Over 60 percent of
divorces are initiated by women in their 40s, 50s or 60s — the menopause years
— according to a recent survey conducted by AARP Magazine. Kate Vetrano, chair of the ABA's Elder Law Committee, commented
this statistical data: "They're shedding their marriages in the quest for
happiness."
So, why are women
running away from marriage? In many cases, that was not light and temporary
relationship, but a steady more or less successful family partnership with
mutual interests, mutual children, and shared memories. Why women make their
minds to leave the know territory in favor of unknown and scary, potentially
jeopardizing their emotional, physical, and financial well-being?
There are multiple
examples, when after years of marriage many couples find their relationship
growing stronger and more wonderful after the children have grown and their
life settles down to a more comfortable less hectic pace. Why this trend does
not work for other couples?
Menopausal Changes in Women
While this entire
site is devoted to the menopausal changes and on how to deal with them
efficiently to minimize negative impact, let’s review in brief the main
menopause symptoms which may affect the family relationship and marriage.
Sex Drive
Decreased
libido has an adverse effect on marriage. According to Denise A. Donnelly,
an expert on sexless marriages – couples who have more sex are happier than
others. During menopause, low sex drive can take away the intimacy from your
relationship and increase the probability of conflicts.
Physical Changes
Physical changes
during menopause can lower the self-esteem of women and alter the way their
partner perceives them. Weight gain and thinning
hair are the two side effects of menopause that can hamper the
self-confidence of any lady. Marriages that are based only on physical
attraction are much likely to suffer due to physical changes during menopause.
Mood Swings
Another menopause
symptom that has a telling effect on marriages is mood
swings. Couples find it difficult to deal with this moodiness. Mood swings
are the resultant factor of hormonal changes during menopause. A woman's mood
may frequently fluctuate from being depressed, irritated, and sad to extremely
peaceful and calm.
Soul/Spiritual changes
Soul changes may be
the least discussed but one of the most important sides of female menopause. Often
during mid-life women experience a new sense of strength and awareness. As a
woman approaches the second half of her life, many of the issues she has
repressed, ignored, or denied come to the fore. Some women become more aware of
their own needs and desire; they may become less willing to hold onto that which
is destructive or hurtful. While the child-bearing years are often filled with
sacrifice, parenting, and giving one’s life to children and family, with the
numerous hormonal and physical changes of mid-life come a new realization and
awareness of the self.
Obviously, entering
this new phase of life can impact a woman's relationships, along with virtually
all other areas of life. “The menopause ... puts an end to the fluctuating
hormone levels and with it comes a much more stable brain and a less maternal
woman. A woman who, says Louanne Brizendine in her book "The Female Brain",
is less worried about pleasing others and now wants to please herself and that
may mean taking on new challenges or a new job and leaving the old life,
including her husband, behind”. Dr. Brizendine says that during menopause there
is a hormonal shift that occurs actually “rewires a woman’s brain” in such a
way that she becomes less nurturing, less motherly, less willing to put herself
second to the needs of others and much more apt to decide that she’s had enough
of many things that heretofore, she may have happily accepted with no fuss
whatsoever.
Medications
Dr. Wendy Klein,
co-author of The Menopause Makeover and leading menopause expert, adds that “If
a woman is taking medications, such as antidepressants, mood stabilizers,
contraceptive drugs, antihistamines, sedatives, antihypertensives and/or
medications for blood pressure, this can also decrease sexual desire” and
contribute to the menopause-related changes, leading to the decision to abandon
marriage relationship as a natural solution to the situation, as her only
salvation.
Two for Tango
You
can sail in a ship by yourself,
Take
a nap or a nip by yourself.
You
can get into debt on your own.
There
are lots of things that you can do alone.
(But
it)
Takes
two to tango ...
Comedian George
Carlin noticed that this well-known idiomatic expression is not strictly
accurate: "It takes two to tango. Sounds good, but simple reasoning will reveal
that it only takes one to tango. It takes two to tango together, maybe, but one
person is certainly capable of tangoing on his own."
Here we go, woman can live through menopause by herself, but marriage
relationships are based on partnership, communication, and cooperation. And,
while woman experiences a complicated transition in her life, her male partner
is also deep in his own physical and emotional changes, triggered by andropause (male menopause) and
midlife crisis. Thus, two dysfunctional individuals may be struggling hard to
preserve the dysfunctional relationship, which is quite complicated as you
understand.
Empty Nest
Syndrome
Usually menopause
strikes at the same period when your grown-up kids leave home for their own
life, education, and employment. During this period, many parents develop what
is called empty nest syndrome. They suddenly realize that their children kept
them together, and there is nothing common left between them, except for
worrying for their kids, who do not need them so much anymore. This is not a
surprising consequence when more and more in the last 10 or 12 years couples
are focusing all their energy on the children’s activities to the detriment of
their own couple relationship. And that is one of the reasons of a steady
increase in the number of divorces among couples married 30 or more years. Other
couples divorce during the empty nest years because they can't handle the
health issues and the sense of an uncertain future along with being overwhelmed
by too much togetherness.
Is there a
hope?
Yes, there is a hope! As far as you know, that your emotional changes are
strongly triggered by menopause and midlife crisis, you can look on what is
going on in your marriage from slightly different perspectives. Sit down, and
assess carefully your inner self. Do you experience the feeling listed below?
- Unhappiness with life and the lifestyle that may have provided you with happiness for many years.
- Boredom with people and things that may have been of interest to you before.
- Feeling a need for adventure and change.
- Questioning the choices, you have made in your life and the validity of decisions you made years before.
- Confusion about who you are and where you are going.
- Anger at your spouse and feeling tied down.
- Unable to make decisions about where you want to go with your life.
- Doubt that you ever loved your spouse and resentment over the marriage.
- A desire for a new and passionate, intimate relationship.
If you do, you are not alone. Millions of women (and men as a matter of
fact) experience the same, some once-a-while, other – all the time during this period
of the hormonal changes. Is divorce is inevitable for all those people? NO. At
the moment when you understand, that sometimes it is not you who is talking,
but your menopause, and it is not your husband who is harshly responding, but
his andropause, you can get your family crisis in true perspectives.
As in every medical and life situations, preventing is easier and less
painful, than treating conditions of collapsing family.
There are several advices on how to keep your marriage healthy through
the menopause:
- Keep communicating. Keep the channels
of communication open at all levels. This makes it possible to resolve
problems early on and keep spouses up to speed on changing needs. Each
spouse must be part of the decision making process and share in the risks
and rewards so they can make adjustments and tradeoffs when necessary for
the good of the marriage.
- Make it a relationship of equals. A marriage
in which the spouses feel entitled to make suggestions and the suggestions
will be listened to. That builds a marriage where both spouses have power.
That doesn't mean you always agree. But you work it out.
- Develop common interests. While kids
are leaving the house, some of the couples find out that there is not much
in common: no common interests, friends, and activities. Do your best to
find out something, other than kids, that brings you both happiness and
satisfaction. Keep friendship and interest in each other as part of your relationship.
If you still love your spouse, don't be afraid to show it. Remember what
brought the two of you together in the first place, and then love your
partner selflessly. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that
more than two-thirds of the couples surveyed who put the other partner
first rated their marriages as being very happy.
- Keep the other person's needs in mind. Fairness
is critical: If an agreement somehow shortchanges one spouse, the spouses
will find themselves working toward different goals and undermining the
benefits of the marriage.
- Be ready for change. Rather than expect
things to stay the same you should expect things to shift and change. Make
sure you have the emotional mechanisms needed for dealing with change. You
have to be willing to constantly monitor your relationship and renegotiate
when a shift happens. Talk to your spouse about the things that you are
willing to change in order to make things work. Explain that you want to
deal with the issues straight on. Listen to what your spouse has to say as
you look for ways to solve the problems between you. Make an effort to
understand the other's viewpoint even if it differs from your own. Rather
than allowing things to get blown out of proportion when emotions run
high, try to keep any issues in perspective as you examine your problems.
- Get professional advice. The safe emotional environment in marriage therapy enables you to express your concerns and have them understood within your relationship. This understanding leads to planning the next step to enhancing communication and developing methods for conflict resolution to help save your marriage and prevent divorce.
Sources and Additional Information:
