Low Libido, Testosterone, and Your Relationships in Midlife

From the video captions, as spoken.

Now, testosterone. This is a hormone that circulates in a Woman's body more than estradiol does. Okay? We tend to think of testosterone as the male hormone. But think of it, think of testosterone as your motivation, your zest, your enthusiasm, your aliveness for life. So in your body, it also drives your strength, your bone density, and your mental sharpness. Okay? It's often what is behind low libido. Now, that one is the obvious connection, and it's the one that I think sometimes Women feel most embarrassed or uncertain about how to bring up.

You see, when your testosterone drops, your libido drops. And a Woman really oftentimes has no idea why. Oftentimes Women assume something has gone wrong with her or her marriage or a partnership. But when your testosterone is really low, it can just, you can become so accustomed and used to it that you don't think, and it can happen at such a slow decline, you just think, well you know, my drive is slowing down because that's what, that's what getting older, that's what it does. It's nature's intention, all right? But, you know, that's not the truth. And libido is only the front edge of it.

So libido is the front of testosterone, okay? What goes with it is capacity. Patience exits stage left as our testosterone drops. The wish to be really close to others will decline, all right? So this is what's behind that flatness, which is a symptom that Midlife Women have the hardest time putting words to. Here's what it felt like for me when my testosterone tanked. I walked around my inner dialogue was like, eh, I don't, A or B? I don't, I don't really care, doesn't matter.

And if you know me, I have always had strong vibrant enthusiasm, okay? And, and suddenly my enthusiasm was just gone. Things just felt flat. Now from the outside that can look and sound like depression. In my body it was biochemistry and it is so important that we figure out the difference. Okay now the relational layer. All right this is where a lot of things a lot of the things that happen to Women in Midlife starts to compound into things that can be hard to undo.

When a Woman's capacity and Midlife runs out, the people that are closest to her are going to feel it first and they're going to get the least explanation for it because she doesn't know what's going on, right? So here's what it looks like inside a home. She comes home and she has really nothing left for conversation. The 20 minutes at the end of the day that used to belong to her partner maybe get gets spent staring at a screen, because staring at a screen is what she can do. Maybe she stops initiating touch, maybe she stops responding to it. Then she starts dreading being touched. Then she feels guilty about it and says nothing about either one, okay?

This is when canceling on friend dates happen, twice, 3 times. Then the invitations maybe stop coming. Okay, so there can be a lot of isolation and loneliness along with this fatigue and flatness. Right? Doesn't that, for a lot of Women, you're going to think, well, I'm depressed. But so this is the relational layer. There's a strain on our relationships produced by a body that's run out of resources.

And, ugh, there's the part that's so hard. People in her life may read it as, like, her character, including herself, right? Now, she's difficult. She's cold. She's changed. But her capacity has run out. Friends, like not your character, and certainly not her love for others.

Another thing that happens and that can impact intimacy is vaginal tissue changes, okay? Because our estrogen is falling. Dryness, thinning, sex that used to be something a Woman looked forward to can be something that actually hurts. This is common. It's physiological and it is treatable, frequently with local vaginal estrogen, which is a very, very small thing that changes a huge deal. This same tissue change in the vagina is also behind a lot of recurrent bladder infections. This shows up for Women in this season, okay?

Local vaginal vaginal estrogen protects that tissue and can hugely cut down on UTIs, okay, not just the dryness. So this often can go unmentioned in appointments for years because maybe Women feel embarrassed or they're not with someone that can help them. So we want to bring this up to our practitioners, all right?

And I'll talk more about, you know, hormone replacement therapy, but there's vaginal estrogen. There's almost no reason for a Woman 50 and over not to be using it. It is so protective.

I talked earlier a little bit about gray divorce. We see all the things that are happening for Women, low libido, low enthusiasm, and some marriages in this season, they genuinely do need to end. Okay? Some, some, for, for some Women, exiting a marriage wasn't because of their hormones. And I wonder. How many of those decisions around marriages were made from inside a temporary, treatable, physiological state by a Woman who was never told there was something going on in her physiology. Okay? So before you make anything permanent in your relationships in Midlife, make sure you're working with a practitioner who can help you get your system replenished where it's run dry, then decide whatever you decide with your, in your partnership and your relationships from a place of clarity and strength.