Men On Pause

This past week I have had three separate conversations with different women in my life about the strange things that are happening to our bodies. Fatigue, brain fog, irritability, anxiety, weight gain, sleeplessness, bloating, depression. The list goes on. 

In these conversations we’ve shared our struggles to get a handle on what’s happening and confessed that mostly we aren’t.

In an almost maniacal fashion, we’ve been starving ourselves, overexercising ourselves, zapping and zipping ourselves, and ingesting all manner of concoctions that promised to restore us to our youthful splendour. But nothing has worked.

This is frustratingly unfamiliar territory.

Once, a weekend of sleeping in and doing little was enough to catch up on much-needed rest, now we wake up tired whether we get four or 9 hours sleep. Once, a week of dining on soups and salads was all that was needed to shed a dress size, now we put on a dress size when eating the same. 

Once, we could manage multiple tasks, handle fast-changing priorities, hold a complex agenda of dates and appointments for multiple people in our heads, now we have to write everything down and check our calendars (repeatedly) to ensure we don’t forget anything – I say repeatedly because now, for some reason, we don’t trust our memories enough to check that calendar only once.

With all our best efforts to forestall or prevent the inevitable failing, we’ve begun questioning ourselves. Am I going crazy? Am I losing my edge? Am I still relevant and/or capable? 

And eventually, am I still desirable?

For me personally, from a purely physical perspective, the irrepressible changes my body is undergoing have led me to develop an irksome but gnawing concern – will it ever be possible for me to inspire desire again? 

I’ve asked myself whether I will ever have the courage to stand undressed in front of someone who doesn’t already harbour a deep love for me, and wondered who could possibly seek to familiarise themselves with the dips and curves of this body when I, myself, feel so increasingly estranged from it? 

Truth be told, despite all our hard work to be more than just sexual objects, there is no denying that our sensuality is a big part of being a woman. The ability to excite and tantalise is one of our superpowers and in many ways, I think, a validation of our womanhood, particularly if, like me, you’ve never had children. The possibility of losing that ability, and that validation along with it, brings into question our very femininity. 

By the same token, throughout peri-menopause and menopause, we feel so alienated by our own bodies that the thought of engaging in lovemaking can be anxiety-inducing.

In this mayhem of confusion, frustration, and overwhelming change, it takes everything we women have just to act normal, let alone feel connected to and in control of our sensuality.

And yet, it would take very little for a woman to feel in possession of her womanliness. A compliment here, a cheeky smile there, a twinkle in the eye, a hand on the lower back, a kiss on the neck. Even in an intimate setting – perhaps especially in this setting – when we are most exposed, a few kind words can go a long way. I mean, honestly, if she’s about to let you put your thing into her thing – even if you never plan on seeing her again – how hard is it to tell her she’s beautiful!? 

Luckily for me, the man I love does tell me I’m beautiful and he believes it too, despite the changes I’m going through. He tells me and believes it because he loves me deeply. But I’ve been with men who don’t have the capacity to say such a simple phrase even in the midst or afterglow of lovemaking.

Of course, I can get on my feminist high horse and say I don’t need a lover to validate me, but deep down we all need someone to tell us how wonderful we are, especially when the hormones are wreaking havoc in our heads.

We have been reassured by the strong women who have gone through this ahead of us that there is light and relief on the other side, but that we will be different versions of ourselves when we get there – better versions, perhaps, but different and it will take some time to get used to our new selves.

In the meantime, the tumult of my body transforming into some kind of mother earth figure, perhaps irrevocably, and a certain future without my love in my life, has got me wondering whether menopause will actually mean men on pause for me forever.