We often mistake a person's ability to carry a heavy load for evidence that the load isn't heavy.

I've been thinking about this recently in the context of menopause.

If the woman in your life seems less patient than she used to be, you may be looking at menopause completely the wrong way. The common assumption is that menopause makes women more emotional, more reactive, less resilient.

What if menopause isn't revealing a new problem but it's revealing an old problem that was being quietly absorbed for years?

Science and research tells us that estrogen and progesterone don't just support reproduction. They also help regulate stress, mood and emotional resilience.

In effect, they provide a kind of “cushioning”. And that cushioning may have been helping women tolerate far more than anyone realised. Think "shock-absorbers" in a car...they prevent you from feeling the bump. So in this case, estrogen and progesterone cushioning comes in the form of emotional labour, compromises, invisible responsibilities, and the things they carried because someone had to.

When those hormones begin to decline, the load doesn't get heavier. The cushioning gets thinner. And suddenly what looks like irritability may actually be recognition.

The workload didn't suddenly become unreasonable. The family demands didn't suddenly appear. The relationship didn't become difficult overnight. The true weight of those things simply became harder to ignore.

So perhaps the next time she shows irritation or frustration or similar, don't blame it on menopause. Ask "What have I been taking for granted?"