While on the subject of testosterone, how are things for your husband or partner at this time? As men don’t menstruate, they can’t technically be said to have a menopause, but from about their mid-forties, the level of testosterone in a man starts to fall gradually. Unlike women’s oestrogen, it doesn’t drop dramatically in their middle years, and sperm and testosterone production continue in men indefinitely, albeit at reducing levels. This is why men can father children right into old age. It seems rather unfair, doesn’t it, that if a man in his fifties leaves his wife to have a new relationship with a younger woman, he can start a second family: the wife in her fifties can start a new relationship with a younger or an older man, but there will be no children of that union.
Falling levels of testosterone can decrease a man’s sexual desire, and this in itself may make him irritable and depressed. He may find he can’t get an erection so quickly, or sustain it for so long, and his wife may interpret this as a loss of interest in her, or that she is no longer attractive to
him. If his falling hormone levels reduce his ability to perform as well sexually as he used to, his self-esteem may suffer. Add to this the fact that he may now be putting on weight, losing his youthful vitality, stuck in his job just for the pension, and feeling that it is now too late to make changes, and he may well try to revive his flagging self-esteem by playing energetic games of squash, starting a body-building course, or having an affair with a younger woman.
Perhaps he doesn’t realise that both he and his wife are suffering from falling levels of their sex hormones, and it is having much the same effect on both of them. If his wife no longer wants sexual intercourse because a dry vagina makes it painful, and if her body no longer responds to the stimulation they have both enjoyed in the past, then he might feel rejected by her. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him, just that her hormones are affecting the way she feels, just as his are affecting him. Impotence in middle-aged men often happens as their wives reach the menopause: her lack of arousal and his inability to sustain an erection may make him feel frustrated, inadequate and even angry, and he needs her love and consideration at this time just as much as she needs his.
Many a wife gets into bed at night with her beer-bellied husband who is unshaven, slightly drunk, smelling of stale cigarettes, and who then complains that his wife ‘doesn’t want sex any more’. Well, can you blame her? The typical Englishman shaves when he gets out of bed in the morning, not when he gets into bed at night – what does that say about his efforts to make himself attractive to his wife?
Once you and your partner get out of the habit of sharing sex together, you may find it very difficult to start again. If you find sexual arousal is taking longer, try allowing yourself more time; or perhaps it might be more satisfying to have sex in the morning or afternoon when you are not tired or have not had too much food or drink to dull the senses. Try sharing a warm bath with pleasant additives, or using sensual massage on each other.
When he finds an erection difficult to sustain, and she has a less well lubricated vagina, it’s all too easy to give up a form of sharing that is unlike any other. But don’t feel you have to go along with society’s view that ‘people don`t do it when they get older’. They can and they do, and if that’s what feels right for you, so can you.
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