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*Elizabeth, 66, was forced to reinvent her otherwise passionate sex life after menopause destroyed it…<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/01\/AN-square-illos-4.jpg” title_text=”AN square illos -4″ force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 until menopause. <\/p>\n
I went through menopause aged 47, but the thing is, I didn\u2019t realise I was going through it at the time. I wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t really work the same. To put it crudely, I was dry as the Sahara. <\/p>\n
At the time, I had lots of other things going on \u2013 stress at work, some other medical problems \u2013 so I didn\u2019t 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\u2019ll 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\u2019d 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. <\/p>\n
It started to really impact our relationship, because our physical bond and intimacy had always been so strong. You can\u2019t 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\u2019d lost that passion for each other. We weren\u2019t hugely experimental, but we certainly weren\u2019t gentle lovers usually. <\/p>\n
His tentativeness, even though it came from a place of not wanting to hurt me, started to make me feel insecure. I wondered, \u2018Maybe he\u2019s not as attracted to me?\u2019. I\u2019m also part of the generation raised on supermodels and the \u2018Special K diet\u2019, and so it was easy for me to internalise our sex drop as being to do with how I looked, especially as I\u2019d put on a few pounds. It\u2019s funny because now I\u2019m not in that headspace, I can see how ludicrously off base I was \u2013 my husband doesn\u2019t even notice when I\u2019ve lost or gained a few pounds!<\/p>\n
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But of course, I was feeling insecure and as time went on, unsatisfied. It took about 15 months for me to realise this wasn\u2019t just a blip due to work stress, there was something physical I needed to interrogate. I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
HRT was a life saver; I\u2019ll say that first. But I also started using lube, which sounds simple, but sometimes these things feel awkward to introduce to a person\u2019s sex life \u2013 particularly when you\u2019ve never had a need for it before. The important thing though was that we started to communicate more.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m being honest, I\u2019ve always found it hard to talk about my insecurities, especially around weight or sex. I\u2019ve 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\u2019t very communicative at all when we were first married, but 28 years on, he\u2019s improved a lot \u2013 and situations like this remind me how far we\u2019ve come.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t expect, I started watching porn.<\/p>\n
It feels strange to admit in today\u2019s generation, but I\u2019d never watched it before. I\u2019d 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\u2019 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\u2019d say, and I\u2019d still feel too embarrassed to watch it with my partner \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019re in it for the long-haul \u2013 and after 28 years together, we have the best sex life of anyone I know\u2026 let\u2019s hope it lasts till were old-age pensioners!<\/p>\n
*Names have been changed<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n Illlustration:<\/strong> Rosie Levine<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2036,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions\/2036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}