What is MANOPAUSE?

Many people are going to ask:  what, exactly, is manopause?  And why are you writing about it?

A bit of background . . . .

When my wife began going through "the change", more commonly known as menopause, I wanted to be the type of supportive husband who could understand her many moods, her tantrums, her hot flashes (not the kind of hots you are hoping for, Jimmy). I wanted to share this experience with her, truly demonstrate that I was the kind of husband who could carry this tremendous hormonal load and maintain a bucketful of empathy and understanding.

But the fact is, I'm failing miserably.  Sure, I've read all the women's books: French Women Don't Get Fat; Eat, Pray, Love; heaping bowls of Gail Sheehy, Erica Jong, & Jane Fonda.  Still, I just couldn't seem to identify with menopause.

Then it hit me:  I'm going through these changes with her.  I'm changing too.  I'm going through manopause! 

So, in case you are a mid-life male yourself (or a cross-dresser who is male underneath it all) or perhaps a sympathetic woman who wants to understand the male crisis a little better . . . I hope this blog about manopause will prove helpful.  I'll discuss hormones (testosterone), experiences, yearnings, lost dreams, evaporated hopes, marriage, parenting, and in short, try to offer men a reason for living.  And while I'm at it, I may also talk myself into a reason for living, too.

Manopause is, as the name implies, a male experience.  And the more I read about this, the more I am convinced it does exist--despite the protestations of the medical establishment and women in general.  Post-50, a man begins to experience an array of changes and losses.  Most men, by 50, are also "post" mid-life crisis:  that all-too-familiar country of changing careers, changing wives, and the search for meaning which seems to affect the bulk of American men.

My hope is that I can bring a little sanity into the manopause world, and offer insights from the vantage point of a man who has had one career, one wife, two kids, two cars, and no affairs.  And if you think that sounds boring, think again.  Think REALLY boring.

But that's what this blog is about: the musings of one boring male who is still navigating his own manopause and who is willing to write what is real, personal, and honest.  

I'll see you tomorrow . . . same man time, same man channel.  But in the meantime, please excuse me . . . I've got to take another Alieve.