Actress Lisa Ray has spoken about entering marriage at 40 while dealing with the effects of early menopause, saying that a better understanding of the physical and emotional changes she was experiencing might have helped her navigate the initial years of her relationship differently.
In a recent Instagram post, Ray shared an “unofficial husband’s guide” aimed at helping men better understand and support their partners through perimenopause and menopause.
Ray said she experienced chemotherapy-induced menopause at 37 and met and married her husband three years later. Reflecting on that period, she described entering marriage while dealing with the aftermath of menopause as challenging.
She wrote that had she understood what was happening in her body at the time, she might have been able to navigate those early years differently. “No wonder those first few years were volatile,” she said.
The Four More Shots Please! actress stressed that women going through perimenopause or menopause are not “broken” and do not need to be “fixed”. She said the transition can be prolonged, exhausting and disorienting, with resilience sometimes affected and minor difficulties feeling overwhelming.
Ray offered several suggestions to partners, including understanding that anger or emotional reactions may sometimes be linked to hormonal changes and not necessarily be personal. She also advised against immediately trying to solve every problem, saying that sometimes a woman may simply need someone to listen.
She encouraged partners to provide space without making it feel like abandonment and highlighted the impact of disrupted sleep, exhaustion and brain fog. At the same time, she cautioned against using menopause as a reason to dismiss a woman’s genuine feelings.
Ray specifically advised men not to tell their partners to “calm down”, instead urging them to remain curious and recognise that physical changes can also affect a woman’s relationship with herself.
She acknowledged that partners and family members often receive the “unedited version” of a person because they are closest to them, but said this should not turn them into targets for anger or frustration. Instead, she called for couples to develop a new way of understanding and supporting each other.
Ray, a cancer survivor, experienced early menopause at 37 after undergoing high-dose chemotherapy as part of her treatment for multiple myeloma.
