When I got together with my current husband in our mid-30s, I had something of a sexual awakening. He was so physical and made me feel so sexy and wanted all the time, which is something I hadn’t really experienced in my first marriage (which had ended when I was 35). Of course, you have the usual lustful honeymoon period in any relationship, but once that ends, I usually found that my sex life waned too – but not with him. We were both so passionate about each other, having sex at least three times a week, and that lasted for more than a decade – until menopause.

I went through menopause aged 47, but the thing is, I didn’t realise I was going through it at the time. I wasn’t having any of the usual symptoms, I just saw a gradual decline in my libido and sex became physically uncomfortable. All of the things he would usually do to turn me on didn’t really work the same. To put it crudely, I was dry as the Sahara.

At the time, I had lots of other things going on – stress at work, some other medical problems – so I didn’t put it down to menopause at all. You know how things get with kids and work and family commitments, you sort of brush these things aside and hope they’ll get better on their own. But where I was no longer enjoying sex, the frequency of our sex life declined. My husband is very sweet and sensitive, so he’d never want to have sex with me knowing it was causing me pain. Soon enough, it went from every couple of days to once a week, to once a fortnight, once a month.

It started to really impact our relationship, because our physical bond and intimacy had always been so strong. You can’t underestimate the impact of a good sex life, it promotes so much trust, and closeness, and having a great orgasm does wonders for feeling satisfied in a marriage. Where my husband was now so tentative about sex, it felt like we’d lost that passion for each other. We weren’t hugely experimental, but we certainly weren’t gentle lovers usually.

His tentativeness, even though it came from a place of not wanting to hurt me, started to make me feel insecure. I wondered, ‘Maybe he’s not as attracted to me?’. I’m also part of the generation raised on supermodels and the ‘Special K diet’, and so it was easy for me to internalise our sex drop as being to do with how I looked, especially as I’d put on a few pounds. It’s funny because now I’m not in that headspace, I can see how ludicrously off base I was – my husband doesn’t even notice when I’ve lost or gained a few pounds!

But of course, I was feeling insecure and as time went on, unsatisfied. It took about 15 months for me to realise this wasn’t just a blip due to work stress, there was something physical I needed to interrogate. I’ve never been very comfortable opening up about sex, but I went to the doctor and was quickly told I was experiencing the usual symptoms of menopause. It was a relief in a way, because now I could do something about it.

HRT was a life saver; I’ll say that first. But I also started using lube, which sounds simple, but sometimes these things feel awkward to introduce to a person’s sex life – particularly when you’ve never had a need for it before. The important thing though was that we started to communicate more.

If I’m being honest, I’ve always found it hard to talk about my insecurities, especially around weight or sex. I’ve always tried to project a strong, independent woman mentality, and sometimes that makes it difficult to be vulnerable. But I started opening up more about the way this sex dip was making me feel, and I was astounded by how easily my husband was able to reassure me and talk through our issues. He wasn’t very communicative at all when we were first married, but 28 years on, he’s improved a lot – and situations like this remind me how far we’ve come.

We talked about everything, and I started to feel more secure again. I decided to prioritise doing things that made me feel physically more attractive (like going to the gym and eating well) and that helped boost my sex drive too. But one thing I didn’t expect, I started watching porn.

It feels strange to admit in today’s generation, but I’d never watched it before. I’d read too many stories about women being exploited into the industry, so it just made me feel sad when I watched it. Then I discovered porn sites where the actors’ safety and desires are put first – female-centred porn where women of all ages are seen to be enjoying all manners of sexual activity. It was all very soft porn, I’d say, and I’d still feel too embarrassed to watch it with my partner – but it served its purpose. I felt more sexually inspired, liberated by the openness and agency of the women involved, and it gave me so many ideas of new things to try.

Now, our sex life is back to normal and if anything, I feel closer to my husband than ever. Going through experiences like that and making it through the other side reminded me that we’re in it for the long-haul – and after 28 years together, we have the best sex life of anyone I know… let’s hope it lasts till were old-age pensioners!

*Names have been changed