“Friends? Supported. Partner? Not so much …”: Women's experiences of friendships, family, and relationships during perimenopause and menopause

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increased cultural interest in perimenopause and menopause. The importance of peri/menopause in many women's lives makes this topic particularly pertinent for feminist psychologists. Some feminist scholars have acknowledged both physical and psychological factors as important aspects of women's experiences within their wider social and cultural contexts. However, consideration of relational aspects during peri/menopause remains sparse. We report our research exploring peri/menopausal women's experiences of friendships, family, and relationships. Thematic analysis was used to analyse responses to an online qualitative survey in which 71 mainly British women participated. In our analysis, we discuss the Menopause Sisterhood and how these women described social support as grounded in embodied experiences shared with other women. However, there were tensions concerning partners, whose understanding varied, which we report in the second theme: Accounting for (lack of) partner support: Men as heroes (or as absolved of any blame). We discuss the importance and implications of our findings for feminist scholars and psychologists more widely.