When “Don’t Touch Me” Isn’t About Him: How to Talk to Your Partner About Perimenopause

Shifting Our Shit, Season 6, Episode 5 (Part 1)

You walk in the door at 5:30. You’ve been “on” for hours. The dishwasher is running, the dog is barking, someone needs poster board, and your partner opens his arms for a hug.

Everything in you says: Don’t touch me.

If that’s familiar, you’re not broken, and you’re not falling out of love. You may be in perimenopause, and your partner may have no idea what’s happening.

The EKG, Not the Baseline

In this episode, I sat down with my longtime friend and fellow therapist Elizabeth McCormack to talk about how perimenopause and menopause affect our closest relationships. One of Elizabeth’s best analogies is for partners who didn’t grow up around this stuff. Many men have a fairly steady baseline of testosterone. Our hormones are more like an EKG, with levels shifting day to day.

Midlife often brings a reassessment for everyone. Men may buy the sports car. Women are rethinking identity, our bodies, weight, libido, and what we can and can’t control. Perimenopause just adds a layer of unpredictability on top.

Think Puberty, With More Experience

Elizabeth compares it to the intensity of the teenage years. Where irritation used to be a 5, it may now be a 10. It may show up more often and last longer. You can know every emotional regulation skill in the book and still find that your capacity has changed.

This isn’t a free pass to be unkind. It’s information, and information is easier to work with when you share it.

Own It Out Loud

Instead of silently white-knuckling through the moment, try naming it: “I’m feeling a certain way, and I think it’s perimenopause. I need a break, or can we table this for now?”

You’re not blaming him or apologizing for your body. You’re simply telling him what’s going on.

Find Your Witching Hour (and Hand It Off)

For me, 3:30 to 5:30 is the hard window – when kids come home from school hungry and in their own moods. Elizabeth’s is the walk through the door after a full day of clients. The point is to notice yours and then build around it.

• Have the hard talks at calm times. A 5:30 conversation about dinner will not go well. Talk it through when no one is hungry, tired, or depleted.
• Reassign the load. If you can’t function well during certain hours, those hours belong to someone else. That might be a partner who plans dinner, kids who make their own sandwiches, or a “first dinner” so no one is hangry.
• Let go of “how it should look.” Frozen pizza will not kill anyone. Giving up control of the process is part of giving away the mental load.

If you haven’t heard our mental load episode, go back and listen. It pairs perfectly with this one.

Touch, Needs, and Whose Need Is It?

Episode 4 we talked about sex and desire while in perimenopause and menopause. This episode we look at how we connect with our partners during this time – physically, mentally, and emotionally. If your partner approaches you in the middle of the kitchen, spatula in hand, it can feel like it’s about his need rather than the relationship’s. Both are valid. But it’s worth asking: how is my partner coming at me, and how do I say, honestly, “I want more closeness, I’m just not in that space right now”?

That’s where Part 2 of Episode 5 picks up. Listen HERE!

Listen In

Press play on Season 6, Episode 5, Part 1 of the Shifting Our Shit podcast, and send it to your partner. Then stay tuned for Part 2, where we dig into connection versus disconnection and how to keep a chasm from forming.

Megan Bayles Bartley is a therapist and host of the Shifting Our Shit podcast. Find more at The Mindfulness Center: mindfulness-center.com