study full time and one holds down a job as well. Her husband has a demanding job.

I explained how menopause was contributing to her mental and physical condition and strongly suggested it was time to recruit the family to help.  

Consequently she lined the family up one weekend to spring clean a major room in their lovely new home. In our climate a thorough clean is required every year as dust can collect and mould grow on walls etc. Pest insects can also move in if cleaning does not occur.

The husband and kids stood at the door and she explained the steps in the project – move furniture, wash walls, dust furniture, clean floor, replace furniture.  If they all helped, 2 hours, on her own 1 day. The kids piped up – “we don’t wash walls”. The husband agreed. “We’ll come back when you have washed the walls”.

Sally had really taken a risk by asking for help. The emotional cost was high. She was left feeling totally abandoned, powerless and disrespected. She did the job herself including moving the furniture while the rest of the family watched TV.  

So now she knows her husband will not support her when she really needs him.  

She knows the only way to get help is nagging and nastiness like dumping clothes left around the house in the garage. Her family think she has turned into a bitch.

The husband needed to support his wife. He had a chance to be part of the conversation, to be part of the solution. He could have attended medical appointments and helped work out strategies to solve the challenges of menopause including change in libido.    

Now Sally needs to solve her own problems and is very resentful - does he really think sex for him will be on the top of her agenda when she faces decreasing libido and vaginal atrophy?

The lesson for husbands – be ready to step up and support and protect your wife during peri-menopause. You can come out of this the hero with an efficiently running household and a happy marriage or you could drive your wife into depression and nagging. I doubt it is possible to be really close after betraying your spouse in her time of need.      

Menopause – plan to make it easy

I’ve wanted to write this for a while, yet have lacked the creative energy and time to do so – which I feel is a common issue for peri-menopausal and to an extent post menopausal women.

We all slow down with age and can manage less. However, women may experience a much more acute onset of body limitations than do men.

Fatigue, brain fog, anxiety and lack of the emotional energy necessary to persuade others to help out are common issues faced by women during menopause. Things get a bit better after menopause but it’s likely one will never be the same again. For example, working over night to get a job done will be harder and recovery from loss of sleep will take days.  

Medical, nutrition and life style solutions are important and need to be considered at leisure rather than in emergency situations, but they will not magically put things back the way they were and anyway, one is slowing down due to age anyway. Strategic change is essential.

Obviously, one needs to plan for menopause and mobilise the family to get things done and maintain standard of living etc. Study of likely issues, risks and solutions thereof is obviously very important.

You need to be ready to identify the problems and start implementing no regrets solutions before peri menopause starts. A woman experiencing a bad menopause may not have the emotional or physical strength to insist on help, especially if a partner and children are righteously antagonistic and aggressively ensure that “cranky bitch” does not impinge on their good life.   

Ideally one should go into menopause with grown children, a low care garden and a well maintained home with labour saving devices.

Now is the time to hire a cleaner for the house to lift the burden of heavy and time consuming housework. A woman who has worked, raised children and supported her husband definitely DERSERVES support and time off at this time. It’s not a gift, it should be a right.

Ideally also the husband will have advanced well in his career and the house and other large expenses will already be paid off (e.g. car, house renovations, children’s education etc). Hence, the family could afford a reduction in working hours of the lady experiencing menopause – even a year or two off work during the worst of it would be nice depending on symptoms and career.

If time off work is not possible, then the family should chip in to shoulder part of the home-work load of their wife and mother. Usually women my age work and do most of the housework. This cannot continue. Rather than solve (or not solve) the problem through fighting and agrimony, the family should sit down together and decide who does what, when and how. The male leader of the household will then need to oversee the solution so that the lady does not suffer undue stress dealing with reluctant helpers and thus just withdraw to suffer alone.

The above woud have helped in my situation. I’m sure other people can adapt or improve on the advice.. The basic concepts are awareness, planning, support, generosity and goodwill.

Mid life and illness - Advice when considering an affair ....

A reader left the following comment on Why an affair might be justified ...and I present my humble advice here:

I am struggling with this very issue right now. I am a 46 year old male with many health issues but I want to have the sexual intimacy that my wife cant give me because of health issues on her part. We have been married for 10 years now, and I love her very much, I don't want to devorce her, and she loves me as well. We have been through so much together. But my heart is divided with someone else and I just don't know what to do.

I understand your situation – very upsetting and seemingly no way to resolve the situation win-win. Sadly, many of us have been there. I offer this rather long advice in the hope you will find something that helps.

With regard to your current situation – when in doubt don’t. Wait a while and see how things go. The high that comes from falling in love lasts about 2 years. You’ll see more clearly then.  I’d also suggest stepping aside from your own emotions and rationally evaluating life with the second lady vis a vis your current life and perhaps who you could attract as a free man. Perhaps a trusted friend would help you think it through?

Often the person you fall in love with first is not the one for your whole life, but someone who is there and is willing to have a relationship with a married person. Has the lady perhaps been trying to trap herself a good catch? Is she willing to sacrifice her own feelings and wait for you?    

Another word of caution – as told by a divorce lawyer – many people divorce and remarry to find themselves in the same situation.  The exciting girlfriend changes into the cranky wife who does not want much sex, but the man has lost his family and is much poorer.  Hence, the wise man may choose to work on his current relationship or recruit a secret girlfriend and continue to enjoy the comfort of his home and family as he gets older.  

That said, I think of my friend Clarissa who has stuck by her sick older husband over many years and has therefore foregone family, a comfortable life and sex. There will be no comfortable home or grandchildren. They loved each other once, but now hate each other and her chances are gone. She’s just a source of money and housekeeping and occasionally dodges flying crockery and accusations she ruined his life. Obviously she should have jumped ship when she was younger.    

Advice assuming no current outside attachment -

Becoming attached to a new sex partner is a natural result of having sex.  I’d suggest if your primary aim is to find sexual intimacy without leaving the marriage, you need to back off quickly when you meet someone that seems like a soul mate. Also, make it clear to any new sexual partners that you are not looking for an exclusive relationship. Many men run long term relationships parallel to their marriage, but they need to control their own emotions and avoid women who are looking to nab themselves a good catch.  They also need to control their exposure to sexually transmitted diseases – so really safe sex, no playing outside the relationship/s and tests for everyone before getting close and personal.

So due to this and also due to moral issues and issues of unintended entanglement, I’d suggest trying to work out the health and sexual issues first before seeking sex outside marriage. I’m convinced many people forgo sex and intimacy and even affection because of health issues that could be solved and because they are unwilling to think outside the square and innovate.  I think the biggest barriers to sexual happiness lie in our lack of knowledge and our assumptions and our unwillingness to really work on solving problems and building sexual happiness.

The first thing to know is that sex issues cannot be solved with ultimatums or overnight – you make take time to grow in knowledge and to work out how to interact.  Set some milestones for evaluation of progress. If a spouse is truly not interested, don’t make a nuisance of yourself by demanding sex. Perhaps you are meant to be brother and sister rather than a married couple? Don’t sentence each other to hell on earth as you struggle over unmet needs.    

At some stage recruit your wife to support and take part in the project – but expect her to need convincing and maybe take some time to come on board. This is normal, especially if one feels very run down. You will probably have to lead and if you want success you will need to make some changes in yourself – these changes I suggest will be useful whatever you do and whoever you are with.   

Start right now working towards being the best possible person you can be – see Athol Kay’s Married Man Sex Life blog for the married man action plan. Get fit, be well groomed, take care with washing and basically be a good, functional, positive, assertive happy person. Your wife will be more attracted and more likely to make an effort and less likely to be put off by things like unwashed private parts. If you do decide to find a new partner, you’ll find a better one.

Study up on sex, intimacy and relationships. There is heaps of stuff online and even checking out porn sites is useful (tho I soon bored of it). Keep an open mind and see what other people do, why people do things, what motivates them and so on. Your wife may be facing menopause soon, so research that as well. Knowledge is power!

Armed with your new knowledge and viewpoint, ID all the barriers to wonderful intimacy and think of solutions. It is obvious you need to improve your health as much as you can. You may need to solve some health issues with the help of your doctor, but don’t go for heroic solutions that involve massive surgery, drugs with nasty side effects etc. For example, if the lady’s libido has disappeared, ask the doctor to check out her hormones and possibly prescribe something. If a man cannot maintain an erection or indeed if he can and the lady cannot orgasm or accomodate a penis in her vagina, he might buy a smallish, well made vibrator from an adult shop or online.    

You may need to redefine what you mean by sex and reassess what you consider normal and acceptable.  I’m reliably informed people who are paralysed enjoy sexual encounters, but perhaps not the way the able-bodied can. You simply need to work with what you have. Within this context I’d seriously suggest massage as a way of connecting and building intimacy. Just cuddling and caressing each other is very pleasurable. Also, hand jobs and oral sex are great ways to release sexual tension and don't require a working vagina.

Sometimes I cannot have sex due to health issues and I am so happy Awesome is satisfied with lots of cuddles and oral sex only. I make sure I do my best for Awesome and he in turn accepts my efforts in good grace – in fact, he enjoys himself very much! If sex is off the menu altogether I’ll offer a shoulder or foot massage.  

I also need to point out sexual response of many women is responsive rather than spontaneous, so you need to start foreplay before they want to have sex. Hence, agreeing just to start with something enjoyable may create the opportunity to escalate. For me this is especially so if I am unwell.

I hope this has helped. Please feel free to ask for more advice or to let us know how you went. Good luck with resolving your issues.    

Menopause: leverage the drive for change

I’m growing into my shoes! Yes, truly, just like those Great Dane puppies with enormous paws, I’m growing into the promise of me and becoming something that is quite miraculous.

I no longer feel anxious at work – yes that took a long time. A symptom of peri menopause – the time in which the hormones run down and then stop – is anxiousness 

…and depression… The black dog walks only occasionally- on a lead and mostly under control ….

ANYWAY…

My brain works better – as Andreas said – you have the best academic credentials among us – WHY ARE YOU NOT SUCCESSFUL!!! Yea, yea, yea … menopause, menopause, menopause … and iron and B12 deficiencies…. and chronic lack of ambition and career management. All a thing of the past and that increment in cognitive capacity and tad more memory really, really helps!

I can dress up and look sophisticated and pretty – yes REALLY awesomely AWESOME!! I have the hair, the clothes, the shoes, the makeup and the confidence to do it!!! YES – Me, Me, Me!!

I can write a sex & relationship blog and have noted and esteemed bloggers praise and recommend my work. YES – I, Candice Wing, am a sex blogger with over 4000 hits to my site!!!     

..then there are the people I’ve met along the way who have freely shared their knowledge and who I am proud to call my friends. Truly EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE who I would never  have met except for the internet.

…AND perhaps because of the above, I’ve finally cracked the code of attracting men - REALLY, really nice men, successful professional men, are attracted to me!

The lesson from all of this? Menopause is a time of great change – of rabid desperation and great adjustment - leverage your disatisfaction with the status quo to create positive change and build a miracle out of the ashes of your life as it once was. Out of chaos create something REALLY, REALLY GOOD! 

  

There is light behind each petal as the sunset shines through this lovely rose from Ellis's garden

Menopause & chemical free hair colour enhancement

Summary: Indian herbs are a wonderful way to hide silver highlights in dark hair. Silver hairs become copper coloured and hairs with faded dark pigment become darker and light up with reflected light! It’s WIN-WIN!!

One of the deteriorations in my looks that happened in the last couple of years is an overall reduction in the natural pigment of my hair coupled with loss of shine and bonus silver highlights and silver hairs that are dry and spiral into the air so as to be super prominent. NOT A GOOD LOOK!

Coincident with the pigment issue was a chorus of advice to CUT MY HAIR. I guess the advisors pictured a short elegant cut, wonderfully styled and beautifully coloured.  I’d of course make good use of a straightening iron to put in the right flatness and waves!   

Look around – you’ll see short, boring utilitarian cuts on 50+ ladies. That is all I can afford. Those lovely hairstyles are the result of paying lots of money very frequently to a stylist and taking the time to maintain the style at home. I’d rather be a greying lady with a bun than a “I’ve given up on looking sexy lady” with a short cut. NO. NO. NO.

Also, the chemicals involved in colouring hair would likely give me a nasty rash….

THERE IS ALWAYS A SOLUTION. This is what Awesome says. I started researching colouring hair naturally. There are heaps of methods, but I can only tell you of my <successful> journey so far!

I naturally have dark brown hair and wanted to at least get back to shiny dark brown hair.

I started with henna because it’s the easiest to buy. I purchased the best and freshest pure body art henna I could find (Premium quality indian henna powder from Ravi Imports in a silver foil 100 g pack) – at All India Foods Woolloongabba. Those guys are wholesalers, so I expected their goods to be freshest (and cheapest).

I mixed the henna with generic brand lemon juice to a soft paste – after about 1.5 days at room temperature I could see the orange dye seeping out and tried it on a washcloth and then on a sample of hair from my hair brush.

WARNING: Try any thing you use out first on a sample of hair rather than on all your hair!

WARNING: Commercial hair dyes combined with commercial herbal/chemical mixtures can cause nasty hair destroying reactions. Always check the ingredients and preferably use pure herbal mixtures, even if you have to mix them yourself.

Note: Don’t use henna for hair because it has less dye. Only use pure body art henna powder.

Note: You must see the orange dye coming out of the leaves. It will not colour the hair if it has not soaked out of the leaves.

I used 50 g henna plus 20 g amla for my long and somewhat thin hair. I cut it with 1/3 cup hair conditioner to get extra volume. The cost of the materials was therefore about a dollar.

NOTE: Henna stains material, so wear old clothes and use an old towel. Also, use gloves to make sure your hands don’t end up orange for days!

It was easier than I thought to apply the ground leaf “mud” to my hair. I hung my head with moistened hair over the bath. Henna is sticky so it clung to the hair. I pushed the mud in at the front, lifted the back third to access the middle and then covered the back bit from the back. Finally I covered the remaining long hair to the tips.  The sticky henna ensured I could arrange the hair on my head and easily encase it in a plastic shower cap and old towel. After that I did household tasks for 4 hours before washing it out in the shower using warm water only.

As indicated by my test, I ended up with orange highlights and red-brown hair which deepened in colour over the next few days. It looked heaps better than before and I noticed a lot of other ladies had achieved similar effects, probably with chemical dyes. Further dying intensified the colour and made my hair more red/orange. Now my task was to achieve a darker brown!

To darken my hair I’ve been doing the same as I did with the henna but using a combination of henna (red & conditioning), amla (conditioning), skikakai (cleansing) and brahmi (darkening). The henna is steeped separately with lemon juice and the others made up with warm water. They are all left to soak and extract the active ingredients for a couple of days, then mixed together with hair conditioner. I leave them on my hair for 30 minutes and do so twice a week instead of shampooing.

I seem to be achieving darker hair with more true red highlights! Nobody mentions cutting hair anymore!

WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE!! 

First dying trial with henna mixture only - after (left) and before (right) - flash used to take photograph, note it's really hard to get true colours so I settled for same lighting conditions

Menopause and breasts

Menopause can bring substantial and startling changes in the breasts – so let me tell you a little of the story of me and my breasts. I tell it in the hope you can leverage the knowledge for your good or that of someone close to you.

When they first appeared I found them inconvenient – they split my nicest dresses at the arms, bounced and were painful. Sheesssh! Bras were uncomfortable and chaffed to the point of torture – why do people think seams rubbing on one of the most delicate areas of the body is a good idea????

Note: Some people, both men and women, have very sensitive breasts and nipples and some do not. Forcing someone to wear a rough material (or indeed a silky, sensual material) can be torture or at least elicit inappropriate sensations.

ANYWAY – for roughly the next 30 years I did not think much about my breasts except to ensure modesty and to make sure they did not hurt. I appreciated them for being small and pert as I did not need to wear a bra and generally they kept out of the way. It did not really occur to me that breasts could be attractive to men. Yes REALLY!

Then came incipient menopause. First my breasts lost some density. I was shocked, but tried to think positively. They were still pert, I could still wear my tailored blouses and actually as they gained a little swing, they looked bigger! BONUS! By now I realised men were REALLY attracted to breasts!

Then as my hormones finally stopped, my breasts suddenly slumped and slipped down my chest – since the change was so sudden it was more shocking. I am sure my nipples are 5 cm lower than they were. I can no longer wear many of my tops without a bra. I was DEVASTATED! Cue real grieving!

Note: It is truly alarming and there is real grieving when a part of your body changes/deteriorates so much. It is natural to grieve and feel desperate and sad and willing to do anything to get back what you have lost. Rather than do something irreversible in desperation - like with anything – it’s best to wait a while and work through your feelings.

So now I have a choice – wear very camouflaging top garments to hide my sagging breasts or wear a bra! Goodness – the struggle continues to find bras that will not chaff and which are comfortable. Added to the usual complaints, my less dense breast tissue does not hold the bra down so well, so inevitably the band slips up over a little of my lower breast tissue and as well crushes some of the tissue on the side of my breasts. This can be UNBEARABLE! <sigh>

…time has passed ….

Even though I may be uncomfortable when I choose to wear a bra, I’ve developed a much more positive attitude to my breasts as they are now. They are still soft and nice to touch and they still look great with the right undergarments. They even seem to be a little larger … and … best of all, Awesome still likes them just as much. Really, I’ve got nothing to complain about!

Note: Lovers and partners are really important in maintaining one’s self esteem and self-perception of attractiveness. Be patient and listen and also know when to short-circuit obsessive concern with body changes that are natural and, well, not so important in the big picture. Above all, if you find us attractive, we’ll be more likely to believe we are attractive! 

Two orchids of suprising beauty!

In praise of friends with (social) benefits (again)

 The Love of My Life is not in town - apologies sent and accepted graciously – but still I am alone on a long weekend. Billy like the gallant soul-twin-knight he is came to my rescue to escort me to an iconic festival. He’s dating currently, so I was happy he had time for me!

Really – I am so thankful for Billy and need to mention again the importance of platonic friends.

So many older people are alone and particularly older men may have no-one to hug them and look after them. There is so much value in questioning and rejecting social norms that insist on alienation and social isolation.

Billy and I are maintaining a framework of social connection and support that should continue right into our golden years and which will not depend on being lucky enough to be in a happy marriage with a living partner (who also happens to be in town). 

Peace and happiness to all ...