20: When Hormones Change, Relationships Change with Neha Kumar LMFT
Ep. 20
The statistics are striking: in the US, it's reported that up to 70% of divorces are initiated by women, with a notable spike occurring during the perimenopause years. Is this just coincidence, or is something deeper happening?
When hormonal shifts collide with long-term relationships, even the strongest partnerships can face unexpected challenges. These changes don't just affect the woman experiencing them—they ripple through her closest relationships, often creating confusion, conflict, and emotional distance that neither partner fully understands.
I recently spoke with my sister, Neha Kumar, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with extensive experience helping couples navigate major life transitions, including perimenopause, to hear her insights on this often-overlooked relationship challenge.
Listen to the full episode:
The Silent Storm of Perimenopause
Perimenopause isn't just a slight adjustment in menstrual cycles. It's a profound transitional phase marked by significant hormonal changes that can trigger anxiety, depression, identity questioning, and emotional volatility that can feel beyond your control.
What makes this transition especially difficult is the silence surrounding it. Many women don't recognize what's happening until they're deep in the turmoil of emotional dysregulation, questioning their relationships, and feeling increasingly disconnected. Their partners, equally uninformed, struggle to understand what's changed in the person they've built a life with.
This education gap creates a perfect storm: women experiencing internal chaos while outwardly appearing just slightly more irritable or withdrawn, and partners who interpret these changes through the lens of their relationship rather than biology.
The Continuous Rebirth of Womanhood
From childhood to puberty, through reproductive years and decisions about children, into perimenopause and beyond, women experience multiple profound transformations throughout their lives. Each transition reshapes not just their bodies but their sense of identity.
Society expects women to navigate these seismic shifts seamlessly while maintaining careers, households, relationships, and caregiving responsibilities. This creates an impossible situation: experiencing intense internal changes while projecting external stability.
Is it any wonder that perimenopause—occurring at a life stage when many women are already reassessing their choices and purpose—becomes a catalyst for major life decisions, including ending marriages that no longer serve their evolving needs?
When Emotional Intimacy Suffers
Neha emphasizes that the primary relationship challenge during perimenopause isn't typically sexual changes (though those certainly occur), but rather emotional disconnection.
Most long-term couples have navigated sexual ebbs and flows before. The deeper challenge emerges when one partner suddenly becomes emotionally unpredictable due to hormonal shifts. The emotional foundation of the relationship—often built on stability, predictability, and mutual support—begins to feel unstable.
This "emotional dry spell," where partners feel disconnected from each other's emotional experience, creates profound loneliness within a relationship. For women already questioning their identity during this transition, this disconnect often becomes the final reason to reevaluate the relationship entirely.
Four Ways to Protect Your Relationship
So how can couples protect their connection during this challenging transition? Neha recommends four key strategies:
1. Proactive Education
Knowledge is power. Understanding perimenopause before it begins allows women to recognize symptoms as biological rather than psychological, and helps partners separate relationship issues from hormonal effects.
Our healthcare system rarely prioritizes education about perimenopause, leaving most women to discover information only after symptoms become disruptive. Taking initiative to learn about these changes—and sharing this knowledge with partners—creates a foundation for successfully navigating the transition together.
2. Structured Communication
Neha suggests that when emotions are already volatile, trying to discuss relationship challenges in the moment rarely goes well. Setting aside dedicated time for these conversations allows both partners to approach sensitive topics intentionally rather than reactively.
Acknowledging difficult emotions at the beginning of conversations ("I know this might feel uncomfortable to discuss...") can reduce defensiveness and create space for honest exchange about intimacy changes, emotional needs, and evolving relationship expectations.
3. Consistent Self-Care
Basic self-care—proper sleep, nutrition, moderate exercise, and emotional well-being—creates a foundation that helps women better weather hormonal transitions. Without this baseline, the shifts of perimenopause become even more disruptive.
Self-care isn't selfish; it's essential maintenance that allows women to bring their best selves to their relationships despite biological challenges.
4. Mutual Responsibility
Both partners have responsibilities during this transition. The non-perimenopausal partner needs to practice unprecedented patience and empathy, while the perimenopausal partner benefits from developing awareness of her triggers and communicating her needs clearly.
The most successful couples approach perimenopause as a "relationship reset"—acknowledging this new phase and developing strategies to navigate it together rather than as adversaries.
When Professional Help Becomes Necessary
Neha recommends considering couples therapy when:
Communication attempts repeatedly fail
Conflict becomes the relationship's primary pattern
The emotional distance continues growing despite efforts to connect
One or both partners feel hopeless about the relationship's future
Professional guidance can provide structure and insights when couples can't find their way forward alone.
The perimenopause years don't have to spell the end of relationships. With preparation, communication, and mutual support, this biological transition can actually strengthen partnerships as couples develop deeper understanding and new ways of connecting.
By approaching perimenopause as a shared journey rather than a woman's individual burden, couples can transform what might otherwise become relationship crisis into an opportunity for growth and renewed intimacy.
The physical and emotional changes of perimenopause are inevitable. The question isn't whether these changes will occur, but how couples will navigate them together.
More About Neha Kumar, LMFT
As a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Neha has extensive experience across various settings in the mental health field, including schools, community mental health centers and both substance use disorder (SUD) and primary mental health (PMH) rehab facilities.
Neha's work in a variety of professional settings has offered her a deep understanding of the diversity that exists in terms of individual client struggles and needs. Her therapeutic approach includes a combination of several different modalities including but not limited to Narrative Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy and Solution-Focused Therapy, all of which she utilizes to empower clients to redefine their stories, confront their maladaptive behaviors and achieve overall well-being.
Neha's academic background includes a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration + Marketing from the University of Southern California and a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University.