Before this Aussie guy in his mid-forties starts talking about menopause, it’s important for me to make the following clear. First, I write this with my wife’s blessing. Second, I acknowledge it is rare and perhaps dangerous (or brave, or stupid – can’t decide which) that a man would write on this topic. Third, I realise not many men have been a witness and support of a partner going through (peri)menopause earlier than the average 45 to 55 age bracket. However, Natalie had a hysterectomy several years ago while having some reconstructive surgery and entered into perimenopause early.

I also acknowledge it is possible that I may be accused of mansplaining perimenopause from a third-person, male, or medical perspective. Despite an effort to include disclaimers – I may be misunderstood. This happens. My academic area of research and expertise is not in health, it’s in social learning and small business. I want to also make clear that my core motivation here is to share things from the perspective of a long-term partner and parent, in the hope that it may encourage necessary conversation and chip away at the taboo surrounding menopause. That said, I also unapologetically share my frustration and hope for change – after all, menopause directly affects billions of women.

Perhaps it is also worth sharing that my aim in sharing is to avoid blanket statements and any attempt to rob this topic from person, place and time. I want to avoid universal and colonising statements or sentiment – so I will repeat myself at times, for clarifications-sake. In an autoethnographic way, what I am sharing has been our experience and may not be applicable to you in your culture, place and time. For context,  Natalie and I have been together since 1996 and were married at the young age of 19 in 1998. We had our first child in 2004, then another in 2008 and another in 2010. We have had our fair share of challenges and each maintains our own spirituality. We live from a set of considered personal and shared values.

Natalie’s reconstructive surgery was a result of living with some invisible injuries for many years, including pelvic floor damage, following the successive traumatic and damaging births of our three children. These birthing events left her with physical conditions no amount of Pilates or physiotherapy could fix. Admittedly, it took us about a year to realise the hysterectomy had sped up her biological clock and tipped her into perimenopause early. The symptoms began to emerge both physically and emotionally. What became very apparent was Natalie’s desire to be alone more often and her announcement to me and the kids that she didn’t care about certain things she had been concerned about previously. Not long after putting these pieces together, Natalie sought medical and professional support.

Interestingly, this ‘leave me alone’ season coincided with lockdowns, which really wasn’t pleasant for anyone. Living with three teens in a house for months on end while balancing being an essential worker and navigating a profoundly biological shift was not easy. In fact, we had two of three kids moving through puberty at the same time. It was hormone central. 

In the years following, and as a result of the lockdown, we both went through some career and job changes. In the midst of all this change, the seriousness of the perimenopause season became apparent. Natalie was changing and I was needing to adjust, not simply adjust to her present self, but learn more about what to expect in the coming season. A new person was emerging after nearly 25 years together, and a lot was on the line. Thankfully, if you look, you can find plenty of information out there on what to expect emotionally and physically during perimenopausal years. I am not going to list them. Suffice to say, hot flashes (which is not a universal symptom), was among the least of the symptoms that affected our partnership. Instead, the symptoms and changes that affected our relationship the most were the emotional and mental ones.

I’ve been a fan of story, myth and archetype for some time. I’m not a Jungian scholar, but this work and language has always helped and inspired me. As much as Natalie and I gained knowledge and stayed informed about the changes her body was going through biologically, the science didn’t tell me what our relationship and lives might look like psychosocially.

So, I began exploring the field of archetypes and stages of a woman’s life, and discovered some valuable resources and ongoing conversations. As another precursor, I’m aware that some readers may not be too familiar with the world of archetypes and their mystical connection to life stages, suffice to say that myth and archetype have been with mankind thousands of years – long before HRT and modern sciences. I’m not going to explain them in depth here, but for me, books that adopt this approach have made life’s journey more meaningful and helped me make the most of life’s invitation to lean into its seasons and stages, including their rites and rituals. These books include; King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Gillette and Moore. The Critical Journey by Hagberg and Guelich.Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr. Iron John by Robert Bly. Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia, plus many other modern and ancient texts.

My curiosity led me to two modern authors, Jane Hardwick Collings and Sharon Blackie, who each explore the perimenopause and postmenopausal phases of a woman’s life. Beautifully, Collings refers to the postmenopausal stage as ‘maga’ (as in, mage or magician), while Blackie reclaims the term ‘hag’ wonderfully in her book ‘Hagitude’. With these authors, I believe a new archetype is necessary for our times.

Historically, while many individuals lived into their 60s and 70s, high infant and child mortality rates kept average life expectancy at birth much lower than today. Consequently, fewer women overall reached menopause, though it was common for those who survived to middle age. In certain cultures, a woman’s life stages were traditionally described as a maiden, mother, and crone triad. With increased longevity, a new stage between mother and crone has emerged. This phase, sometimes called the maga or queen stage, may also be commonly referred to as hag, prophetess, or priestess. Collings also describes it as the autumn or harvest season of a woman’s life.

Personally, I think this paradigm is extremely beautiful and honouring. To see my wife and closest friend through this seasonal and archetypal lens is allowing me to see beyond present rapid changes we were/are experiencing and give her permission to become the version of herself that must emerge. A post-mother version that the world now needed in its fold.

Some of the most helpful language and truth we picked up from Collings and similar teachers was that as a woman moved from mother to maga, the veil of accommodation lifts from her being. I love this poetic language, the veil of accommodation lifting. You might even see the connection between hormonal levels shifting and one’s ability to accommodate and care for others in the shift between mother and maga stages.

This is what was happening with Natalie. She was becoming less accommodating. And you know what? She was allowed to be. I started to take stock and was in awe of her decades of accommodating. She accommodated me, a recovering-codependent, annoyingly-curious, creative husband. She accommodated my eccentric European family. She accommodated (literally) three humans in her body and beyond – which she risked her well-being for, and still carries birthing scars from. She accommodated a career break to be home for the children most of their childhood years – and as a result, she accommodated fiscal instability. She even accommodated mental health clients in her work as a counsellor and later social support worker. Basically, she had spent the majority of her adult life in motherhood mode, accommodating. So I shouldn’t be surprised if now, as the kids are increasingly interdependent in their early and late teens, that this veil of accommodation was no longer needed. 

I must add here that motherhood takes many forms in this context. Raising children is just one form of mothering. For example, you can mother a dream, mother a business, mother a community, mother extended family, mother an art form, mother a career, and much more. 

A range of statistics suggest that between 60-73% of divorces today are instigated by women during the menopausal years – with many women blaming menopause for the marriage breakdown… Seriously, I now get this more than ever. With this veil lifting, many women are no longer willing or able to keep accommodating the needs of others. And I certainly didn’t want Natalie to feel obligated to medicate herself into a culturally acceptable version of the forever accommodating mother that I believe much of society expects, and thinks they need. Instead, she needs to become the fullest authentic version of the wise, strong person she needs to be for the next half of her life.

To make this clear, and I know I am repeating myself, what we became aware of was that she needed space and distance from all she’d been caring for and accommodating along with permission to emerge into someone new. Not worse, not less, not even more, just different. And at this stage, I needed to come to terms with what was going to help or hinder this change of season.

There were two conversations I believed needed to be had, one between Natalie and myself, and the other with me and the kids. I will share them both, but please don’t see this as a recipe or solution for you. It is just what I did. Every situation is unique.

We were talking in our bedroom one afternoon about our learnings and changes she was going through. I began by saying with the deepest sincerity that I was grateful for how she had accommodated me, the kids, my family, and everything else. I went on to thank her for the 24 years of marriage and for her accommodating all the versions of David along the way.

That preamble set the space for me to say that if she was now done with me, and the marriage, I totally understood and would figure out a way to make it work – both for us and the kids. I affirmed that I loved her and would be naturally affected, but was more, and remain more, committed to her becoming who she needed to be in this next season. In other words, I granted her my blessing and permission to end the marriage if she wanted. As I hoped, there wasn’t an immediate reply of, ‘No, I want to stay together forever. You’re amazing, your family, income, job stability is all amazing!’ Okay, I’m being facetious, but seriously, her response was simply a gracious, ‘Thank you.’ And we went on to reflect and discuss all she had accommodated, with reason, till that moment. After that, she said that she wanted to make the marriage work as I did, but appreciated the understanding and work I had done to get to that point.

We have a good and solid marriage. People that know us well know this, so I am aware that some readers may be in shock to read I was willing to end the marriage, but I don’t believe in people feeling bound and trapped in a marriage for whatever reason. But that’s for another essay. Needless to say, that conversation was crucial and remains a pivotal moment in our journey together. 

The second conversation I needed to have was with our three teens. We are in that season of life where having everyone at home for dinner is a rare event, but I took advantage of one evening when Natalie was out and a conversation was had at the dinner table with her blessing.

As dinner was winding up, I told them I wanted a few minutes for a serious conversation about mum, and I told them that she knew I was having this. This is not verbatim, but the conversation went something like this:

“The first thing I want you guys to know is mum and I love each other, and our marriage is solid and strong. However, you will have noticed some changes in mum’s behaviour, like she wants to be alone more, she’s not doing as much around the house, including things like cooking, etc. And she has admittedly been crankier than usual.

We all know you kids have been, and are going through major changes with puberty, where you find yourself going through changes in your body and emotions.. well, in a similar way, women go through biological changes as they pass childbearing age, and because of your mum’s surgery a few years ago that’s happened a few years earlier than average. In the same way we as parents don’t take your adjustments to this new puberty-induced version of you personally, I want you to know that these changes or responses from mum aren’t personal attacks. Let’s remember that your mum is the one having to make the biggest adjustments. Now, because we love one another, mum and I will give one another the space and time we need to adjust. In other words, I will be doing what I can to support mum during this time.

It does change dynamics in our marriage relationship, but we’ve endured lots of challenges together, and we can work this out. That said, mum has mothered you guys for nearly 20 years, and her capacity to care about everything and everyone is dropping. It’s a hormonal change, and in many ways it’s a good thing because it will set you guys up to be responsible adults.”

A few questions followed that conversation, along with a few nods and grunts, but overall they got it and it made sense to them. Since then, there has been a new sense of freedom and maturity in the home. 

These two conversations and their effects had me wondering about the lack of apparent rites of passages and rituals that accompany this crucial season in a woman’s life. I don’t know why, but it really bothers me. It is true that our Western culture is void of official rites and rituals, but at least the rites of passage from childhood to adulthood is recognised as something we could (or should) give attention too. Yet, there is not much that I have read or witnessed in terms of rituals marking the transition from mother to maga (queen / prophetess / priestess / sage / hag etc). Instead, it largely remains a topic of taboo across cultures.

Within the same sigh of disappointment, I’m not surprised that there is a lack of rituals or large conversations, because we haven’t had this length of lifespan as a species for very long. We’ve also not lived this long as a collective of billions of people. But I wonder what a powerful and impzortant signal it may be, firstly to the woman, and secondly to those around them, that this new maga/queen season in her life is important to recognise and one that the world desperately needs; that being, the emergence of a wise and capable force in our communities.

Again, I don’t think we need eternally accommodating mother figures, especially after children reach young adult stages. Instead, we need these strong and celebrated seasoned women who genuinely are less accommodating of what was demanded of them tribally – and instead, celebrated and seen as forces of wisdom and collective voices who continue to shift the world forward, in a sustainable way.

To circle back around and conclude on a personal note: There is a greater sense of healthy independence in our home since those conversations and a new respect of one anothers need for space. There is greater support and less expectation on Natalie to be who she was, because she simply has lost that capacity. Personally, I love who is emerging.

We often revisit the conversation about our decision to stay together. We see other couples, perhaps a few years older, move through the perimenopausal season, some in ignorance of the seriousness of changes, some in denial, some attuned, some unaffected, some resulting in separation and divorce, some amicable, others messy.

It is definitely a remarkable season in a person’s life. And one I’m glad is gaining more normalcy. But, with unapologetic reiteration, I believe it is still not discussed enough. I think this season in a woman’s life deserves the same respect and dare I say accommodation that is given to puberty, at a minimum. Lest we forget that menopause is experienced by billions of women. If honoured, revered, and celebrated well, it just may change the world.

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