Today, I thought about the 81-year-old stranger I met at a Shell shop years ago, and he ended up giving me not just hearty laughs, but also my column for that week. He was funny, energetic and looked 55, not 81. I remember how he boasted that he had a wife at least 30 years younger than him; that he had left his first marriage because the sex had become non-existent, yet it was still important to him. He had divorced her and remarried and was helping many senior couples, “including bishops”, with their marriages. “Those men are in trouble. The men are still energetic, but their wives just lie there like this! Even a man who started off with so much energy gets deflated if that’s the enthusiasm he receives from his wife!” I had never laughed so much with a total stranger. We had struck up a conversation because I was wearing a branded The Observer shirt, so he stopped to let me know he loved the paper and the Sex Talk column, before I even got to introduce myself properly. After further lecturing me about the importance of good branding (he approved of the shirt), he fist-bumped me and said, “Please, go and tell those women!” Then youthfully, he jumped into his SUV and drove off. I thought about him this week, because our conversation was shortly after the Covid-19 lockdowns. I did not even catch his name; I wonder whether he is still well… Is he still helping his elderly friends get some sugar? His concern still stands, and needs revisiting: you, wives of a certain age, do you know that your husbands still find you desirable? And there is a way today’s man in his 50s and 60s can decide to look great and youthful, just as his wife in the same age bracket starts to battle strange things like beards, crazy bleeding patterns, hormone belly, and other effects of perimenopause and menopause. This combination can come with a set of insecurities that work together to shut down her libido. One wife actually confessed back then, that it was often her prayer request that, “Please Lord, don’t let my husband want sex tonight!” And like clockwork, he would want to get naughty that very night, leaving her not only sexually dissatisfied, but also resentful. Because, that husband probably goes to bed each night, hands fervently pressed together, eyes to the ceiling as his heart whispers, “Please God, let tonight be the night she says ko yes, for once!” And meanwhile in the bed, sheets clutched to her chest, the subject of his prayer is also in conversation with God, erasing her husband’s prayer from the holy database. Anyway, so much happens to a woman’s body after 45. For some, these changes come much earlier. I know a woman who went into menopause at 36. That only means, even her late twenties were probably weird, because perimenopause – those final years as a woman’s cycle winds down to menopause – can convince her that she is going crazy. The hormones can feel like they are having a huge party inside your body one day, and mourning a great friend the next. Inevitably, things can get harder in the sex department as a result, yet on the other side of the bed, your dyed-up, obsessed-with-running husband is having the best years of his life and even wants to try out new things during lovemaking. Trouble! So, pick yourself up from the pity party madam; there are things a woman can do to tame crazy hormones and reintroduce dormant-but-necessary ones. Exercise regularly, love on yourself more, eat healthy food and invest in the necessary food supplements. Don’t just pray your husband’s healthy libido away; work on improving yours. It can be done and it has been done. Have you been wondering why a couple that has been married 35 years can up and go separate ways? There. One can go into sex retirement when their spouse’s factory is still very active and productive. caronakazibwe@gmail.comThe post Sex Talk: Why decades-old marriages fail appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.