You know, it’s been said that all the bad things that happen to us women start with three letters: “men”. Menstruation, mental disease and menopause are three of them. We women seem to bear the brunt of all the things that can go wrong with the human body. While menstruation is certainly like a rope around one’s neck, with period pains, messiness and the anxiety that comes with missing one of them, there is, in my opinion something even worse than menstruation and that is menopause. Virtually every woman will at some point in her life have to deal with the issues that result from her sexual hormones dwindling to a halt. Did you know, though, that there are many men who suffer from andropause, or as I like to call it, the Male Manopause?
Is it the same, though? Do men suffer even remotely like we do at that point in our lives? I’d like to argue that they don’t, I kind of like having the monopoly on suffering in our house, at least in the sense that it provides for many good excuses to avoid having to help out around the house, but when you look at it more closely there are indeed many similarities.
Many of us apparently deal with men who are either in full-blown, or entering, andropause. One of the signs can be one that they share with us: mood swings.
I had a boss once who was definitely entering andropause and his mood swings were tremendous. This was before I had joined the distinguished club myself, so I wasn’t personally familiar with the signs, but I figured out fairly early on that the mood swings were not natural. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of spending time with a woman in the icy grips of mood swings, you know what I mean. He would snap at me for the smallest of things, all of a sudden, but later on in the day he would return to his normal jovial self. The problem was that you could never predict which persona would meet you in the morning when you arrived to work.
I never asked him if he would wake up at night soaking the sheets in an avalanche of sweat, but if he really was enjoying andropause, chances are he did. Being in full-blown menopause myself right now, at way too early an age if you ask me, I can vouch for the night sweats. You’re fast asleep and suddenly you wake up having dreamt that you were thrown into a sauna. The bed cover is off, and your body is dripping wet. Next to you, still asleep, lies your husband shivering in the cold air. The cat, who started the night enjoying your toasty warm aura, has moved off in disgust, and when you reach out your hot hand to give a conciliatory stroke, she hisses at you, recoiling in horror. Instead, she gets up to lend her loving warmth to the poor man next to you who, let’s face it, is now in dire need of it (and whom she loves more anyway). If she could stick her tongue out at you, she would.
Imagine a husband and wife hitting menopause at the same time, but suffering alternating hot flushes and night sweats at night! The tug of war over the duvet would keep you awake most of the night! The bitchfest would be almost too delicious for words.
Around the same time that Mother Nature lovingly throws the mood swings and hot flashes at you, depression can set in. This is another wonderful aspect of menopause that men and women have in common. Of course, we handle the issue quite differently. For instance, men tend to tie their identity to being successful and powerful, which can be quite unhelpful as they then perceive themselves as being weak and pathetic if they are feeling overwhelmed and down. Men don’t like to admit to feeling vulnerable so they do not seek help as much as women do, when they feel depressed. Therefore, a man under the influence of depression during his andropause, can be harder to deal with than a woman dealing with the same issue.
Now, what are the underlying factors for our similar, but unfairly different, menopausal symptoms? That’s an easy one to answer: the decline of sexual hormone levels. For us women, our estrogen levels decline dramatically until we no longer have any of the hormones at all in our bodies. Men also experience a decline in their sexual hormones, so, while we as women may choose to start Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), men can do the same. Only, it’s called Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) when they take it. It’s probably a good thing; once you’ve got used to an ailing or disappearing libido, a dose of testosterone for a woman might be less than healthy. Perhaps she might end up wanting to ravish her husband, who has no interest in being ravished whatsoever. These things rarely coincide, right? That would just be too easy.
We have heard a lot about the comparisons between the female menopause and the male manopause, but are there differences? You can bet your tush there are. And they are – wait for it – in men’s favor. Surprised? Surely, you jest.
As I intimated earlier, the female hormone estrogen starts to decline in our 30’s or 40’s and by the time we are finished with our menopause, however long that ends up taking (for some of us, far too long), we are left with nothing. At this point, we can no longer bear children. For a man, however, their sexual hormone testosterone, while it dwindles, never really stops being produced. Men can still sire children well into their 80’s. Whether they would want to is another issue altogether, but they still produce the necessary components; sperm and testosterone to drive the wish to share that commodity with the opposite sex. And whether we want to share that is, also, a totally different kettle of fish.
Women and men deal with a lot of issues and problems throughout their lives. I have argued that women have more frustrating problems than men. I would also argue that their issues are more devastating to our bodies than men’s issues, but I may be wrong. It would appear, however, that we share most of the joys and tribulations that accompany that last hormonal stage of our lives: menopause. The experts do assure us, on the other hand, that women’s menopause is tougher than men’s andropause.
At least there’s that.