Our Story

Peter and Linda had courted and were married within 6 months of first “checking each other out”.

If you ask them now they’d both say the same – You just know when you’ve met your true soul mate so why wait? We’re both very practical in that regard and didn’t want to even entertain a courtship without a view to the “death do us part” commitment.

What neither of them knew then was the within another 6 months that commitment would be tested, to the nth degree.

The short story version is that Linda had an ovarian cyst and was scheduled for a simple operation which evolved into a hysterectomy which triggered early menopause.

The ensuing emotional impact and hormonal imbalance completely threw both Linda and Peter. For this they, nor can anyone, be prepared.

Peter recounts Linda sitting relaxing on the couch one weekend afternoon and as he walked past through to the games room Linda burst into tears, whaling and sobbing her heart out.

Peter was stumped. “What happened” he said rushing over to Linda. “Are you OK? What’s wrong?”

He can remember looking around, convinced that he’d missed something. He had.

As Peter tried to console Linda it turns out that he was the cause. OMG, he had no idea. Apparently an hour or so before he’d said something that had upset Linda.

Being the typical male Peter was totally oblivious to this. When Peter explained the context of what he’d said and understood why Linda had taken offence they reconciled very quickly.

That was their introduction to what would be many “moments” and “trying times” as this thing called “menopause” gripped their lives.

There was certainly many times when the feelings of frustration, helplessness, and sometimes despair when Peter would look to the heavens and ask “OK God, why are you doing this to me?”

We realised very quickly we had to make a conscious decision that we were in this together. And together we have grown stronger for it.

We want to share the strategies we use to keep us sane in this sometimes insane time of our life.

Our hope is that we’ll make a difference for other couples going through this. We want to encourage you that you can come through the other side of this daunting and sometimes ‘dark’ part of your life.

We are living evidence that with the right help you will ‘survive’. That goes for both of you.

If you have any tips of your own that you would like us to include or experiences you would like to share please tell us about them. You can do that here.