Hi this is my first posting after reading various bits of the site for the past week. My wife turned 40 last year and has been suffering hot flashes for 3 or 4 months. She recently announced she want's to live on her own (ideally with the kids) but without me. Her mood changes one moment to the next with both me and the kids. She's been under lots of pressure with her job for the last 4 to 5 months. She seemed very concerned about turning 40 last year. I got down with my own job and she had been trying to keep me cheerful as well as doing her own job and all the usual things involved with a family.

She recently read a magazine with the symptoms of perimenopause in and although she remarked how many of them applied to her she still said that this has no bearing on her decision to live on her own.

I read some research at www.ccwu.edu/Thesis_Caico/dissertation.doc which again seemed to cover a lot of what's going on with my wife at the moment. It seems every mistake I've ever made in our relationship (been married for the best part of 20 years) makes me a target for her anger.

She is sometimes tearful and says she is not going to cry.

I know she may really feel like ending our marriage but I'd like the view of you wonderful women out there who give us men such a great insight into this time in a woman's life.

Hi zxr. From your wife's symptoms and age it certainly sounds like perimenopause. I don't know enough about your relationship to comment much on her reasons for wanting to leave. I do know that last year when all this started for me, I felt rotten all the time--depressed and irritable--and I didn't know why. I was searching for reasons and sometimes when you are desperate to find a reason for why you feel so bad you latch onto anything that seems logical. If I were you I'd pursue two courses of action:

1. help her get whatever relief she can from the peri symptoms. If she is under a lot of stress that will make them worse. She needs to find ways she can relax, maybe you can help with that. There are some great articles on this site about natural and medical ways to help alleviate the symptoms of perimenopause. Read about them and see if anything might help her feel better.

2. Ask her if she will attend couples counseling with you. If she refuses ask her to consider the kids--it's worth making an extra effort to see if you can make things work. Again, maybe she really does want to leave and it has nothing to do with her perimenopause. But you deserve to know that for sure.

Welcome zxr!

There is a board here especially for men, and lately several men have been going through the same kind of situation you find yourself in. Perhaps you could check out that board and read about other mens' experiences.

It sounds like your wife could be in perimenopause, especially since she acknowledged that she had a lot of the symptoms listed in the magazine article. Does she believe that she is in perimenopause? Has she talked to a doctor or counselor about it? Would she be willing to do that?

It seems that some women have trouble accepting the fact that they are in perimenopause. Perhaps it's because they always thought menopause is something that happens when you're 50, not when you're 35 or 40 or 45, so they think it means they're officially "old" and they have a hard time with that. Or perhaps they have difficulty accepting that they are no longer as fertile as they used to be, and their reproductive time is nearly over.

Someone here said that she no longer felt like she was in love. I commented to her that we women in peri are so focused on our symptoms and how we don't feel well that we often don't feel "loving" or warm towards the important people in our lives. It's hard to feel loving when you are feeling miserable, especially if you add stress on top of all the peri symptoms!

I agree with the suggestion of both of you going to counseling before throwing in the towel on your marriage. It's the responsible thing to do. Let us know how things are going!

Thanks for the two replies above. I have read some of the posts on the Mens discussion board but I was really after a woman's view. I find it so hard to believe some of the things my wife says recently. I keep trying to tell myself that it's not really her saying and doing these things but its very hard when most of these things are directed at me.

zxr-

I was 41 when I started having perimenopause symptoms. At the time, I wasn't thinking that those were signs, but now that I have been told by my Gyn that I am IN menopause at 46, I was shocked and surprised and saddened that my reproductive years have ended. I told my husband the day that I was told by my Gyn and he was very supportive and told me that he loved me more than ever and that I was his closest friend and supporter (he is down because of his job and needing support from me as much as I need his support).

Good Luck!

Lynne