How can I help my wife with endometriosis? A guide for husbands from an experienced husband.

How can I help my wife with endometriosis?

A long time ago I asked myself a question, how can I help my wife with endometriosis?

I was completely lost, I didn’t know where to start.

I could barely spell the word “endometriosis”, let alone learn about it. This brutal illness took my once happy wife and made her struggle daily.

Men often find it hard to believe how their woman can feel so bad that she regularly has to cancel plans.

Maybe you have found yourself wondering this too, but I know that you have plenty of questions on your mind.

Let’s begin with the most common one…

How can I help my wife with endometriosis?

I’m glad you asked, here’s your answer:

Take her seriously.
Listen without talking.

Be understanding.
Be patient.
Believe her symptoms.

Get involved.
Don’t be quiet when she hurts.
Meet her physical needs.

Support and defend her.
Help her diet and nutrition.
Exercise with her.

Help her sleep hygiene.

Endometriosis will try to break your marriage, but being with her through something this hard will help your wife immensely.

Support her against all odds because it makes you appreciate one another, and strengthens your relationship.

She will always feel guilty for what your life could have been without her, so try not to remind her.

Help her feel that she’s not alone. It gives hope and makes her understand that she has your support which can be incredibly powerful in helping her overcome emotional difficulties.

If you feel like you aren’t coping well with your wife’s endometriosis, you can reach out for help from self-help groups and professional therapy such as counseling.

If she feels emotional, open communication with her is the best way to help her feel better.

Men need to be heard!

How can I help my wife with endometriosis if in other people’s eyes my struggles aren’t as important as hers?

No one used to take me seriously. Even famous UK-based endometriosis charity didn’t notice my pleads to spread awareness about us – partners.

They never responded, even though I was going to contribute to their cause.

Why? Don’t male partners matter?

Society expects us to care for our wives because it’s our job as husbands but they don’t listen. We have a voice and we need to be heard too.

Gents, we have to stick together and we need to spread awareness about our struggles.

In the long run, it’s going to help women with the support that they really need – at home. After all, other women don’t share their lives with them.

Our wives spend most of their time at home, not at the doctor’s, and no medication will help your partner in the long term. She needs your caring and loving support.

As her husband, you need to give her the best care possible. You can do that by taking her seriously.

You should be very understanding and patient when communicating with her. And don’t forget to listen to your wife without you interfering.

Believe her, because despite her being in pain, she will not tell you, as she feels like a burden to you and her family.

But don’t be quiet when she hurts. Ask how she feels and what you can do to help.

Get involved with her support and defend her if the situation requires it. An example would be a doctor’s appointment at which the practitioner doesn’t believe her symptoms, blaming it on her emotional state.

Speak up for her and fight against such doctors.

Meet her physical needs. In 50% of women with endometriosis penetrative sex is excruciating, but intimacy isn’t only about penetration…

Help her with diet and nutrition, shopping, and cooking wise. A good diet lowers inflammation and pain.

Exercise with her, this is another way. Pilates or a walk in the woods goes a long way.

Help her sleep hygiene. Prepare a nice bath, give her a relaxing massage with CBD oils. Play soft and sleepy music. Help her here because sleep is the best form of painkiller.

You can learn how to help your wife with endometriosis thanks to my “Endo-Tool, Endometriosis for Men” e-Book in which I focus on male partners. I give you the 1st chapter FREE that contains 20 pages filled with value, such as:

What is endometriosis?

What are the symptoms?
What causes endometriosis?
What does endometriosis look like?

What are the stages?
What are the types?
What is adenomyosis and how is it related to endometriosis?

Why do some women develop severe endo and others don’t?
Does endometriosis cause infertility?
How is endometriosis diagnosed?

Do types and stages affect the treatment?
Recurrence of endometriosis after excision surgery.

Get FREE “Endo-Tool”

Endometriosis for Men e-Book

Take her seriously.

Endometriosis is a condition that both partners have to deal with.

Treatment may help her relieve some symptoms of endometriosis, but it can also be distressing in itself.

Women find it helpful if you take them seriously and realize how much endometriosis affects their life. It’s easier for her to cope if she’s given support in everyday life.

Take her seriously because no one else will, you can trust Mr on that statement, my friend!

Listen without talking.

Whenever I questioned how can I help my wife with endometriosis, the most important thing I had to remember was to listen to her.

Even you feel there’s nothing you can do, when she tells you about symptoms (that you will never experience), listen to her but never interrupt.

Don’t try to speak in the middle of her talking to you. If you try to provide her with a solution, she may assume that she’s doing something wrong.

Be understanding…

Be understanding when she cancels her, or your plans because if she cannot do something, it means she’s in a lot of pain or she is fatigued.

Flare-ups can be sudden and unexpected, and that can vary every time.

When it happens, and I’ve seen my wife crawling the walls because of pain, she will be physically unable to move.

Remember that your wife is probably not only in a lot of pain, but deeply embarrassed to have to let you, and other people down.

Understanding is one of the most important things.

So, if you’re asking yourself “how can I help my wife with endometriosis”, is to try to understand how she might feel.

You will never be able to do this, as you are not a woman, but the willingness to learn what she’s going through proves how much you care about her.

Be patient.

Changes take time. But don’t expect miracles. It takes ages to put things in place when you try to contact health care services.

When you do things yourself, you know what to expect from yourself, but when you have to rely on other people, you mustn’t forget, that it will take time to sort things out.

Oftentimes, you will have to chase them to speed things up. You’ll get also frustrated.

But remember, that you do it for your chronically ill partner, and only by being calm, things will get sorted if you keep it professional.

Even when your wife with endometriosis feels at her worst, if she’s in pain and deeply depressed, enough not to construct a sentence, she will always come back from it.

The pain subsides, nothing lasts forever. And the flare-up, however often, always disappear. Your partner will go back to being “her old self.”

How can I help my wife with endometriosis 1

Believe her symptoms.

Endometriosis is an invisible illness. It cannot be seen or touched.

Many women ask “why he doesn’t believe I’m in pain?”

Communication is the key here, but many men don’t believe their women. But you’re not like them, you’re not a dick.

You’re reading this because you care about her, and you want to talk about this disease.

You can do it in the way you feel is essential, as long as you are willing to ask your wife to help you understand.

We can’t read women’s minds.

Unfortunately, some “men” can be insensitive to female pain or have never had such an experience, where pain immobilized them.

They don’t understand or have sympathy for the variety and intensity of pain that endometriosis causes.

Get involved.

That’s a tough one because, with male partners, the entire menstrual cycle is an alien world, let alone endometriosis, which is totally confusing.

Many men don’t understand why their wives blame fatigue on endometriosis.

It’s all about education gentlemen!

If you get involved and research a little, your girl will find what great level of understanding you have.

You don’t need to go to the lengths I did and write a blog. As for today, this is my 71st article.

But I did it because I’m passionate about helping my wife and women like her, including yours.

You don’t have to write a blog, unless (a hint) you want to retire early, and live comfortably, which by the way, will help your wife to a great extent!

If you’re interested in that, check one of my best posts on the topic…

Anywho, partners should get involved.

Unfortunately, they always make plenty of lame excuses, such as feeling uncomfortable in any medical situation.

Lots of them fall ill at ease when such situations seem to make them feel out of control.

But again, you’re not a woos. You get involved like a man.

Don’t be quiet when she hurts.

You may ask – how can I help my wife with endometriosis?

She may ask – why is he so quiet when I’m hurting?

It comes back to communication, because we (men) may have been trained from childhood to provide for and protect our women.

A man watching his wife endure severe pain that he can’t stop often faces a serious threat to his manhood because our nature is to fix things.

And because we cannot fix our partner’s health, we feel helpless to save her from something that ruins the quality of her life.

Some guys withdraw. They may feel like there is no way to even try, and so they wonder what to do. It is so very difficult to comfort someone if you feel you have been let down.

As result, you may become silent.

Meet her physical needs.

Let’s talk about sex. Intercourse hurts. Now what?

With us, it’s rare to experience anything that interferes with our sex drive. Let’s not forget, we are visual creatures.

Many therapies for endometriosis can suppress female libido. This makes it hard for a man to understand how endometriosis, pain, and fear can interfere with a woman’s sex drive.

Often my wife used to suffer for me through our intercourse without saying anything. She loves me so much and she wanted to satisfy me.

I’m sure this is a great case for many couples…

But it’s hard to be enthusiastic, and feel sexy when you’re in pain. Imagine how she might feel and ask her what can you do to help.

Reassure her that you’re OK with a blowjob and that you love her doing it for you.

Reassure her that she hasn’t failed to satisfy you.

How can I help my wife with endometriosis 2

Support and defend her!

Every time my wife used to go for her doctor’s appointment, she came out empty-handed.

The truth is, female issues like menstruation, are being normalized by male practitioners.

Women are often told to suck it up and deal with their problems. No matter how severe my wife’s symptoms were, her pleads were ignored, to say the least.

Despite agonizing pain, women aren’t believed, which delays the diagnosis of serious illnesses such as endometriosis or even fibromyalgia.

The best thing you can do is to advocate for your wife. Trust me. Just go with her to doctor’s appointments and you’ll see what a difference your presence will make.

As soon as I began to attend my wife’s doctor or work manager’s meetings, she was immediately taken seriously.

It’s as if they respected you as a man but your lady was invisible.

Bottom line is, be there, support her and defend her honor.

Help her diet and nutrition.

Firstly, a low fodmap diet and endometriosis go hand in hand. Symptoms of endometriosis and the symptoms of other chronic conditions for that matter improve.

From what I have observed with my wife, there is no doubt in my mind that this is true.

There is a direct correlation between the foods she eats, and the amount of pain, length of flare-ups, and severity of symptoms, such as fatigue or brain fog.

Remember, that my M suffers from fibromyalgia and endometriosis, it’s called multimorbidity. By keeping a low fodmap diet, she copes much better than if she ate dairy, sugar, red meat, etc…

Through patience, trial and error, you can help her establish what her trigger foods are, and what foods are safe for her to eat.

This is a work in progress, and the foods that she’ll eat will be much more limited, but it can change her life.

As a husband of someone with endometriosis, you can support her by being willing to adapt her diet to fit her needs. But if you crave a good old steak, try and eat it away from her.

Cooking a meal for her will make it much easier for your wife to cope, and if like me you enjoy it, everybody wins!

Exercise with her.

You know how positive are effects of exercising. It improves your mood, sleeping patterns, and in your wife’s case, fatigue, and severity of pain.

You can offer your support by taking part in exercising with your partner, whether it’s going to the gym, cycling, swimming, or a simple and gentle walk.

If she feels tempted to skip exercising, you’ll remind her why she does it and reassure her to keep her company, so she does at least 20 mins of it.

I spend a lot of my time with my wife dancing. Yes, likely for us, Latin ballroom is our passion. We used to dance professionally.

Every woman loves to dance. Have a go, you might love it!

Since we dance together and both love it, the question of how can I help my wife with endometriosis stopped bothering me as much?

If your wife finds something to aim for that involves movement, it is going to make her feel alive and excited. She needs a goal. Exercise with her.

Help her sleep hygiene.

You heard me say at the beginning that sleep is the best form of painkiller. Because it is.

Regular, consistent sleep habits have made the world of difference for my wife. Having a regular bedtime helps her combat the fatigue that she could have the next day.

Supporting her in this is simple, but effective.

Prepare yourself to be flexible with other commitments in order to make sure that both of you have a consistent bedtime.

To ease her into sleepy, spend some time taking care of her as you’d normally do before sex.

It means a nice, relaxing bath, followed by a massage with aromatic oils, and a nice herbal tea.

And don’t forget about smooth, relaxing jazz. Music makes wonders.