Dear Queenie,
I never thought I’d be writing to you, but here we are. I’m writing because you’re a woman, and right now I feel outnumbered by hormones.
My wife and I are in our late 40s. She’s in perimenopause, hot flashes, mood swings, sleep issues, little interest in sex. I’ve done the Googling. I’ve heard the explanations.
Here’s what nobody talks about: I feel like I’m going through something too.
I’m not as young as I was. My energy dips. My confidence isn’t steady. We’re both more irritable. We retreat. When it comes to intimacy, it feels like we quietly gave up without saying it out loud.
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
I don’t have a by-side. Let me be clear. But I understand why some men my age do, not because they don’t love their wives, but because they miss feeling wanted. Desired. Alive.
Before you judge me, understand this: I love my wife. We built everything together. But lately she barely sees me. When I try to talk about how I feel, the focus shifts back to what she’s going through. I get it, I do. But where does that leave me?
I’m not trying to replace her. I’m not trying to wreck my marriage. I just don’t want to feel invisible in my own home.
Is this just midlife? Do men just endure quietly? Or am I missing something?
I’m asking you because you’re a woman. Help me understand. —Still a Man, Trying to Understand
Dear Still a Man, Trying to Understand,
You are right about one thing: we don’t talk enough about this season of life. But let us be clear, perimenopause is not a personality flaw, nor is it a marital betrayal.
Your wife is not “withholding.” Her body is recalibrating. Hormones shift. Sleep suffers. Confidence wavers. Many women feel physically and emotionally unsettled in ways they cannot simply power through. This is not drama. It is biology.
Missing intimacy is human. What concerns me is your easy understanding of why men “end up with a by-side.”
You say you don’t have one. Good. Keep it that way. Because using her transition to justify emotional outsourcing would not make you misunderstood, it would make you disloyal.
You want to feel desired. Fair. But when was the last time you made her feel secure in her changing body? When did you offer closeness without expectation? When did you sit with discomfort instead of competing with it?
You are not competing with biology. You are being invited into partnership.
Midlife does not mean enduring quietly. It means maturing deliberately. Intimacy may look different now, slower, less urgent, more intentional, but it cannot survive resentment.
You feel invisible. She likely does too.
This is not the moment to look elsewhere. It is the moment to strengthen what you built.
Still a man?
Then act like one. —Queenie
