Leave me alone (but don't leave me)
Relationships at midlife
“With aging, you earn the right to be loyal to yourself.” Frances McDormand
I’ve been married to the same man for more than thirty years. I’ve raised four kids and maintained a few longstanding friendships. It’s becoming clear, however, that the way I relate to others has evolved. I am not the woman I once was.
I’ve lost patience with dull characters and suffer fools much less gladly. After decades of hyperengagement with others, I’m realizing that their happiness is not my job. I’ve become a woman of fewer words and more crystallized thought. (Those who live with me may not agree with that part.) I want support, but I also want solitude. I want lots of silence and space. Usually, like Greta Garbo in Grand Hotel, I just want to be alone.
It’s no coincidence, I think, that Virginia Woolf was in her late forties when she published A Room of One’s Own. She was in her own midlife when she wrote this: “Five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door.” Inflation aside, the sentiment is spot on.
I’m not alone. According to a survey conducted by the AARP, 66 percent of divorces are initiated by women in their forties, fifties, or sixties; the reasons are many and varied. Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain, says, “Menopause means the end of the hormones that have boosted communication circuits, emotion circuits, the drive to tend and care, and the urge to avoid conflict at all costs.” Others chalk it up to career changes, “empty nest syndrome,” medications, or diminished libido. All ingredients in the stew that makes up a typical woman’s midlife experience. I would argue that it’s also part of a slow-to-come rejection of societal expectations. We just will not play the game anymore.
Sex and aging is a hot topic, with many chirpy (possibly bullshit) claims. Why sex is better in your 80s! (“I hope we make it,” Steven says.) Experience helps, for sure. The body gets more comfortable the longer we wear it; we learn its quirks and requirements. We’re often less inhibited, especially in a long-term relationship. But aging, as every human knows, presents a new, often challenging set of quirks. And peri/menopause can turn it all upside down.
Insomnia drives a woman mad. The random furnace blast of a five-alarm hot flash is as good as a neon Do Not Enter sign. Vague, unspecified dissatisfaction with everything and everyone is not an aphrodisiac. Pain is the world’s wettest blanket. Passion is a challenge when one doesn’t want to be touched (or looked at). There are issues, sometimes many and all-consuming, that preclude romance.
“I’m so hot,” I say, peeling off the layers and feeling miserable. The husband (with bedroom eyes and bobbing brows) coos, “Yes, you are.” As if innuendo is anywhere near what I want or need while flashing. It’s also nice, though, and it tickles the corner of my brain that still imagines I might be hot (in the good way). The corner that wonders if I will ever care about being hot (in the good way) again.
This is the strange landscape of sex in the middle — leave me alone while I fall apart, but do you really think I’m hot? I’m yearning for the next chapter, when the falling apart is over and I can just be hot. Will I soon get my share of what Margaret Mead called post-menopausal zest? When can I get busy with my experience and count on things to not fall apart? I’m still waiting.
When I tumbled blindly into the pit of perimenopause, my first inclination was to fill my life with women. I did this instinctively, it seems, without thinking or planning, and didn’t even realize the pattern until years later. I reconnected with my best friend from high school, and we’ve nurtured a thriving relationship ever since. I gathered a group of women for a book club that includes books, but is mostly a regular women’s afternoon of food, wine, and commiseration. Conversation isn’t specifically midlife-related, but in dissecting the subjects of our bodies, our relations, our fears — our lives — we are filling in the blanks, winking and nodding along with one another.
Gale Berkowitz writes, “A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It’s a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research — most of it on men — upside down.” (What’s stunning to me is “most of it on men,” but welcome to the patriarchy in medical research.) Women have known forever that a girlfriend can sometimes be the best port in a storm.
Women also, paradoxically, dump friends at midlife. Oxytocin — the thing that drives connection — decreases in menopause. “As oxytocin is associated with trust, sexual arousal and relationship building, it’s sometimes referred to as the ‘love hormone’ or ‘cuddle chemical.’” In my experience, it is a culling of the herd, a shedding of the friends who don’t serve you. A menopausal woman is less concerned with keeping peace and less inclined to be as attentive to others’ personal needs. She becomes more attuned to her own needs and wants.
In other words: Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
My relationship with life itself has changed. Where I was bold, I am now cautious. Where I was blissfully oblivious, I am now hyperaware. The sounds and the colors and the very vibration of life are different; or, rather, I am different, more sensitive and wary.
As a young woman, I was likely to grab the world by both ears and give it a big wet kiss on the mouth. Now I wait a beat or two, consider the potential fallout. I want no trouble, no mess. I want to be alone.
Along with this new sensitivity and trepidation, though, has come a quiet confidence, a genuine contentment. I am — whether at the whims of hormones or intellect — less concerned with the world’s opinion. I am actually, finally, an island unto myself.
But I might like you to visit sometime. I’ll let you know when.
Cheers! 🌞
Lisa
Things to share:
A lovely essay about creativity and the relationship between a son and his elderly father.
On Aging Alone. “It shouldn’t be forgotten that we are all afraid, even the greatest heroes and heroines among us.”
Definitely take ten minutes and watch this — To Scale: Time. Steven says he’s destroyed for the day, but I find it beautiful. In the words of Mary Oliver, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
When your demons come, feed them bread. Such good wee hour company in this post by
. “There’s something supremely comforting in knowing that out in the darkness before sunrise, aproned angels are performing mundane miracles.”
I have been the social planner/organizer for most of my adult life, and since I went through menopause two years ago “after decades of hyperengagement with others, I’m realizing that their happiness is not my job” might be the truest thing I’ve read in ages. I suddenly feel overstimulated by everything. I also stopped drinking last year, and that just added to the desire to shed friends and activities that don’t serve me. I, too, just want silence and space. I feel like I’m returning to the quiet/nerdy/bookish girl I was before puberty hit and social expectations took on a 40 year chokehold. Thank you for validating this very real feeling.
Much identification with this. Just read 'What Fresh Hell Is This' (is that the title? Ironic, forgetting the name of a book about menopause ...) and I love what she says about becoming less patient with certain people /things not because our patience has shrunk, but because we've been stretching ourselves too far out of shape for decades and we finally find a reasonable place... Glad to have found your writing x