The first thing that catches my eye is her outfit. She’s always been a fashionista, someone with a rare gift for knowing which green blouse pairs perfectly with a pink skirt and which shoes complement jeans. But today, she didn’t show up in one of her imaginative looks. Instead, she wears a loose, homey dress with embroidery across the chest, giving her an amorphous shape. It takes me a moment to recognize it—it’s a cheap caftan, the kind you buy on a street in Rhodes for 10 euros when the airline loses your luggage mid-flight.
“I ordered comfort,” she says when she sees my look. “I know, it’s awful, but it’s all I can wear right now.”
Looking at her, I can’t quite tell what she wants. She still looks beautiful. “Where,” she says, “I’ve gained 11 kilos. I swear, I’m eating healthier than ever, and it just sits on me, won’t budge, no matter how much I exercise.” This is one of the clearest signs of menopause. Weight settles on your body like an illegal tenant refusing to leave. Most men don’t understand. As menstruation begins to waver and the first hot flash hits, it just happens—you start accumulating pounds seemingly out of nowhere.
Her husband is one of those men. For months, he’s refused to acknowledge that her changing body is the result of very real hormonal shifts. Instead, he insists she join a gym—even though she’s practiced Pilates for years. He himself is impeccably fit, cycling three hours every Friday in the Jerusalem hills, doing SUP, a nd lifting weights. Because he sees himself as a fitness-minded “Mark Zuckerberg,” he judges her as lazy and indulgent.
“He said if he were me,” she tells me, “he’d be working out five times a week or doing some extreme fasting diet.”
“Did you try explaining it’s not that simple?” I ask. “I tried at first,” she says. “But now I just lock myself on the balcony, smoke joints, and watch ‘Big Brother.’”
As she steps away to grab a straw for her iced coffee, I remember my own experience. After my 49th birthday, I woke to find my waist had vanished. Standing topless in the living room, I noticed a strange new layer of flesh on my favorite part of my body—the belly. “Did I gain weight?” I asked my husband, Ran. “What suddenly?” he replied, still attempting to hug me. Only when he saw my expression did he realize this was serious.
Initially, we agreed it could be a three-kilo fluctuation. “But it looks good on you,” Ran said, awkwardly performing his role as supportive husband. Two nights later, I woke drenched in cold sweat, burning from the inside, moving through the room like a woman on fire, searching for water. Ran slept peacefully, unaware. That first hot flash became a psychological wall between us—one I would struggle to breach.
I started sleeping under a separate blanket. Even the thought of sharing covers during a hot flash could provoke violent frustration. But it was also a realization: he would never truly understand me. Nature allows men to age gradually. Women experience menopause as a sudden, fierce gong, announcing, “It’s over—you will never be young or fertile again.”
The first doctor called it perimenopause, explaining that even women in their early 30s can experience early signs, including disappearing waistlines. Another doctor’s explanation was cruelly pragmatic: menopause signals that a woman is no longer “useful” in evolutionary terms, including the decline in libido.
Dana SpectorPhoto: Avigail UziI stopped sharing my experience with Ran. Despite his attraction to me, I wanted to retain the private feeling of being myself. Shame surrounds menopause—women feel lazy, neglected, and powerless, especially in a stage of life when confidence should peak.
Finally, I found a doctor who understood. A man who admitted he knew the disappointment of aging and partnered with women. He prescribed a hormone cream and injections, and after a month, my body recovered, the belly flattened, and I regained vitality. He didn’t shame me into extreme exercise—he gave me tools to reclaim my body and energy.
What she seeks now is understanding. Menopause can feel like a lifelong battle waged silently, often misunderstood, but having one person validate it can restore confidence, pleasure, and the sense of self women thought they had lost.