Sex drive and menopause

I went on a website yesterday that every woman going through menopause should check out. There's a personal profile you can fill out, find out if your hormones are really out of whack, and find a ton of good articles on all the funky symptoms you've been having.

This is an excerpt from one that pulled me to read it, for shall we say, obvious reasons.

"It’s been said that the brain is the most important sexual organ. Certainly we see in our patients that desire and satisfaction depend as much on emotional and psychological factors as on the purely physical – sometimes more so.

A woman’s sexuality often emerges as an issue in perimenopause. For many of us, our sexual identity is rooted in our sense of attractiveness to men, which is typically based on having a youthful body. As our bodies change at mid-life we may feel undesirable and therefore less interested in sex. Biologists say humans are the only species in which females are sexually aroused by their own pheromones — so “feeling sexy” is necessary to feel desire.

Some women were raised to believe that sexual desire is shameful or inappropriate as they get older. Women who’ve been unassertive about their sexuality in the past may prefer to sacrifice their sex lives rather than become assertive now about what’s required to satisfy their sexual needs. And women without partners may be daunted by the prospect of “dating” again and so just wall themselves up.

Your relationship with your partner may be a vortex of issues. If your needs aren’t being met in the relationship, if the two of you don’t deal with problems openly and constructively, if you aren’t treated with respect and fairness, if your partner is self-absorbed or self-destructive — these common patterns destroy the intimacy and trust that keep sexual desire alive over the long term.

Women ask us why they react so strongly now against behavior their spouse has exhibited for years. The reason is that in menopause women often stop putting the interests of others first, and start paying more attention to themselves — that is, they find their voices. If we don’t, among other things, it will adversely affect our health.

from Womentowomen.com

Explore this site - it's packed full of good information. Adrenal fatigue, progesterone, testosterone, fuzzy thinking, stress and overwhelm, it's all there.

Happy reading,
jenn