The night sweats, the weight changes, the exhaustion. My mom had warned me about all of it.
What she never mentioned was what it would do to the person sleeping next to me.
I started pulling away from my husband without understanding why. His touch felt like pressure. His questions felt like demands. The warmth I used to feel when he walked into the room just wasn't there anymore.
And I watched him change too. He got quieter. More careful. He stopped reaching for me.
He hadn't done anything wrong. Neither had I. But we didn't know that yet.
For over a year I thought I had just become difficult. That the version of me who could love him easily was gone.
What nobody had explained to me is that menopause doesn't just change your body. It changes the way your nervous system responds to everything. Including the people closest to you.
Once I understood that, I stopped blaming myself. And I stopped misreading us.
This book is what I wish someone had handed me before the distance between us became something we didn't know how to cross.