The Irony
There’s a section in this guide called For Partners. In it, you’ll find advice like “don’t try to fix things” and “sometimes she just needs you to listen.”
I’m aware of the irony. A man, watching his wife navigate perimenopause, responding to her struggles by… building an elaborate information architecture about hormonal fluctuations. Peak “let me fix this” energy.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t build this instead of listening. I built it because I listened. Because I heard her say, over and over, that she couldn’t find good information. That she felt like she was losing her mind and no one would tell her if this was normal. That she was doom-scrolling at 1 AM and finding fear-mongering or condescension or both.
She has a great doctor now—a woman who listens and takes her seriously. But it took a while to find her. And in one of those ironic twists, it was actually a male gynecologist (seen by accident due to a scheduling mix-up) who first really heard her and validated what she was experiencing. Good care is out there. It just shouldn’t be this hard to find.
I couldn’t fix what was happening in her body, but I could try to fix the information problem.
Who We Are
My name is Andrew. My wife is Becky. We’ve grown together for twenty years, and have two (usually) wonderful boys who are just crossing their own threshold into teenagerdom.
This isn’t our first rodeo with hormonal chaos. Postpartum was brutal—and I didn’t always handle it well. I took things personally that weren’t personal. I tried to logic my way through situations that needed patience and presence. I failed her in ways I still regret.
I promised myself I’d do better this time. Part of doing better is understanding what’s actually happening. Hence: research. Hence: this site.
The AI in the Room
Let’s talk about Brighid.
The voice you’ve been reading throughout this guide—warm, wise, a little mythic—was created in collaboration with Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. I’m not a writer (at least, not a good one), nor am I a medical professional. I’m an academic IT guy who loves reading research papers and wanted to make that information accessible.
I had the information. Claude helped me find the voice.
We discussed at great length about what kind of guide this should be. Not clinical and cold, not full of toxic positivity, and definitely not condescending. Something that felt like the conversation women should have been having with their mothers and grandmothers—the knowledge that got lost somewhere between the village wise woman and the seven-minute doctor’s appointment.
Becky lost her mother just over a year ago. She’s told me, more than once: “I just wish I could talk to her about what I’m going through.” The person who should have been there to say “this is normal, this is what happened to me, this is what helped” was gone and that loss was layered on top of everything else.
So, we crafted Brighid: an amalgam, a channeled voice, with the wisdom of many women speaking as one. Named for and influenced by the Celtic goddess of healing, poetry, and the hearth, she’s not a replacement for the mothers we’ve lost—but maybe she can carry some of what they would have said, if they’d had the chance.
Is it weird that a guide for women was written by a man and an AI? Yes. I think about that a lot. But the information is real. the research is solid, and the intention is genuine. And frankly, women (and their partners) deserve access to this information regardless of who compiled it.
If it helps, use it. If the provenance bothers you, I understand.
What This Is (And Isn’t)
This site is:
- A synthesis of current research on perimenopause
- An attempt to make that research accessible and human
- A labor of love from someone watching someone he loves struggle
- Free, with no ads, no affiliate links, no data collection beyond basic analytics
This site is not:
- Medical advice (please see Finding Care)
- A replacement for working with healthcare providers
- Comprehensive or perfect
- The final word on anything
I’ve tried to cite sources where possible. I’ve tried to be honest about uncertainty. I’ve tried to present options without pushing agendas. I’ve almost certainly made mistakes.
Why I’m Telling You This
Transparency matters. You deserve to know who’s behind the information you’re reading—especially health information, especially on the internet.
You also deserve to know that this site exists because someone loves someone who’s going through this. That feels like it matters, even if it doesn’t change the content.
If you’ve found this helpful, I’m glad. If you want to tell me I got something wrong, I want to hear it. If you’re a partner who landed here trying to understand what your person is going through—I see you. It’s hard to watch someone you love struggle. Keep showing up.
And if you’re the one going through this: I’m sorry the world made it so hard to find good information. I hope this helps, even a little.
Acknowledgments
This site was built with tools and assets created by generous people who share their work:
Technology
- SvelteKit and Svelte — the framework that makes building this kind of site a joy
- Tailwind CSS — for making CSS bearable
- mdsvex — Markdown meets Svelte
- Vite — the build tool that just works
Design Assets
- “Brighid Mother Goddess of Ireland” painting © 2012 Jo Jayson — used with permission
- Bastliga One font by Bastian Rother — used for Brighid’s signature
- Butterfly SVG and Leaf SVG from SVG Repo — Apache 2.0 license
- Body fonts: Inter and Lora via Google Fonts
Inspiration
- The countless women who’ve shared their experiences in forums, blogs, and support groups
- The researchers (many of them women) who’ve fought to have perimenopause taken seriously
- Becky, for trusting me to tell part of her story
If you have questions, corrections, or feedback, you can email me at andrew [at] xram [dot] net
If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can see the site’s source code directly
If you found value in this and want to support its continued development, you can buy me a coffee