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*Warning: adult language ahead!
Last year, I wrote something called Menopause: One Man’s Guide to Not Being a Complete C*** when your Partner is Struggling.
It was quite the interweb sensation, with thousands reading it.
Which is quite an achievement considering my principal qualification in menopause was having slept next to women going through it.
I was basically a war correspondent who'd never left the fucking hotel.
I'd witnessed the sweating, the insomnia, the rage, the disappearing libido, and the occasional desire to kill a man for slurping his noodles too loudly.
And somehow, because I had a penis and an opinion, I thought this made me qualified to explain it.
I thought I understood.
Sure, I knew about hot flushes. I knew the thermostat was no longer mine to control. I understood that if she's standing in front of an open fridge at three in the morning, sweating her tits off and muttering, "I swear to fucking God…", this is not the moment to ask what's for breakfast.
This is the moment to put the kettle on, empty the dishwasher, and shut the fuck up.
It's not because she's irrational. But rather at three in the morning, half-naked and boiling alive in front of a fridge, she already has enough problems without one of them developing an opinion.
I knew sex could change. I knew moods could change. I knew telling a menopausal woman to "calm down" was less relationship advice and more assisted suicide with paperwork.
What I didn't understand was what happens underneath all that.
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