You might think that the menopause means the end of a stellar sex life, or maybe it’s the opposite – and you believe that when your menstrual cycle stops, your libido will rocket, opening the door for more frequent and spontaneous intimacy. For many, the reality settles some place between the two, but what exactly is the menopause, and how does this transition affect us and our sex lives?
The menopause represents significant changes in our hormonal balance, where our estrogen levels drop, our periods cease and the lifespan of our reproductive years comes to a natural end. Most often, this happens with age but in some cases, can be induced through surgery, illness or as a side-effect of treatment for certain conditions.
Typically, the menopause isn’t diagnosed or officially recognized as such until 12 consecutive months have passed without a period, but the signs and symptoms of this inevitable life phase can start much sooner.
So, what are these signs? What might we experience, and how might they make us feel?
Enter the peri-menopause
The stage before the main event, where our bodies begin the transition through to full menopause. Our hormone levels fluctuate, our egg production starts to decline and some symptoms might become noticeable to us. For most people, this happens from the age of around 40, but varies in timescales and intensity for each person.
During the peri-menopause, we’re still fertile, although we may start to experience irregularities to our monthly cycles, missing one here and there, or having two periods come at once. Our breasts can feel tender, and the vagina can feel less sensitive and more dry than usual.
The changes in our hormone levels can affect us in more ways than just physical though– it might be that we feel unexpectedly anxious, our mood waivers in rollercoaster pattern, or that our desire to have and initiate intimacy is lesser than usual. Although for some, sex is still firmly front of the agenda – even during those pre-menopause months.
The next chapter
Once your last period has come and gone, you are officially in the menopause. Although you may not know this straight away. While this is the second phase of the menopause journey, it is the one people associate the menopause with the most but not all of us really understand what it is.
For many of us, sex and intimacy changes quite significantly here. Some of us will be relieved to no longer experience our usual PMS symptoms like migraines or pelvic pain, having given our monthly cycles a one-way-ticket to the land of no return.
This means we feel we can be more adventurous in the bedroom, or more relaxed as we worry less about discomfort and focus more on enjoyment.
Look in the right places, and there’s definitely a few positive perks to the menopause.
But it’s not plain sailing for everyone. For those of us who have always appreciated our youthful appearance, this is also where the natural tell-tale signs of aging can begin to surface. Sometimes our weight distribution changes, or we can find ourselves having trouble with sleep due to night sweats and insomnia.
As we’re no longer fertile, we might experience emotions such as grief at the loss of our childbearing years or feel a drop in our self-esteem and ability due to that ever elusive ‘brain fog’
The menopause experience is different for everyone, and in some cases, can affect several aspects of our lives, including our relationships and careers too.
End of an era
Through the woods and into the forest, the post-menopause phase signifies the end of an era. Often, by now, most of our initial ‘shock menopause symptoms’ have started to fade into the ether. Some people have claimed this time to feel much like a ‘rebirth’, or a time to enjoy life in different ways.
We’re no longer restricted by our calendars, planning date nights and trips away on the premise of our next monthly cycle. For many of us, the ‘brain fog’ and memory lapses also become less noticeable, and our physical symptoms start to subside.
Does intimacy return like it did long before the menopause reared it’s head? For a lot of us, absolutely – and even better still! Thousands of post-menopausal people are enjoying a healthier sex life than ever, others are discovering new and exciting ways to explore their sexual fantasies and preferences.
For some, it may be a case of accepting that sex doesn’t and likely won’t feel like it did once before and becoming more focused on the emotional layers of love-making, which can still bring about a deeper closeness with our partners.