Author: menowing

What is actually happening
Menopause is not a mood. It's a profound physiological transition.

Oestrogen and progesterone - hormones that regulate mood, sleep, temperature, memory, libido and many other things in a woman's body begin to decline. This doesn't happen in a neat, gradual, predictable way. It fluctuates. It surges and drops. And those fluctuations affect every system in the body. There are over 40+ recognised symptoms of menopause. They include brain fog, anxiety, joint pain, palpitations, sleep disruption, dry skin, changed libido and intense emotional responses.

She is not being difficult. Her body is working through something seismic.

The brain in menopause
One of the most underreported aspects of menopause is its effect on the brain.
Oestrogen is neuroprotective. It helps regulate memory, emotional processing and cognitive function. As levels decline, many women experience brain fog, difficulty concentrating and emotional responses that feel out of proportion.
She may be surprised by her own reactions. She may not be able to explain why she's crying or why she snapped. That isn't evasion. It's genuine disorientation.

What stays the same
Her values. Her love for you. Her sense of humour, her compassion, her intelligence - these don't disappear. They may be harder to access right now. They're still there.

The women I work with often describe feeling as though they've lost themselves. That's a frightening experience. Your wife/partner may be grieving a version of herself even as you're missing her.
Knowing that changes how you respond. It moves you from 'what's wrong with her?' to 'what does she need from me right now?'

The single most useful thing you can do
Stop trying to fix it. Start trying to understand it.
Menopause is not solvable. It is liveable and it is liveable much more easily when a woman feels her partner is with her rather than managing her from a safe distance.
You don't need to have the answers. You need to have the presence. That's what a Menopause Wingman offers. And that, more than any practical fix, makes the difference.

A Menopause Wingman is the man who, when his partner changes in ways he doesn't fully understand, chooses to understand rather than withdraw.

He reads the room differently than he used to. He asks questions rather than making assumptions. He notices what she needs, even when she can't articulate it herself. He might get it wrong sometimes. Most wingmen do. The point is that he keeps trying.

Why does it need a name?

Because naming something gives men a role. Men are good at roles. They're good at missions. Give a man a clear picture of what he's supposed to do and he will often step up. For years, men navigating a partner's Menopause had no map. No language. No role defined for them.They were either told 'just be supportive' - which means nothing without context. Or they were left entirely out of the conversation. Calling it a Wingman role changes that. It tells a man: you have a job here. It matters. You can do it.

What this isn't

It's not about managing her. Or speaking for her. Or deciding what she needs. It's not about becoming an expert in oestrogen or memorising symptom lists. It's about showing up. Consistently. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when you don't have the right words. Especially then.

Why I wrote this book

A man named Richard told me his relationship might have survived if a book like this had existed. He wasn't blaming himself or his partner. He was simply describing a gap - a gap that left him without the tools he needed.I couldn't stop thinking about that.Because in over 25 years of practice, I'd seen that gap too. The women were struggling. The men beside them were lost. Not through lack of love. Through lack of language and understanding.

Menopause Wingman exists to close that gap.

Richard
An online speed networking event. A breakout room. A stranger named Richard.
When I mentioned my work supporting women through menopause, he leaned in and pointed to me: "You should write a book for men. About menopause. My relationship might have survived if something like that had existed."
He said it with regret. With passion. With the weight of someone who knew exactly what had been missing - too late.

Thunderbolt Moment
Something activated in me instantly.
I thought about my own menopause - how it had been all about ME. The flushes, the rage, the sleepless nights, the exhaustion, the woman in the mirror I no longer recognised. Rightly so. But in that moment, for the first time, I thought about my husband. What HE must have been going through. How in the dark he actually was.

Richard and I met online. He described years of not understanding. The Jekyll and Hyde. The eggshells. The bewilderment. He'd been unprepared, lost and ultimately, he and the relationship had run out of road.

He wasn't alone
That hit me like a freight train.
In my private practice I'd focused almost entirely on women, that's where the need was most visible. But Richard showed me that men were suffering too. Quietly. Alone. Wondering if they were the problem. (Most of them weren't. Well... not all the time! 😄)
They were simply in the dark.

The Book Takes Shape
That same call connected me with a publisher, Heather. One of those synchronicities that feels less like coincidence and more like inevitability.
Together we decided to go further than my 25+ years of professional experience and my own decade navigating menopause alongside my husband. We wanted men's actual voices. So we created six questions and asked men from different countries to answer them. Unfiltered and honest.
What they'd experienced. What helped. What didn't. What they wished they'd known. What they wanted to say to other men walking the same road.
Their answers were telling. Sometimes funny. Often deeply moving.
Their voices are woven throughout Menopause Wingman. Man to man.

This Book Is for Richard
And for every man who is where Richard was.
Your relationship doesn't have to end that way.
But it does require understanding. And understanding requires someone to explain.
That's what this book does.