How it all began...
By MICHELLE A. HARDWICK
The Conversation That Started Menopause Wingman
I didn't set out to write a book.
I'd spent over a decade navigating my own menopause naturally while supporting many women through theirs. I'd watched relationships strain (and sometimes break) under the pressure of it. I'd heard the same thing again and again from women:
'He just doesn't understand.'
But it took one conversation to make me realise what was missing.
I didn't set out to write a book.
I'd spent over a decade navigating my own menopause naturally while supporting many women through theirs. I'd watched relationships strain (and sometimes break) under the pressure of it. I'd heard the same thing again and again from women:
'He just doesn't understand.'
But it took one conversation to make me realise what was missing.
"You should write a book for men!"
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.
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.
Want to go deeper?
“Are You Ready to Be Her Wingman?” is a free 10-page guide drawn from the book.
Five themes, a self-assessment and real quotes from the men.
Download it below, free - no strings attached: