Is there such a thing as a Man-o-pause?
I read about all the lurid symptoms of a menopause in a lengthy supplement in the Sunday Times last week. It was certainly terrifying. It set out all the potential ills that can befall women in middle age in long gory detail. At the end of reading it from cover to cover, I was a nervous wreck wondering whether any of that could happen to me.
Imagine: depression, hot flushes, osteoporosis – it was a never ending list of possible miseries.
Men don’t know how lucky they are!
Except, when I listen to some of my female clients I can’t help but wonder: is there such a thing as a ‘Man-o-pause?!’ A particular affliction that affects men of a certain age – which can have just as profound effects in a different way?
Today a very charming female client came to see me. She described her husband’s ‘man-o-pausal’ symptoms. He is 55. He is used to getting his own way – when he wants and how he wants. But now, he is going bald and ageing fast. He is convinced he is losing his once handsome appearance, and as the prospect of turning 60 approaches, he has fallen in love with a 23-year old woman who says she loves him. He is besotted with her. He is delighted that she wishes to have children with him. He says he wants to give up his wife, his two sons and all that they share as a family. He laments that if he doesn’t grasp this fabulous opportunity of excitement and passion – and sail off into the sunset with his 23-year old lady love and their love children – life won’t be worth living.
In the past I’ve written a post on the topic of men having trophy girlfriends and came to the conclusion they probably knew what they were doing (and lets face it, even if they didn’t, many of them could afford to lose some money through it anyway). After hearing firsthand from my client today, about her husband’s behaviour, I’m not so sure. Do they really know?
Growing older can obviously be scary. Bits of us start to bloat, wrinkle, sag and head south. And there’s not a lot we can do to prevent it. Getting bored with the same old, same old and putting up with it, even when it irritates, isn’t easy. Especially if you are a hyper testosterone alpha male used to being revered and treated as His Majesty the King both at home and probably more so at work. You deal with boredom by creating challenges. You take deliberate risks. You love the thrill of the chase. You definitely want it all and get bored when things are too readily available. You want your cake or cakes, waiting ready for you ready to be eaten when you want. You certainly don’t want to be stopped by a longstanding dutiful wife with whom frankly, you are now very bored. Or so you think.
However, without a doubt, if I could stop His Majesty, (without losing my head in the process!) I definitely would. I would diagnose and prescribe my very own treatment for his man-o-pause.
I would tell him: This is the 21st Century. You actually aren’t King Henry VIII and Lord of all you Survey. You are a married man with a family and a job at which you are successful. You have a very nice lifestyle that others envy. You should make the effort to preserve what you have, and make a very tough call. You should turn your back now on your femme fatale and say goodbye to the thrills of sex with her which in time will pall anyway. Rekindle your sex life with your wife. You aren’t her brother and she isn’t your sister, even if it seems that way. Try to appreciate fully the role she plays in your life and the pivotal role she holds for your home and your family. In time, although it will be hard, the heady excitement of that illicit affair will recede and become a memory. The intended order of things will stay in place, and the couple who have grown together, but drifted, will still stay together and enjoy the benefits that a life together will bring.
Winner of Family Lore's "Post of the Month Award" for June 2009.
If that didn’t work, I would advise him his man-o-pause will cost him dearly. King Henry VIII never got what he was so vainly searching for either. He should open his eyes wide and I would warn him of the virtual certainty of an expensive second divorce when he becomes far too old in body and mind for his new lady love. I would tell him about the huge divorce payout he can expect to make to both his former wives and for all their respective children. Most of what he had ever earned would cease to be his. I would paint a picture of a virtually certain sad lonely and poverty-stricken old age.
However, I was not advising my client’s husband. I was advising her. I gave my client some unusual advice for a divorce lawyer. It doesn’t seem to me, that she wants a divorce at all. I told her to go home and fight for her man in the best way she can to keep him. I diagnosed a ‘man-o-pause’ and, like female menopause, it takes time to diminish its effects.
But I couldn’t help but think what if there was ever a male version of HRT it could work wonders and make a fortune for someone out there!
This post won Family Lore’s Post of the Month Award for June 2009.
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4 Comments
Jackie Walker on June 29, 2009 at 10:50 am
What a great post Marilyn, thank you. It brought to mind Chapter 11 in Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ – where he points out that the men of greatest achievement and those who’ve accumulated great fortune and outstanding recognition have all had highly developed sex drives and been motivated by a woman.
Napoleon Bonaporte who of course had Josephine by his side, was invincible. Unfortunately when he set her aside for a new model, he began to decline and it wasn’t long before he met his defeat and St Helena. This apparently is very common – and I quote
” …. scores of well known men who climbed to great heights of achievement under the stimulating influence of their wives, only to drop back to destruction after money and power went to their heads, and they put aside the old wife for a new one.”
Unfortunately I believe that as a society the same holds true of many successful career women .. but with their husbands.
E. Paul Imhof on July 5, 2009 at 1:09 pm
You raise a good question Bill Clinton might answer under oath with: “That’s a matter of definition.” Regardless whether there is a male version of HRT or not a divorce lawyer kind and competent enough to advise overemotional and utterly helpless clients to go home and try to reconcile deserves a chance to make a bundle. Mazel Tov!
Napoleon Bonaparte was invincible before he met Josephine. Hybris not HRT tempted him to conquer Russia. That was the hehe det his wife aside for a new model 30 yers her junior. beginning of his empire’s demise. Jackie Walker hop on a plane to my native Vienna, Austria, if you please as long as I am around. in 4 weeks I return to California where I belong. to correct the notion that he set her aside for a new model some 30 yers her junior. Marie Louse was the Habsburg emperors’ daughter. Her uncle Archduke Charles beat Napolean at suburban Aspern 200 years ago, regrouped his army and defeated the Austrians at nearby Wagram. The young Arch-Duchess was a pawn to legitimize the Corsico-born upstart and assure peace in Europe. That diplomatic ploy didn’t work and the rest is history. .
Marilyn Stowe on July 9, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Thank you very much for your contributions. I think there is a lot we can learn from history as it does tend to repeat itself. Human nature doesnt change does it- no matter how great or how long ago.
Lenny on July 10, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Indeed. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr 1808-1890)
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. (Variant of the original observation by George Santayana 1863-1952)
So much in the known universe, from the birth and death of stars taking billions of years, to fleeting events such as a heartbeat, is subject to cycles, and those cycles may be components of even larger cycles. It would be strange, therefore, if marriage too didn’t have a cyclical character. Some suggest that the reality for most couples is that they will fall in and out of love with each other several times over the course of their marriage, depending on the peaks and troughs in their cycle, some of which, such as the seven year itch and the male mid-life crisis, may be predictable, even though their intensity may not.
If a couple are in a deep trough phase of the cycle, and unable to see how they can emerge from it, then inevitably they’ll start thinking about divorce as the only solution. The sad thing is that marital problems are incredibly complex, and most of us have little idea of the width and depth of the issues involved, or how to tackle them. The fact that second marriages have a higher divorce rate than first marriages is testament to that, and to Santayana’s observation.
If one, or both of the parties then consult a solicitor, the solicitor too will likely be as uninformed on the complexities of marital conflict as the client. The legal options will then be presented, and because they are seen as the distilled wisdom of intelligent people who spend their lives dealing with these issues, a depressing fatalism about the whole business will then have fertile ground in which to take root.
Over recent years the medical profession, of which I’m not a member, has started to recognise the limitations of a purely allopathic approach, and to embrace the benefits of alternative therapies that bring results, often at lower cost, and with fewer side-effects. Some practices have their own alternative therapists, some have close links other alternative practices.
Has this trend spread to the legal profession yet, because it strikes me that particularly for practices that specialise solely in family law, many clients would benefit from being encouraged to spend time with someone who was equipped to unravel their particular story, and from acquiring a wider understanding of the issues involved and approaches to tackling them, as opposed to going straight for the euthanasia option. Ideally, such a practitioner could form part of the practice, although presumably there would have to be a Chinese Wall, as in other professions.