Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Why Relationships Change in Midlife: Menopause, Awakening & the Marriage Reset with Jillian Turecki

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

  Join Dr. Mindy for an eye-opening conversation with relationship expert Jillian Turecki on what really happens to long-term relationships during women's midlife and menopausal transition.  They unpack why so many women experience an awakening between ages 40–60, why their needs change, and why this shift often collides with what their long-term partner expects. If you've ever wondered why your relationship feels different in midlife, this episode will give you clarity, language, and powerful tools to support your next chapter. To view full show notes, resources mentioned, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep316/  Check out our community membership at https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com Please note our medical disclaimer. 

Okay, Jillian Torecki, I feel like I have been talking to you on Instagram for years now. You just don't know it because I'm speaking it out loud every time I see a reel of yours. I'm like, yes, that's it. So it's really a joy for me to have you here. So welcome to my podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute honor. I have Fast like a girl.

I'm still trying to figure out. I'm trying to figure it up. Okay, if you ever need help, you know where to find me. I know where to find you, yeah. Yeah, so you have an express pass to my brain if you would like it. Oh, that's so sweet. So let me tell you why I called you here, and I really want my audience to know this too, is that one of the things I love about your style is I would call it very no nonsense.

You say it like it is, and I think in relationships we often lie to ourselves, especially as women. And whenever I see your reels, I'm like, oh, man, isn't that true? And what I see with my audience and what I really want to have a deep conversation about is that you have women who are going through this massive life change where their hormones are changing, their behaviors. Maybe they gave their whole life over to their family and now their kids are grown. And they're coming in, I really think a woman's really deeply steps into her power as she's. moves through menopause. And that power, that place of awakening, actually I feel is contributing to the divorce rate

and these new trends that we're hearing like the gray divorce. And I don't think it's a marital problem. I think there's something going on in the relationship when a woman finally stands up for herself. And I may be wrong. So that's why I got you here is help us understand what a hell. healthy 25, 30-year relationship looks like. And how do we get women to really stand in their power and be their authentic selves without

destroying the whole relationship? Okay. So this is a big topic. So when you think about the woman who's like, you know, 45 to 65 years old, let's just say that sort of perimenopausal, menopausal, post-menopausal stage of life. and she's been in a relationship or married for a long, you know, over 10 years, let's say. And many of these women have children. So much of what women are, what we're conditioned to do in a relationship.

And part of this is biological that we are just nurturers more by nature is women tends to put everyone's needs before our own. Oh yeah. And there's a really interesting research that Alison Armstrong has talked about, which is that women, as opposed to men, have something called diffuse awareness. And diffuse awareness is we are taking in our environment in a way that men are not. So like we'll be in a room filled with people and we will like notice what like the person crying in the corner, what someone's feeling over there. What's, you know, and obviously there's different levels of this. But our capacity for just like taking things in in our environment.

And part of part of that, the research suggests is the role of estrogen in the body. But there's also research to suggest that it's also because, you know, it's like where do we draw the line between conditioning and biology basically. But there's also just that women, we are aware of our safety or a lack thereof in a way that men are not. And so because we are always taking everything in and compounded to that is that on top of that is we then feel responsible for others, a habit that women have is putting themselves last.

Yep. And so when you have a woman who's been someone's wife for many, many years and someone's mother for many, many years, when she reaches the stage of life, it's sort of like, you know, the wisdom stage of life, this next chapter where she's not old, she's not elderly, but she's older, right? And it's like, so what is this stage of life? She often has a reckoning where, it's not a midlife crisis, but it is a sort of mid to, you know, a little bit past midlife reckoning of where am I in all this? And what do I actually want? What are the needs that have been unfulfilled in my life? Bingo. And often what happens is then she thinks, you know, well, my spouse can no longer meet my needs. And also she's learning how to become an advocate for her needs because she doesn't want to just be mommy and wife. She wants to find herself.

I put that in big quotation marks. So it's really about helping her understand that probably what she's needing at this stage of life is more significant. because she's made everyone else more significant than herself. She's needing more significance. She's needing more just an understanding of who she is. And oftentimes women then get into this, you know, there's this funny trend on social media right now that I don't care club, that I do not care.

Yeah, that we do not care club. Yeah, that's gone very viral. So there's very much like, well, I just don't care. like I'm exhausted, now it's about me, which is incredibly empowering, but can also be incredibly destructive in her relationship. So it's about teaching her or helping her understand how to honor that, how to be like, this is what I need, and not to shy away from that, but also learning how to give yourself that. So what does that mean? That means. might mean, okay, I actually need more alone time. Yes. And I didn't need that much alone time

before or I suppressed that need, but I do need more alone time. It could mean I want to, I want to learn how to write. I want to learn how to paint. You know, there's other parts of her that need to be expressed. Now, how that can potentially become complicated in a marriage is, She's needing to connect to these parts of herself that have been long lost or long suppressed. And she's needing to meet her needs for greater significance. Like, who am I? You know, I want to feel significant now in my own life and to others. And then you might actually have, what's interesting is that as a man, let's say she's in a relationship with a man.

as he gets older, he's probably more established in his purpose and his career. So he's looking more to connect. Interesting. And she's looking more to individuate. Yes. That is spot on. Yeah, it totally resonates with what I felt and with what my friends and our audience is that it's almost like the woman is moving away and the man wants to move in to

connection more and the woman wants to move out of connection more. And it's interesting because, so my new book, Aged Like a Girl, I've actually spent over a decade researching this book. And I think that the neurochemical shifts that happen to women as they go through menopause starts to take us out of what I would call or what Lisa Mascone, who is the top female brain researcher calls it a relational brain where a woman brings her right hemisphere and her left hemisphere to every single decision. So she's always thinking about the relationship. And the connection between two of hemispheres is the corpus callosum, which gets ignited by estrogen. So when estrogen comes in during puberty, a female's brain goes into this relational place where she's always

thinking through the lens of how do I take care of everybody just like you said. How do I get loved? How do I get chosen? All of it. Yeah, all of it. Like, oh, you want me to look this way? Oh, you want me to behave this way? The relationship is the highest value. That's right. Yeah. But when estrogen goes away, what happens is the brain rewires itself. And it rewires itself for more independence, exactly what you just said. And combine that. I love what you just said. I am literally convinced that women become more intuitive, more psychic, more sensitive as we move into our aging years.

So when we, I love what you said. When we walk into a room and we sense something's off, it can send our whole nervous system into a sympathetic reaction. And now cortisol is high. And maybe it's your husband sitting on the couch. And he's not doing, he's not doing. He's not doing what you want to do, but all of a sudden you walked into that room. He didn't even say anything.

And your whole nervous system is flared up. Yes. Or you sense your kid, your teenager or your young doll kid is depressed or anxious. Yes. Yeah. And so now you can't sleep. And so you're like fixing your kid's problem at two in the morning. So I love how you just describe that.

And what I've heard, and this is really. an important part that I'd love to bring forward. What I've heard from my friends who have gone through divorces to men is they say, I tried. I tried to get him to understand, and he won't. So I love you do this with all your relationship work where you're like, turn on yourself and look at what you can do. But I'm just going to be as bold as to say, I think the men need to step up. I think the men need to see this phase a little differently. We need to figure out how to help the men because we're changing and it's like they're doubling down on something that's not working for us. Yes.

So a couple of things I'll say to that. One is I think that any man who dates a woman, regardless if he's 20 years old or 70 years old, men need to be aware of a woman's cycle. and lack of. Yeah, bingo. So he needs to be in, he needs to know exactly when she's about to get her period. What's going on for her then? Understand that, you know, usually there's a certain stage in a woman's cycle where she's going to want more sex. And that's the time to like really initiate the sex.

And there's going to be times where she's not going to want that. And so I think all men who, who are even in any relationship with women, even if it's if it's not sexual should be aware if they're close enough with this woman should be aware of the cycle the same thing goes for menopause men need to be educated on this but i want to go so far as to say is that you know women also have to do their part you know men men um are also vastly misunderstood in relationships and it's you know it's not just about you honey you know like you actually have to um you can't just take the position of I'm a victim in my relationship and my husband just doesn't understand. That's never, ever going to work. And if you really feel that, then you shouldn't be

with him. Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, again, when you look at the divorce rates, you know, when I'm looking that through, I'm like, okay, I think what happens to a woman is exactly she wakes up. She wants to individuate. And a man is like, what is going on? This marriage has been working for me. And I don't, and you seem, you seem happy in it. And then all of a sudden, like, you know, she's doing things that seem really unusual for him. And I think that it's not about always exiting.

And I will tell you that as a woman who's been in a 30-year marriage, I've learned more about myself in a marriage than I've learned in any other place in my life. I'm sure. So how did you communicate it with your husband? Well, so one of the things that we did that has been really helpful is talk about our marriage in segments. And we call the marriage before kids marriage 1.0. We call the marriage we had when kids were in the house, marriage 2.0.

And then the marriage we're creating right now is marriage 3.0. Oh, amazing. So the way we're talking, two things that have helped is I will say, in marriage 3.0, I don't want to spend every moment with you. I need my alone time. So actually, we moved to a house where it has like a backhouse so that I could go and spend more time by myself. Amazing. We, so it's, and we talked a lot about, in my book, and it's easy because this is my business, right?

But in my book, I have a concept called Butterflying Yourself, where you sort of crawl, menopause causes you to crawl into the chrysalis and dissolve parts of you that you don't love, and then you come out a butterfly. So the other day I found a little baseball cap with a butterfly on it. And I told them, hey, when I wear this, remember what version you're talking to. You're talking to a different version of me. So it's been the language. We've had to change the language.

We've had to change the rhythm. And it's helping. And it's like recreating something that we needed to recreate. I love that. It reminds me of a strategy that I used to use with couples, which is that it's helpful to have different nicknames, like a few different nicknames for your partner, that represents the archetype or the energy that they're in.

So like sometimes, like, and I would say, You know, let's say I was talking to the woman, you know, when you come home or when you're home, just say like, you know, I'm, I'm this today, you know, I'm jilly today. I'm or I'm Jillian today. And then your partner immediately knows, okay, I'm with playful or I'm with serious or I'm with, you know, the one who's feisty and wants to have like a sexual adventure or just an adventure. The 3.0 and menopause stage, it could be butterfly. It could be whatever your nickname is. Yep. it could be sage like because there's you're more like wisdom but but i but i also think that um

i i i would love to hear your take on this is it also important don't you think it would help us women to also remember that like we are still alive and playful and sexual and feminine yes Thank you. And that you don't actually have to just be like, you know, in wisdom archetype because you went through menopause. Yes. You have to actually still connect to the feminine side of you. And that's very, very important for women over 45 who are dating to be able to connect

to that part of themselves as well. Yeah. So in my research for age like a girl, I found the work of. Carol Gilligan. Are you familiar with her? I'm not, but I will be. Yeah, so this will be interesting for you. She was a feminist psychologist who studied girls in the 1980s, and it's especially relevant to me because I was a teen, I was the age she studied in the 80s. And what she did is she looked at how girls respond to questions of desire. So if you ask a boy and a girl at the age nine, what they want to eat.

They'll both tell you. The boy will tell you, the girl will tell you. But if you ask that same question at 11, the boy will still tell you what he wants, but the girl might waver a little bit. By the time she gets to 13, when her hormones kick in, or as a friend of mine likes to say, once she got drugged on estrogen,

and you ask the boy what he wants, he still tells you, and the girl says, I don't know, what do you want to, what are you going to eat? And so her idea was that when girls come into these teenage years, that she didn't say it through the lens of estrogen. I'm adding the lens of estrogen. But that society has taught girls that you are worthy if you are selfless.

And so everything comes from that over and over and over again for a woman as she goes into her 20s, 30s and 40s. And you said it earlier. Like if I'm, if I look pretty and you come in and you tell me I'm beautiful, then all of a sudden I know I'm worthy. Or if, you know, I. Or safe. If we were to go back even further in time. Yes.

To a different century. Then it's safe. Ooh. Yes. Okay. Safety is interesting because, and I'm super happy you're bringing this up, because I have a theory that the rage that it comes out of women during men, is because they have, we all have been feeling safe, unsafe for a very long time living in a

patriarchal society. Yeah, well, then that's, yeah. So safety comes in, so talk a little more about safety because there are a lot of good men that will say, oh, I would never hurt my wife. I'd never do, you know, anything. But I also have a friend whose husband never cheated on her, but he would make, by a thousand cuts, he would talk about her weight. and over and over and over again

until she wasn't safe in the relationship. So safety is, safety doesn't just mean I'm beating you up or I'm cheating on you. No, absolutely not. I think it's understanding that for centuries, so women have had to have had to figure out how to be safe in the world

because we are the physically weaker gender. Mm-hmm. We just are. Of course, there's some women who are really strong, but in general, men are physically, stronger than women. Yeah, it's well said. So we have had to figure out how to stay safe. And so, and I think that that's probably one of the most important things that men can under learn about women is that we're constantly thinking about our physical safety. And so

that also translates into emotional safety. Like how, like a woman goes into a room or she goes, she walks down the street, she's constantly, even if it's unconscious, scanning for threat. Yes. And that is exhausting. Thank you. Okay, so I want to stay on this because, do you know, one day I was trying to explain to my husband, who is an amazing man, I was trying to explain to him how I felt unsafe in the world.

And one of the descriptions, questions I asked him is, if you walk into a parking lot and your car, and it's dark, there's not well lit, and your car is parked next to a van, what do you do? And he's like, I just go to the car. Yeah. I'm like, I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me. And I literally crawl in the passenger side to the drive, if it's parked next to the driver's side. A hundred percent.

And he wouldn't even think of that. No, he wouldn't even think of that. So I do think safety is a big one. And I think a lot of women are feeling unsafe in their, in their relationships. And the spouse might not even know it. How would you as a, what would be a sign of safety is not present in your relationship? I'm going to answer that question. What I want to just say first, if I may, is this is why communication is so important.

Like if you're going through something as a woman and you're needing more alone time or you're feeling like you need to give to yourself more, you don't just do it. If you're in a marriage or a relationship, you need to talk to your partner about that and reassure. them and have conversations about it. You don't just say, this is, you know, I am woman, hear me roar and go fuck yourself to, you know, like you have to actually talk about it. How do you know you feel emotionally unsafe in a relationship? You're going to have a whole bunch of physical symptoms. You're going to have a lot of anxiety. You're going to, you're going to be obsessing and ruminating. You're going to feel incredibly insecure. And you're going to feel like you need a a reassurance and you're going to be stressed out. And basically you're just feeling, you know,

certainty is so important in a relationship. You need to really feel like you can be yourself, that you can express yourself. Obviously, if you're doing, you know, you have to be able to do this with respect. But if you feel like you need to censor yourself or you can't really say the truth or you can't actually have a conversation with your partner and you have to like watch your words so much so that you don't, you know, hurt. Agitate them. Or you're, you know, walking on eggshells. Walking on eggshells is one of the most under-acknowledged forms of emotional abuse.

Yeah. Yeah. That's really too. Okay. So in that situation, if you're scared to tell your spouse that you're walking on eggshells, Yeah. Like, is that the time you go to therapy? Is that time you get a third party involved?

Or how would a woman approach that conversation? First, I have to say if you're afraid that there's going to be any physical violence you leave. You never ever stay in any scenario where there's physical violence in any way. You never give them a second chance. You don't wait for them to go to therapy. You don't go to therapy together. You do what you can and gather whatever resources you can.

And I know that it's not a. exactly easy for some people, but you figure out a way to leave. But if it's just like you're not feeling like emotionally safe, you have a conversation with your, that's when you have to be really brave and say, I'm not feeling good. Like this isn't feeling right. I don't feel safe. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. And this is what I'm about to say is easier said than done, but it's absolutely crucial. Let them have their reaction. I don't mean to sound like let them right now, but like you really just have to allow them. Yep.

In other words, they are going anticipate that they may have a reaction to that of defensiveness. And your job is to stay very centered and calm. Yeah. And it's not like you're trying to put salt in a wound, but you just have to say, this is how I'm feeling. and if they cannot handle that react if they can't handle you saying that then you have then you have some big choices to make say we either need to speak to a third party or um you know let me know when you can have this conversation in a calm way but this is how i'm feeling but like you can't you have to be able to say that to your partner without them raging and if they are raging or

getting incredibly defensive that's a time to really rethink your relationship with them but there's always context and nuance and all of that and you don't want to be constantly going to your partner about a bad habit that women have in relationships is because they are always scanning for threat and because they are always looking for safety women have an unconscious habit in a relationship to always point out it to themselves and to their partner when their partner is doing something wrong and they forget to appreciate. Yes. Yeah, it's like kids.

Like we, I remember my husband and I, when we were like getting our parenting style together, we had read something about five positive for one criticism. Like five, you're awesome to one, hey, we need to, you need to work on this. So it's the same same in relationships, yeah. Absolutely. because human beings, we're like dogs that way. We respond to positive reinforcement. And we really don't respond to punishment.

And everyone who's in a relationship or who plans to be in a relationship, regardless of who you are, you have to be very honest with yourself about the ways in which you punish your partners. Yeah. And to stop because no one is motivated to change with punishment. People are motivated to change when we see the goodness in them. And we point out the positive. And you can do this with a student. Anyone you're mentoring, no one is going to be positive to rise to their potential

if you are constantly pointing out the ways in which they're failing. But if you can constantly appreciate how amazing they are and say, I see the amazingness in you, then people are more inspired to change. Ooh. Yeah, and where I see this with a lot of my girlfriends is the constant nagging. Oh, it's the worst. Yeah, and we do that as women. We need to call ourselves out on that because, you know, that is where we're like, you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you didn't that. And then I can imagine if you turned around and said, oh, and by the way, I'm walking on eggshells,

that might be where all of a sudden, you know, the wheels come off the bus. The wheels, exactly. And the more that we nagged, the more our partners, is going to shut down and withdraw. And then the narrative becomes they're avoidant, they're not listening to me. And it's never, look, it's never just one person's fault. It's a dynamic. Well said. And it's about understanding human nature.

And it's about understanding if you're in a relationship with women, really understanding women. And if you're in a relationship with men, really understanding men. I really, really think that that is a huge key to the success of a relationship. is understanding the nature of the person who you're with as an individual and also with their biology. Yeah. Okay, resentment. Let's talk about resentment a little bit because this is another one that festers in these long-term relationships. And I spent a day with Julie Gottman. And one of the things she said to me that really like hit me was that resentment builds in women in marriages when we say yes, to all the things we really want to say no to.

Yes. And then I had a conversation this week with a sex expert who said, resentment is the number one killer of libido. It is. Yeah. And so how do we acknowledge that we're feeling resentful? And what does a woman do with that emotion? I also want to add that that's why the nice guy syndrome,

he's going to be the, you know, the nice, not the kind guy, but the nice guy is going to be the one who stabs you in the back because he's always saying yes when really he wants to say no until one day he wakes up and he hates you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's important. It goes both ways. So it is always learning to, like for women, it's always coming into conversation with the,

ways in which you people please and and and and you know why you do it and learning how to be an advocate for your needs and that really is yes of course there's the nice guys you have to be the advocate for their needs but it's really a women's task yeah to learn how to be an advocate for her needs because more women than not just don't say what they need in a relationship yeah and they try to keep the peace or they just are so unaccustomed to saying what it is that they want and what it is that they need. Yes. So you have to practice.

And you have to practice every day, not just in your relationship, and you have to practice with the low-hanging fruit in small ways, just saying what it is that you want or practicing saying no when you really want to say no. And it's very important. Yeah. And so what happens when you find that you are resentful? there's two things either you have to recognize that there are things that you haven't been saying that you need to say yeah and then you have to say it in a way that is tactful because oftentimes

with resentment it's like a pressure cooker and then everything comes out and it's a nightmare for everyone but the second thing is that most people don't like to hear is in what way have you been projecting so many of your expectations onto your partner to be someone who they're not. Wow. Yeah. Both require self-responsibility. Yeah. But sometimes it's also like I'm resentful of my partner because I'm expecting them to

literally be someone who I know, have known from day one they're not. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think we put too much pressure on our partners in general? Like, you know, there's that when, yeah, when you first fall in love, you have all that projection and then you want that to stay. So I can totally see that. But I think we also have this expectation that somehow this person needs to be the center

of our universe. And I think that, like I've actually really sat and thought, like is the container of marriage set, does it set us up for failure? Because the old way that we, or the way we entered into marriage, at least when I got married in 1996, was that this is your person, you're going to be, you're going to happily ever, for your rest of your life. And this is your person now. And what I've learned in my 30 years of marriage is how deeply important having other go-to people are, having how important my girlfriends are, how important my alone time. But somehow that seems to be at odds with the marriage message of this is your person forever.

I think it's more the romanticization of love. It's like, you know, people used to rely on a village, not just on one person. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I think it's always about having relationships outside of the marriage. I mean, you know, obviously, friendships and community relationships outside of the marriage. I think it's about, I think it's very important to have a life. Does marriage shut us up for failure? I think that any relationship is an opportunity for growth.

But I think where we've been set up for failure is that we think that a relationship is supposed to make us happy when really it's our responsibility to make the relationship happy. Yeah. Or make ourselves happy. which actually makes the relationship happier yeah yeah right because if you're happy then then a happy person creates more like yeah two happy people tend to make a happy relationship yeah how how necessary do you think sex is in a relationship a romantic one i find it to be very necessary i think it's very important i think people should be um scheduling it if you're if you're even if you are um

you know, really busy. But more than that, than like the act itself, I find that just sexual energy between two people is really important. And that most people don't know how to recreate that in a long-term relationship. And that it's that feeling of like, like how Esther Perel refers to it like the erotic,

which is like how, like, where, like, that erotic. that exists between you and your partner. And we're sold this lie that it's just supposed to be there because in the beginning, you know, the falling in love stage and the beginning of a relationship, we can be incredibly passive because hormones and novelty and newness is doing everything for us. Right. But it's really about, you know, for a lot of people, foreplay begins well before touch. Yeah.

Yes. it's when you feel most alive it's when it's noticing when you feel most attracted to your partner it's making sure that you know because people are mostly drawn to those when they are witnessing this person in their flow state you know yeah and i think that for a lot of people who are attracted to men they are most attracted to their man when he's like in charge and powerful and like Yeah. Yeah. For people who are attracted to women, I think that he will have or she will have a lot of respect for her when she's like in charge.

But that's not usually when he's most attracted to her. He's attracted, they're attracted to her when she feels most relaxed and happy and free. Yes, I can see that. And what do you think about this idea that desire is wrapped up in mystery? that Esther Esther Perra Perel has said this where it's like when when there's mystery there's desire which is why people go and have affairs because oh this is a new it's novel it's mysterious how do you recreate that in a 30 year marriage well um it's exactly what we're saying it's you know it's you wanting a little bit of alone time that creates some mystery it's it's not just it's

also being curious about another person's inner world and and and checking your yourself and reminding yourself that you really don't know everything there is to know about your partner and they're always evolving. But more than mystery, like I said before, it's seeing them when they don't, when they're not reliant on you. So again, if you're attracted to men, you're attracted to masculine energy. Masculine energy, it feels most alive to us when it's like you are, you are in charge. because then we're seeing you as strong and capable.

Yeah, I can see that. People who are attracted to feminine energy, they don't, strong and capable, yeah, they might love that about you, they might respect that about you, they may be proud of you, but that's not what's going to turn them on. It's when you feel so happy and free

and you don't need them to make you happy and free. Right, right. That's why when women are dancing or singing, that is very much an aphrodisiac for those who are attracted to them. Fascinating. Yes. Yeah, and you know, after studying the female body for so long, and even the menopause experience,

I've wondered if what a woman's sexual energy is supposed to be like as she, as a whole reproductive system that gave her hormones, that made her feel sexy so that she would reproduce, that all goes away. And there's so many of my friends and the people who are in our following that just are like, there's nothing there. There's literally no libido there. And so you have this massive hormonal shift and you've been in this marriage where there's

no mystery and there's no, it's just been doing its thing forever. And so there has to be a recreation of something there. Yes. So she has to, look. I'm not the doctor, but from what I understand, estrogen is still developed in the adrenal glands, yes? Yes. Yep.

Okay. So it's not like it's totally gone. No, it's, you still have some. You still have some. You're still a woman. So figure out what makes you come alive. Is it going to a concert? Is it trying something new and slightly dangerous and anything that gets you like excited again?

Creative energy is sexual energy. Ooh, I love that. Yes, it is. And look, we all have both masculine and feminine energy. I feel as much male as I do female, right? Yeah. But when I'm like in work mode and like, you know, like making shit happen, I'm in mostly my masculine, right? But when I'm like, when I'm feeling very creative and alive and plugged in, that is creative energy that is the same thing as sexual energy.

And I will always say it's very important for both men and women to continue to move their bodies but for women to move their bodies like I understand the whole trend right now is build muscle and you got a weight train and I know that that's very I'm a yogi for many years and I'm me me too yeah so I'm oh and I don't have like that kind of body that just builds a lot of muscle but and so I understand functionally why that's so important but as a woman if you're not dancing if you're not doing some sort of breath work or moving your body that's more fluid and isn't just about like, you know, heavy weight, you're going to be disconnecting from that part of you that feels free and open and sexual and

alive and sensual and feminine. I love that thought because I actually am getting exhausted with the build muscle conversation. And I'll tell you why. Like, this is my big beef about menopause right now is the conversations all built around more half-toes for women. More protein. Yeah. More this. More that. Yeah.

Yeah. So like now you're like lost these hormones. You got to find the right doctor with the right patch. And you got to make sure you're eating enough protein and you're going to the gym and you're lifting weights. And you got to work on your marriage. I mean, it's just after a while, women are just like, forget it. Enough already.

That's adding to their symptoms, by the way. That's right. That's right. It was actually interesting because. because in age like a girl, the section on food, I decided to take out any, any like macro counting or calorie counting. I was like, here are the foods you should eat. Here are the foods you shouldn't eat.

Here are the fasting lengths I recommend. And try it for yourself and see what happens. Because I feel like everybody has some opinion about how women should be. And the last thing we need now that this menopause conversation is opened up. right is more things that we have to be actually me and my friends um because we're all like 40s and 50s and a lot of it's like on the one hand it's like it's great that the conversation is out there but you know if i'm going to be very candid a lot of the conversations that me and my friends are having is like we're so over it yes we're so thank you over the conversation being stuffed in our faces

and and everyone i know because i know some i have some friends who are like in the perimenopause menopause transition. And the ones who have basically no symptoms are the ones who are just like by nature less stressed. Yes. Yes. Yes. No, no, no. You can say it because I've been saying this a lot on all of these podcasts I've been doing for the book is that I think that the person that survives this experience, the woman who survives it without all the turbulence, has two things working for her. She has her metabolic system.

I really think like she's not sitting there eating, you know, boxes of pizza and drinking sodas all day long. Yes. So she takes care of herself. She takes care of herself and her nervous system is regulated, which is a very unusual thing for a woman to go into her, 40s with her nervous system regulated. In our culture.

Yes. Right. Thank you. So now we've come in with this HRT conversation that now every woman's got to put a patch on. And we totally forgot to remind her to do less and to worry less and to eat better. We're just like, put this patch on. You're going to be okay. And I think we're because we work so hard and we're doing everything.

That's right. And we're not letting go enough. Yes. That's right. Sorry to interrupt. Yes. No. No.

I'm so happy you're saying this. because I'm really agitated with where the menopause conversation has landed because what happens to women, and I'm curious your thought on this, is that when you tell us to do something and we can't succeed at that, we don't think you're the problem. We actually turn on ourselves and we start to shame ourselves. A hundred percent. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think a balanced nervous system is everything. I mean, I just know for me, like when my nervous system, I mean, this is a whole other wormhole, but like I have a nervous system that's easily frayed. I study a lot of, I've studied for many, for decades, I've

so I have a certain constitution that makes it that like when my nervous system is regulated, I'm highly creative and sharp, but I can easily become ungrounded. It's just, it's the way I was born. Yep. And I have found that when my nervous system is dysregulated, I have, have all the symptoms that everyone is complaining about. And when it's regulated, I'm like, I'm fine. Right, right. And that's not to blame people about nervous. Because some people, again, it could be other things.

I am someone who happens. I mean, I love a little sugar and I love my chocolate. But overall, like, I eat very pretty well and I don't drink alcohol at all. So to me, it's always been a stress thing. I do think there's a little bit of a chicken or an egg, which is, am I stressed? because of my hormones or are my hormones out of whack because I'm stressed. But I do, but what I have noticed is that when I take the time to really let go check out, you know, really look at the ways in which I'm operating from an old belief system of I'm not

good enough, which then furthers dysregulates that like all the things that I see everyone complaining about and like, oh, there's that ache or there's that stiffness or, it's, there's that like lack of sleep or there's that like I'm feeling a little warm oh my god and then like the neurosis like I'm hot am I having a hot flash it's like no I actually just sometimes get really fucking hot right and that's the problem oh my god that's such the problem with the with this menopausal moment is we're like ah it's menopause we just bring it on all that yeah yeah it's so true it's so true what do you think of some of the new trends that we're seeing in long-term marriages like living apart together.

So this is interesting. My mother and my stepfather, they both have passed, but they started seeing each other. He lived down the, he lived down the, I grew up in New York City in Manhattan. And we lived, and they, they lived like, he lived two buildings down on the same block. Yeah.

And so when they started seeing each other, I would say my mom was like around 43 and divorced, three kids and he was like 48 or something like that and so they for many years had a relationship where they they had their routine like when there was the sleepovers and then they finally decided to get married but they were like there's I'm not living with you like what's the point we're not having kids and so I think that's what you're asking yeah uh-huh I'm in full support I think it's challenging if you're younger and you want to start a family and have kids. But I think if you're at the stage of life where you've had your kids or you don't want kids,

I think it's great. Some people are amazing couples, but they don't live well together. Yes, yeah. And so I actually think it's great. It's great to have a night off. Then you can watch whatever the fuck you want to watch on TV and you can sleep. I'm in full support. Yes.

Yeah, it's a trend that started after the pandemic, I guess. A lot of couples started, you know, living separate. because the pandemic just was too much together time. And so then it started. And there's a lot of models of how it's worked incredibly well for people. I think it would also back to what the general theme of this conversation has been, it would take a lot of communication as well. The other trend that I think is really interesting is they're calling it sleep divorce,

where couples are sleeping in separate rooms. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I'm in support. I really am in support. I think that this is what I'm in support of. What I'm in support of is that what works for one couple doesn't necessarily work for another. And that you just have to figure out what works for the two of you and not conform to what anyone is telling you or what society is telling you and do what fucking works for you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, in full transparency, this is. is something in in as I've gone through metapause I just need to sleep in my own bed it's it is like a non-negotiable for me now and it has nothing to do with my husband it I mean I guess it has he makes noise at night and I wake up and I don't like that so I guess but he can't control that he can't control that yes so it's just but it's something about being in my own energy and like getting into bed and my and you know this is after years of having little kids crawl in your bed and like

Of course. It's like, I want to take my bed back and I just want my bed. But I think it's one of those things that has been taboo because it's like somehow we think it's the beginning of divorce. What we're not focusing enough on is this. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, no, please. Yes.

Yeah. Rather than just focusing on if you're sleeping in the same bed, what is happening the other 12 hours of your day? are you touching each other? Are you holding hands? Is there, when you speak to each other, is there eye contact? And even better, when you make eye contact, you also put your hand on their arm at the same time so that you are appealing to all their senses.

Focus, that. So everyone's like, oh, you're sleeping apart, that's the problem. No, what actually leads to divorce is a death by a thousand, And sometimes those thousand cuts are the are the repetitive cycles of not actually connecting to one another through touch, through tone, through eye contact throughout the day. Yeah. Ah, that's so, so beautifully said. Okay, so we have to definitely address this one, which is when do you know it's time? And I saw you do a podcast on this.

How do you know it's time to leave? It's like the million dollar question. Yeah. And it's a very hard one to answer. I would say it's, I really think that if you've invested, you know, there's no abuse happening and you care about this person and you've invested a lot of time, you have to, it's why I wrote my book, it begins with you, you have to really think about the ways in which you haven't been meeting needs.

and not only think about the needs that are not being met for you. And I like to give people like a 60 day challenge, sometimes a 90 day challenge depending on the couple, of just showing up as your best self and really, really being a giver and a loving person and not just think about what you're not getting. because then at the end of that trial period, if you've really, really done the work to not just think about yourself,

but to really think about the other person, it's not about overgiving the way that women do, but really being like, what does this person need from me? And how can I step out of my own ego and give it to them? It's going to reveal very quickly if you're with someone you should stay or not,

because either that's going to do nothing and they're just going to keep taking. or it's going to really open up the energy between the two of you where love is like flowing freely between the two of you. So I always, I always say that. You know, learn to communicate. If you haven't been a communicator or an advocateer of your needs, don't leave before you do that. Because guess what? You're just going to repeat it with someone else. Exactly. I was just going to say, don't miss the opportunity to practice standing up for yourself. Exactly. Because you're just just it's going to be the same pattern with someone else and then you're going to end that relationship

with the story yeah he just they just weren't right for me when really it could have been your patterns contributed to what was not working as well yeah and then there's just sometimes you just I do believe that divorce is a human right I don't believe in staying in a relationship for decades miserable but I do believe in having the hard conversations and stepping outside your comfort zone. And I do believe that it's really big spiritual work to be in a relationship. And if you're just freaking miserable, call it. Life is too short.

Right. Do you believe in marriage? You know, it's funny. I've never been asked that question before, which is shocking. Yeah. I don't really believe in the institution of it. I don't believe in you stay in something miserable because you have a piece of paper between the two of you.

I don't believe, I used to think that when your marriage, that's the ultimate commitment. I don't really believe that. But I do, the romantic in me and even the practical side of me, I do like the idea of, we have gone through a ritual that is telling us and the world that we are going to do what we can to make this a thriving relationship. Yeah. And I think there's something important about that. You know, the way that marriage was originally defined was for technically, the way I've researched it is for the woman because she wasn't working.

And so, you know, we go way back, right? There was a dowry. There was everything. It was like, okay, she wasn't educated. She's not working. so she needs a man. And now we have women that don't need that. And so one of the things that, right, thank God is right.

And one of the things I've thought deeply about is that we need to redefine marriage. I think there needs to be, it's like an outdated institution or a container that we're trying to take modern day people and fit it in there. And there needs to be some redefinition of it. And I don't know what that would be. like a part of me is like there should like just because you put a ring on it in my 20s doesn't mean that you just get to own me forever like there needs I almost feel like there should be every 10 years there should be like hey is this still working no I agree every five every year I think a couple

should sit down and just say you know what's working what's not working I love the idea of people renewing their vows and I love what you said because I think that um I think marriage vows, instead of like I promise to love you forever, it should be I promise to like show up even when I'm not in the mood. I promise to make my emotional health and my physical health the priority so I can show up better. You know, all these things that take more personal accountability. I love that. And I am a very, very strong believer that every woman should have her own money. Agreed.

Agreed, because otherwise, then she's not. Then she's trapped. It's really true. And it's interesting, so my 25-year-old daughter just got engaged. Uh-huh. And so she's getting married next summer. And, I mean, I'm in full transparency. I have a lot of mixed feelings as a woman to woman about, you know, just what she's

entering into. And the reason I say that is because it. at the point she's at right now, all she can see is how beautiful it is. And there's like a part of me that wants to impart some motherly wisdom to her of like, you know, it's beautiful and it's messy and it's painful. It's all those things. So just keep that in mind. I actually had five mama bears come and throw me a shower when I got married. They were my mom's best friends and they all were in long-term relationships. And one of them said to me in my, I guess at that time, I must have been 27, 28 years old. She very boldly said to me, I just want you to know that there's going to be a day

that you wake up in the morning and say, what the fuck did I do? And I was like, you know, about 27, I was like, what? No, I love this. But do you know that the day that happened to me, I knew it was normal. I knew that that was part of the process. So I love that. And maybe as someone who's been married for so long and you're still married, you tell your daughter that and then tell her what to do when that happens. Not to panic what she should do instead.

Probably means like, you know, she has to have a, you know, have a conversation about maybe, you know, take care of her resentment. take care of herself, make sure she's giving to herself as much as she's giving to the relationship. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I love that. Yeah. Well, I just, I loved this conversation. I, you know, I could talk to you for hours. I really, again, I believe in saying it like it is. And I think when it comes to relationships, that's a big problem because we don't say it like it is. And this is how we end up in all these kind of messes. Totally.

Yeah. So I want to thank you so much for having me. Yeah. And how can people find you? I know you've been a little bit on a hiatus. I know. What are you up to next? I know. Well, new book coming. So I'm going to work on that. But yeah, people can find me at jillian turecki.com. I have a membership for women called The Conscious Woman helping women to actually discover this within themselves. And yeah, Instagram. I've got my podcast, Jillian on Love, and all the stuff. social media channels. Yeah, and my book, of course, begins with you. Awesome. Well, thank you. I really appreciated this conversation. And I hope we connect in person someday. I'm in person person. I like the energy that happens between two people when they're live. So we'll make that happen at some point. So thank you, Jillian. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode, I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.