Intimacy in the menopause

The children had left home, work had slacked off, and although caring responsibilities for the older generation had ramped up, we felt we could embark on a period of extended honeymoon. That was me and my husband six years ago. No longer would we have to wait til the wee small hours when the teens had gone to sleep, or for the evenings when they were both out. No—we could be like twenty somethings again: having sex whenever we fancied it. Just like the old days.

Wrong! My body had an unfair trick to play in the shape of the menopause: the start of our freedom years coincided precisely with a spectacular dive in my oestrogen levels, and with it a drop in my ability and inclination to have sex. Instead of a new beginning it felt like an ending.

“My body had an unfair trick to play in the shape of the menopause: the start of our freedom years coincided precisely with a spectacular dive in my oestrogen levels, and with it a drop in my ability and inclination to have sex”

It was this rather than the hot flushes, thickening waist, and outwardly irrational rage which sent me to the GP. She listened to me and told me candidly that this was why she was dreading her own menopause; she’d heard too many women sit where I was telling their tales of sexual woe.

“Hot flushes are a nuisance, and lack of sleep wears you down. But vaginal dryness really does gnaw away at your self esteem and sense of womanhood.”

It was then that I embarked on my HRT odyssey. I was prescribed pills then patches. Both did the trick, restoring me near enough to my libidinous prime. But both also proved troublesome, sparking episodes of post coital, post menopausal bleeding, sending me straight to Gynae for cancer checks. The uptick in hormones had caused a slight thickening of the lining of my uterus—a red flag for uterine cancer. So off the HRT I came, and back came the vaginal dryness to plague our sex life. Worse, I now had a name for what was happening inside me: vaginal atrophy.

Hot flushes are a nuisance, and lack of sleep wears you down. But vaginal dryness really does gnaw away at your self esteem and sense of womanhood. And describing my vagina as having atrophy really hits a woman who’s already down. I like sex. My husband likes sex. We like sex with each other, and have done since we met 30 years ago. The thought that it would be painful or non-existent was frankly devastating.

“There’s no room for coyness if you want your love life fixing”

But I was fortunate with my meno-phobic GP. She had another plan, and prescribed me oestrogen pessaries, inserted twice a week. I won’t sugar this: they haven’t made me new again. But they have taken me a long way in that direction. And an understanding husband has closed the gap still more. But that was only possible because I talked to him and told him in plain language what my menopause was doing to me. There’s no room for coyness if you want your love life fixing. And trust goes hand in hand with desire at any age I reckon.

So now we can tumble into bed mid afternoon if we feel like it. Just not as frequently as our imaginations had planned.