Heres why divorce rates skyrocket in perimenopause

Gold Coast fitness coach Mitch Little spent several years thinking his wife Carissa hated him.“I don’t even say that as a joke,” he told news.com.au.“I genuinely believed she’d begun to hate me.”The catalyst came one day when Mitch returned home to find Carissa in tears, unable to identify what the problem was.“I went upstairs and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, just bawling her eyes out.

And I said, like, Chris, what’s wrong? What’s going on? You know, it’s not normal to see your wife in tears.And she just said, ‘I’ve got no idea.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’”As Carissa soon revealed, the incident wasn’t an isolated one.“I found out that she’d been sitting on the edge of the bed crying into her pillow every single night for weeks, months even, while I was downstairs watching TV or doing something else,” he said.“I just had no idea.”Perimenopause – the transitional period leading up to menopause that is characterized by fluctuating hormone levels that cause a variety of physical and psychological symptoms – can last upwards of ten years, but research reveals women in Australia are under-supported when it comes to awareness, information and medical help.This transition not only represents a deadly danger zone for Aussie women (plummeting hormone levels coincide with the highest statistical window for female suicide, which peaks between the ages of 45 and 49), it also represents the biggest risk to their relationships.National data shows this same midlife period correlates with the highest risk of divorce in Australia.Psychotherapist Julie Sweet of Sydney’s Seaway Counselling and Psychotherapy regularly works with clients in various stages of relationship turmoil who haven’t realized there is a hormonal component to their problems.“In my clinical work, I frequently hear women describe a profound ‘shift’ in how they feel toward their partner – comments like ‘I’m finally seeing him clearly...