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10 Tips to Help Your Partner Understand the Emotional Effects of Menopause

Menopause is no longer just for "older women" with hot flashes, irritability and night sweats.

An estimated 6,000 baby boomer women in the U.S. reach menopause every day and suffer both physical and emotional symptoms that can linger and interfere with their relationships and marriages.

While menopause affects women physically, it's not the lack of sex, night sweats or fatigue that leave men feeling unloved. It's almost like an emotional loss of their partner.

What are 10 tips to help your partner better understand the emotional effects of menopause?
  1. Don't take menopause symptoms personally.
  2. Explore new ways to be intimate.
  3. Ask what's going on.
  4. If there's a problem, don't ignore it, talk about it.
  5. If she's having hot flashes, cuddling or sleeping together might be too uncomfortable. Allow her space, but let her know you're there.
  6. Many women suffer with their loss of fertility. Be patient, listen and don't make jokes.
  7. Be loving and supportive.
  8. If sex is being avoided, it doesn't mean she doesn't love you anymore.
  9. Fifty is a tough time for men, too, so be patient with one another. Mid-life is a couple's challenge.
  10. Depression and anxiety can be part of menopause.

Mary Rapini, LPC, shares the 10 tips to better understand the emotional effects of menopause.
10 Tips to Help Your Partner Understand the Emotional Effects of Menopause
Featuring:
Mary Jo Rapini, LPC
Mary Jo RapiniMary Jo Rapini has appeared on the national scene on The Steve Harvey Show, The Today Show, Nightline, Dateline, Montel and in two seasons of the TLC series, Big Medicine.

She contributes on-air for CNN's Prime News, CBS Up to the Minute, and Fox National Morning News. Mary Jo was also featured in a Discovery Channel show about near death experiences (first air date Jan. 4, 2010). Locally, she appears on KRIV Fox 26 Houston in her own segment, Mind, Body & Soul with Mary Jo, and on Saturday morning's Relationship Challenge.

Mary Jo is a contributing expert for Cosmopolitan Magazine, Women's Health, First, The New York Daily News, Seventeen Magazine, Redbook, YourTango.com, MiddlesexMD.com and Self Magazine's "Love and Relationship" section.

Additionally, she is a "City Bright" blogger for the Houston Chronicle, and is a contributing columnist for HealthNewsDigest.com, Prime Living Magazine and Houston Family Magazine.