To prevent a recurrence of cancer, my wife’s ovaries were removed and it has triggered menopause. We are in our mid 30s. It is a terrible business, with numerous symptoms like pain, discomfort, mood and attitude changes, and the like.
She is seeking treatments by her own idea, but that process has been extremely slow. In the mean time, all affection for me has completely evaporated and been replaced with anger, resentment, distance, and disrespect.
I know that she has no choice in what is happening to her, I know it is not her fault, I know she is barely able to control it, and I don’t blame her for any of it. And yet, this new person living with me refuses to interact with me at all unless it’s to chastise me for some perceived slight or criticize me for voicing my opinion.
I tried to express that I was feeling undesired and attacked but understood my plight was in no way similar to hers (nor as intense, serious, difficult, or important). I didn’t want her to apologize because it wasn’t her fault; I only wanted her to recognize that I was having feelings about what was going on.
She told me I had no right to those feelings, reminded me that what was happening was happening to her, and I should never bring it up again if I care about her at all.
So I’m seriously asking: What’s the trick here? Do I just wait it out? Am I even allowed to have these feelings? Or should I just shut my big, dumb, stupid mouth? I legitimately want to know how to navigate this because I seem to only be making mistakes.
Estroven, evening primrose, vitamin d and calcium. That’s what’s gotten my mom thru it. All OTC stuff and my obgyn recommends them too
I would suggest suggesting them for help for hot flashes. I wouldn’t bring up mood swings unless she does. Hope that helps
I am sorry you are suffering too, beyond the hormonal upheaval she is so young, she may be grieving the loss of her fertility, even if she was not planning children - the usual advice of saying “I’m sorry, that sucks, do you need anything from me” is all I have. Imagine you lost your balls! It would suck, right? Then if she came at you asking you to please consider how it affected her, it might irritate you, yes? Not saying you are wrong in any way to BE affected by it, obviously it would affect you - just that laying that on her when she can’t handle it is probably why she overreacts.
I hope the treatment is helpful and everything settles out soon. Hang on for now.
Definitely seek professional support for your own feelings.
In the meantime however, are you doing what you can to support her through this? She’s, understandably, totally at capacity right now just trying to survive her own shit. Its possible that if you’re able to ease her burden, she might have enough mental capacity to recognise you and spend some of her mental energy on you. Or, worst case, she just suffers less.
Besides the advice to seek OBGYN help, I strongly recommend couple’s therapy/counseling. For EVERYONE.
My wife and I started going to therapy when we were having some issues with communication and it was remarkably helpful. Getting to have a trained third party help work through your issues can assist with reframing and seeing things through one another’s eyes.
Like, obviously your wife isn’t the only one suffering here, and for her to tell you your feelings aren’t valid is outrageous, but she cannot see that from where she is emotionally right now. But getting her into a different setting and with someone trained to work through things like this may very well be able to get her into a state of mind where she can see how she’s effecting you. And at the same time, a therapist can help you to better support her by identifying the ways you already are and helping her recognize them, but also by helping her to communicate ways that you can better assist.
I genuinely cannot recommend couple’s therapy enough to EVERY couple. You don’t wait to bring your car into the shop until it’s broken, you bring it in for maintenance occasionally. Treat your relationship the same way and it’ll reward you, I promise.
There are already alot of good comments so I will emphasize on something that hasn’t been already said.
Nature is full of wonders, It won’t be a one time miracle help, however you can always use some complementary assistance from a GOOD herbalist which will advise you specific herbs in a variety of forms (tea, essential oils, infusion…) to relax and maybe reduce some symptoms over time?
I heard sage tea is very feminine and good for everything related to menopause. I’m no expert so don’t take it for granted.
While it won’t solve or heal your partner’s health directly, it could be a good complementary to any help session. Nice and warm infusion, bath with scented EO, massage with a room filled with EO diffusion… There’s a lot you can do with natures help :)
Why the hate? Natural/traditional based therapy is used way longer than classical medecin, and we survived till today…
People tend to forget that classical medecin is not older than a few hundred years. Gosh people… Shutdown your brain and open your minds !
Why the hate?
Gosh people… Shutdown your brain
You can’t seriously be shocked that people are downvoting you when your only defense is “stop using that silly little brain to think”.
Human life expectancy has doubled in those couple hundred years. Believing that something is good just because it is old is absurd.