This year the Herald’s award-winning newsroom produced a range of first-class journalism, including investigating the state of our mental health in the Great Minds series, how NZ can rebuild stronger post-Covid with The New New Zealand and how to minimise the impact of living in an Inflation Nation.
We also tackled our literacy crisis in our Reading Block series, while dogged investigative reporting by Kate McNamara resulted in an investigation into the awarding of contracts to businesses associated with family members of Cabinet minister Nanaia Mahuta.
The following article was one of the best-read Premium articles in 2022. The story originally ran in November.
For women filing for divorce in their late 30s to late 50s, there’s something experts believe is often behind the demise of these once-happy marriages. Rebecca Haszard speaks to an ex-wife, a dedicated husband and the people trying to help others like them understand what women in midlife are really going through.
Marilyn* should have been celebrating her 31st wedding anniversary with her high school sweetheart this year. Instead, she’s finalising their divorce.
After more than three decades together, Marilyn says she knows what sparked the beginning of the end for her marriage: menopause.
Five years ago, she began to experience what every woman will go through in mid-life - with some common but varying mental and physical symptoms.
She tried to explain to her husband why she wasn’t interested in sex. Why she was moody, couldn’t sleep and was gaining weight.
“It’s all about communication,” says Marilyn. “In hindsight, if only we’d communicated properly … he was saying really mean stuff, told me I turned him off. And because I was menopausal my self-esteem was already down. I had low self-esteem, weight gain, I was like the Sahara Desert down there, lost my libido.
“It was frustrating for me,” she recalls. “Because I needed someone to give me cuddles to boost my self-esteem and everything up.”
Instead, Marilyn’s marriage ended when she learned her husband was having an affair.
“I was totally blindsided,” she says. “Thinking back, we were sexless for a while. But he wasn’t the type to express his feelings. I suggested therapy and that was a big no. But if only we had, things would have been a lot different.”
Instead, she recalls one of the most hurtful comments her husband made when his transgressions were exposed:
“Maybe you should’ve done something about your menopause”.
The divorce coach
Marilyn’s experience is something qualified Auckland lawyer and founder of divorce coaching service, Equal Exes, Bridgette Jackson, sees often.
“Over 60 per cent of divorces that I see in that age group – late 30s to late 50s – are initiated by women,” says Jackson. And she believes in over 60 per cent of those cases, menopause is the catalyst.
Her observations are in line with a new survey out of the UK which found seven out of 10 women blame menopause for the breakdown of their marriage.
Conducted by The Family Law Menopause Project and Newson Health Research and Education, the poll of 1000 women also found that 67 per cent believed menopause increased instances of “domestic abuse and arguments”.
For Jackson, the survey has “really highlighted the fact that many women have no idea that peri-menopause and menopause aligns and contributes to the demise of their relationships.
“I would say at best 20 per cent of the women I see probably realise that it contributes.”
However, says Jackson, it makes sense when you consider the immense changes that can be brought on by menopause coupled with the fact that it remains a misunderstood, taboo subject for many.
“A woman feels like they’ve got low self-esteem, because they’re feeling hopeless. Physically they’ve got things going on that make them feel horrendous. They feel unattractive, exhausted, moody, depressed … and they aren’t supported through the process.”
Jackson also points to a phenomenon known as Walkaway Wife Syndrome, where a woman seemingly suddenly leaves her marriage.
“In terms of why women are running away from their relationships, particularly in this age group, it’s because of hormones,” says Jackson. “When you’re at this age, your body produces less oestrogen.
“Feelings of love for others and the urge to take care of others, it’s not there. A woman’s thinking changes from a ‘we’ to a ‘me’ mindset.”
After working with numerous women who find themselves in this space, Jackson believes there is a real need for good information about menopause and its impact on women and their relationships.
“I think there needs to be more guidance and knowledge and education around it. The husband or the partner can actually help save a shaky marriage … it’s well known that women who have a supportive partner have a smoother transition through menopause.
“You know the old saying: happy wife, happy life.”
The good husband
Stuart Fraser has been supporting his wife, Jane, through menopause and says it took a while to register what was going on with his smart, funny, effervescent partner.
“We were merrily carrying along,” recalls Fraser, 61. “All of a sudden, Jane started going, ‘Hang on a second, that’s a bit weird. That’s unusual’.
“I noticed changes in her behaviour too, in the way she responded to things … she’d get upset about stuff that wasn’t normally upsetting. She’d forget stuff. Normally she doesn’t forget anything. She’d be in the middle of a discussion about something and just lose track of it.”
Fraser says the changes were insidious, but as they started to put them all together, it became clear what was going on.
“It was over time. The physical change was more, and still is, directly impacting her. For me, I can’t swear that I’ve noticed any really obvious physical signs, but I had noticed the behavioural ones, which can be a lot more subtle but a lot more devastating for the partner. Whereas I think the physical change is definitely much more upsetting for her.”
But Fraser credits his wife with registering that it was menopause affecting her and explaining it to him.
“Luckily for me, she’s quite smart and she worked it out. Once you start to attribute a couple of things, when the next thing happens you go, oh, well maybe that’s part of it as well.”
However, Fraser admits it was difficult for him to really understand at first. “When she comes up with, ‘this might be part of all the things that are happening to me’, my response at the start was, ‘What are you talking about? Can’t you just get on with stuff?’”
While Fraser and his wife are weathering the menopause storm together, they wish there’d been more reputable advice and guidance along the way.
“If there was just a really simple way of communicating, ‘Hey look, you’ve had a pretty good life together already, but there are changes coming, okay? Just be aware there are going to be some changes and they affect everyone differently but these are some of the common things that happen’.”
Medical misunderstandings and the mystery of menopause
New Zealand’s Niki Bezzant is a well-known health writer and speaker. Her latest book, “This Changes Everything: The honest guide to menopause and perimenopause”, is what couples like Marilyn and her ex, and the Frasers might have really benefited from.
In writing her book, which also stemmed from feeling that there wasn’t a contemporary tome that addressed menopause, Bezzant interviewed 300 women about their experiences - which can begin in a woman, trans or non-binary person’s late 30s and include some 43 symptoms. From incontinence to hair loss to heart palpitations and brain fog, Bezzant lists these in her book.
She tells the Herald: “One of the main symptoms or signs is this kind of unpredictable mood or low mood or anxiety, depression … those are things that really, really impact you on a daily basis.”
Women shared with Bezzant feeling “a loss of confidence” and impacts on their “body image, their sleep, their work life, their ability to perform at work.”
Much like Jackson’s observations, the effect on their relationships was noted by Bezzant too.
“Women definitely talked to me about the fact that their menopause was impacting their relationships in various ways,” she says. “Obviously, the libido stuff is one of those things. Because there’s definitely changes in desire and a drop in libido for some women. And it’s hard to have conversations about that with your partner, it’s really hard.
“If a woman doesn’t understand it herself, which is very often the case, like we don’t understand what’s going on in our own bodies, then it’s really, really difficult to explain that to a man.”
Bezzant’s book looks at the history of menopause to uncover where this lack of knowledge comes from and why we don’t talk about it like we do other life changes, such as puberty.
She points to a misogyny that has long-existed in medicine and has resulted in women’s health being historically ignored and under-researched. But even now, says Bezzant, we still don’t really know why menopause happens.
“Human women and female killer whales are the only mammals that experience menopause, and it seems to me the whales might have been more researched,” writes Bezzant.
She also addresses the unfortunate narrative that emerged about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) which resulted in many women, including Marilyn, avoiding it for fear of a reported highly increased chance of developing breast cancer.
“The results of the WHI [Women’s Health Initiative] study were misreported — even by the people who wrote the initial results paper,” writes Bezzant.
Actually, the “risk is very similar to the risk of breast cancer a woman has if she has obesity; or if she is physically inactive. It’s also similar to the risk posed by drinking alcohol more than very moderately (i.e. more than one drink a day).”
She says instead, women are “still suffering from a hangover from that 20-year-old piece of research.
“And that really was a disservice to a generation or more of women. Because HRT is not dangerous for most women, and for some women it’s a really life-changing treatment,” she tells the Herald. “That is how it’s been described to me by many women: a life-changing treatment that can bring you back to yourself.
“If your sex life is a problem, if it hurts, if it’s uncomfortable, then that can be addressed. There’s a really, really effective treatment for that, which is vaginal oestrogen.”
Bezzant stresses that for women who may have been rebuffed by their doctor after asking about HRT, they should note “not all medical professionals are up with the play on this. If you are told that kind of message by the doctor, ‘Oh, this is not good for you. We don’t prescribe this. You’re too young. No, you can’t be perimenopausal’ ... all these kinds of things, that’s not helpful and it’s not accurate ... you might have to seek a second opinion and you might have to go to another doctor just to get the help that you need.”
How can men help?
Since the launch of Bezzant’s book this year, she has also begun speaking about her findings — and has been heartened to see the interest from men.
“Men are interested. I have men coming to my talks, there are men tuning into my webinars. It’s really great to see that. And they’re asking questions.”
Bezzant’s book includes a guide for men, listing ways in which they can support their wife or partner through menopause. She tells the Herald that, firstly, it’s crucial that men understand that “what the woman in your life is going through is not something that she’s necessarily in control of.
“And it’s not about you. It’s not that she’s gone off you or that she doesn’t love you any more or any of that stuff. It’s more likely that she’s just got a whole lot of turbulence going on in her body and her brain. She needs support and empathy.”
Marilyn’s happily ever after
Since Marilyn’s marriage ended, she’s found a new lease on life.
She enlisted the help of Jackson at Equal Exes to work through her divorce, found hypnotherapy effective in addressing some of her symptoms and started a club with some menopausal mates.
“I’ve got this little club, it’s called The First Wives Club. We meet for dinners, we message, it’s like an antenatal group. Women talk about things in front of other women, it’s like AA, it’s great. And you can have laughs about it, share these stories. And we’re the same bloody age, late 40s, early 50s and we’ve all been going through the menopause thing.”
While she’s mostly out the other side of menopause, Marilyn shares that after her husband left, she felt her body changing again.
“I thought it might be the stress, but I’ve lost all the weight I put on and kept it off. I’ve returned to my pre-kids weight. And people have said, ‘You look amazing. You’re glowing.’ I’m back to my 20-something-year-old self. That’s how I feel. It’s pretty cool.”
Jackson says a lot of women who have been through a separation like Marilyn do “feel a sense of relief. They do find themselves again.”
Bezzant agrees Marilyn’s experience isn’t unusual: “Especially after the turbulence of menopause is over, women do feel freer and stronger and more themselves. And sometimes as a result of that, they might also be looking at their relationship and going, hang on, this is not what I want any more.”
She says as much as menopause is viewed as “a terrible, negative thing, the gateway to death” as it has been described, it is actually just a transition.
“Women find themselves in midlife, and it might not all be bad.
“It’s a change in our life, and we are entering a new season in our life. And that is, for many women, that is powerful and wonderful.”
*Marilyn’s name has been changed to protect her identity