Reply to Is Andropause real?

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Is Andropause real?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My friends all have DHs 44-48, and they’ve all lost their damn minds. Affairs, mental health crises, lost jobs, wanting to randomly move abroad, alcoholism, you name it and some guy has done it since turning 44/45.

Someone said this is biological and is male menopause. Seriously? If it can be explained that easily, why aren’t we medicating them to the gills the way we do for erectile dysfunction?

I really want to believe this is a biological thing that we can fix so families can be saved. I don’t want to think that most of my friends’ husbands have turned into irrevocable overnight disasters.[/quote]

DH here: I think it’s generally circumstantial rather than biological, although low T is a meaningful factor for some.  That is a stage of life where careers plateau, when you kind of run out of steam work-wise but are looking at needing to grind out another 20 years even so.  For many, sex in their marriages has declined to a low ebb.  There can be a lack of acknowledgement from one’s spouse about the sacrifices that have been made to provide economically, and many marriages seem to get trapped in the “who has given up more”/lack of affection/mutual recrimination spiral.  It’s a time when the reality that you are basically trapped by the results of your prior choices and there is little to be done really bites.  Rather than deal with these feelings constructively, some men just crash out instead.  Obviously, that’s bad.

But there is no pill for “stuck in job I hate for jerk boss and need to do that for another 20 years to manage college bills.”  What most of these men need is to lift weights and read Marcus Aurelius, but not everyone finds that.  Religion would help many, too.  At root, I think this is not a biological problem, it is a philosophical one. These men don’t need a pill; they need a philosopher or a priest.[/quote]

Hahaha I am in something of a similar rut. I literally started getting into the classics and ancient history, and reading Seneca and Aurelius. I just added weights at the gym and was telling my wife how much better I feel. We are putting together schedules for the kids and I was saying how it may not be possible to keep that up when the fall starts. Her response was that she would move heaven and earth to make the time to for me to get to the gym. Things aren’t perfect. Not even close. But they’re looking up. [/quote]

Meanwhile the opposite of that: I’m the OP of this thread and this week DH left us? I think? He had been down for a while and I encouraged him to talk to a doctor and think about a sabbatical from work or maybe a trip or maybe different exercise.

Nope. He has gone to our second house and decided to stay there indefinitely and he “might get an apartment close to work in the fall.” I asked him to come home to spend time with the kids this weekend and he said it would be confusing for them. I was already essentially a single married parent already, but WTF, DH? Who just bails out and holds his balls on a couch 3 hours away when the going gets hard and then has zero conscience about it?[/quote]

I’m sorry OP but are you blindsided? 6 days ago you were asking about your friends’ husbands… did you feel like something like this was coming?[/quote]

Totally. Completely. blindsided.

I started this thread because I had just found out that my best friend’s husband had left her for his colleague. I was working through the shock of that which was the last straw after a few similar bombs.

Part of me thinks that the shock of hearing that news somehow gave DH a feeling of finally having permission to bail himself, especially since if it wasn’t for an affair it is somehow not as egregious.

Reeling, shock, stunned…I’m sleepwalking through my days.

On the bright side I lost 7 lbs. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics