A Menopause Society survey highlights male partners’ knowledge gaps and support needs, with context for shared conversations and the evidence’s limits.
On October 7, 2026, The Menopause Society reported findings from a survey of nearly 100 male partners in Canada and the United Kingdom. Its announcement highlighted a gap between wanting to support a partner through menopause and feeling prepared to do so.
The Society described concerns involving intimacy and physical connection alongside emotional distress and relationship strain. Respondents also reported unmet needs for menopause information and support. The findings bring partners’ understanding into a discussion that includes both the experience of menopause and its place within a relationship.
This is an early survey report with a specific focus: how these male partners understood menopause and described their own experiences. Its value lies in making those questions visible without turning them into a verdict on men or couples generally.
The survey involved nearly 100 male partners of women who were experiencing menopause or had experienced it. Participants were in Canada and the United Kingdom. The population therefore included partners looking back on the transition as well as those whose partners were going through it.
According to the Society’s release, the survey covered menopause knowledge and relationship effects. It also asked about communication and support-seeking, along with educational needs. These areas connect what respondents believed they knew with what they felt they needed.
The Society said the results were scheduled for presentation at its 2026 Annual Meeting in San Diego, October 20 to 24. As of the October 7 announcement, that presentation was still ahead. The public update was a press release describing the survey rather than the full study paper.
The survey’s focus matters when reading the results. These are male partners’ accounts of understanding and support, not a combined assessment of both people in each relationship. Keeping that perspective clear helps distinguish the respondents’ concerns from the experiences of the women going through menopause.
The Menopause Society identified four prominent themes in the survey:
The knowledge findings gave some detail to the sense of being unprepared. Among Canadian respondents who answered the knowledge question, 68% said they had known little or nothing about menopause before their partner’s transition.
In the United Kingdom, 43% of respondents said they understood menopause well enough to support their partner effectively. That response concerned their perceived ability to offer support. The Canadian finding concerned what respondents said they had known before the transition.
Support needs also featured prominently. The Society reported that 50% of UK respondents said men are not supported during a partner’s menopause transition. In Canada, 88% said they had never sought support, while 90% said a support program would help or might help.
Those Canadian responses place a history of not seeking support alongside interest in receiving it. They raise a useful question about what respondents would want from education or support. The announcement does not turn that interest into a demonstrated benefit.
Study author Dr. Amobi Onumaeme said in the release that menopause can affect relationships and families. He described men who want to support their partners but lack understanding or guidance. His comments offer the author’s perspective on the reported themes.
The Society’s medical director, Dr. Stephanie Faubion, also described menopause as potentially affecting relationship dynamics and sexual intimacy. She said partners may experience confusion or frustration when desire changes. She characterized reliable resources for men as limited.
Together, the reported themes and accompanying comments put understanding alongside intimacy. The discussion is not simply about whether physical connection has changed. It also concerns whether partners have the information and language to discuss what those changes mean to each of them.
Several limits belong in view before drawing broader conclusions. The public release does not provide an exact sample size or detailed participant characteristics. It also leaves out the recruitment method and response rate. Survey wording and country-specific denominators for each result are not supplied.
The release does not provide statistical analysis either. Without those details, readers cannot assess how closely participants resemble the wider population. It is also unclear whether people with stronger concerns were more likely to participate. The percentages should remain findings from this survey rather than estimates for all men or couples in either country.
The Canadian and UK knowledge figures should not be ranked against each other. Prior knowledge and perceived ability to support a partner are different measures. Without the question wording and denominators, the figures do not establish which country’s partners were better informed.
This is observational evidence based on reported experiences and perceptions. It does not show that limited menopause knowledge caused relationship strain or reduced intimacy. Other influences on the reported difficulties cannot be separated from the information provided. Nor does interest in a support program establish that such a program would improve relationships.
The author’s and medical director’s comments should also remain distinct from findings established by the survey. The useful conclusion is narrow: these respondents described information gaps and support needs worth hearing. A wider explanation of why those difficulties arose requires more than this announcement.
The survey sits within a broader public-health discussion that preceded the Society’s release. The World Health Organization listed a September 24, 2026, webinar on menopause, sex, relationships and well-being. Its description placed sexual health and intimacy within a life-course and public-health conversation about menopause.
That earlier framing gives the survey useful context. Questions about sexual wellbeing and relationships were already being included in public discussion of menopause. The Society’s announcement adds the reported experiences of male partners to that conversation, with particular attention to education and support.
The sources serve different purposes. The WHO event description establishes the scope of a public-health discussion. The Society’s survey describes what a particular group of partners reported. Read together, they support giving relationship questions space alongside menopause education without treating one survey as a final answer.
For readers interested in that broader perspective, Sexential’s coverage of sexual wellbeing across the menopause transition offers related reading. The framing is broader than a single measure of knowledge or a single concern about intimacy.
The practical value of this update is a reason to make room for shared understanding. The conversation prompts below are editorial applications of the survey’s reported themes. They are a way to discuss information and needs without assuming that either partner’s interpretation tells the whole story.
A useful opening question is: “What do we each understand about menopause, and what are we unsure about?” This treats knowledge as something to build together rather than a test one person has failed. It also leaves room for the partner experiencing menopause to describe their own understanding.
The survey’s theme of wanting to help while feeling unprepared makes this distinction especially relevant. Wanting to be supportive and knowing what support is welcome are separate questions. A conversation can acknowledge both without assigning blame for what someone did not previously know.
Another prompt is: “What changes in intimacy or connection have each of us noticed?” The wording allows different accounts. It does not require both people to agree that the same change has occurred or that it carries the same meaning.
A discussion of physical connection need not become a demand to restore a previous pattern. Each partner can describe what they miss and what they want understood. Sexential’s guidance on finding language for changing intimate needs provides related context for that conversation.
The aim is clarity rather than a verdict about who is responsible. Describing an experience is different from deciding what another person should feel or do. Keeping those tasks separate leaves more room for an honest account from both partners.
A further question is: “What information or support would each of us find useful?” That could mean a clearer explanation of menopause or help identifying unanswered questions. The point is to name the need rather than assume that the word “support” means the same thing to both people.
The question can also distinguish support for the person experiencing menopause from support for the partner trying to understand it. Both deserve clear discussion. A partner’s uncertainty should not displace the other person’s experience, and the other person need not become their only source of education.
The survey includes concerns about knowledge and connection, but a couple’s conversation does not have to collapse them into one problem. “I do not understand what is changing” and “I miss feeling close” express different needs. Each can be heard without treating either as an accusation.
Likewise, discussing desire does not require deciding that one explanation accounts for everything. Related reading on considering the wider context of desire can help frame questions. Individual health concerns and treatment decisions belong with qualified care rather than conclusions drawn from a partner survey.
The gap highlighted by the Society’s announcement is between wanting to help and knowing how. For couples, that gap can become a shared question rather than a judgement about who should already know more. The starting point is not an assumed explanation for lost intimacy. It is an invitation to understand what each person knows and what support each person wants.
Reading a partner’s menopause experience only through lost intimacy can sideline changing needs, which Sexential brings into focus through mature sexual wellness education. For adults aged 35 to 65 who find those needs difficult to discuss, its coverage connects desire with relationship context and supports clearer questions without turning general information into personal medical advice.
Follow Sexential for thoughtful guidance on desire, sexual function, hormones, confidence, relationships and intimacy. Explore new articles and evidence-aware resources for sexual wellbeing across adulthood.
A report on a student survey links attention with men’s sexual satisfaction. Here’s the evidence, its limits and the practical context for midlife.
A new report puts men’s midlife testosterone changes in context, with guidance on assessment, partner conversations and fertility considerations.
The Menopause Society’s 2026 program places lifestyle, sleep and sexual health together. Here is what the agenda and partner research actually report.
Explore practical resources on desire, function, hormones, confidence, intimacy and sexual wellbeing.
Read the Blog
