How Periods Impact Your Marriage

On the journey of marriage, there are many critical questions to ask about our life goals, spiritual ambitions, compatibility, personality, and willingness to love and grow with our current or future spouse. There are many creative questionnaires, activities, and therapies that help couples discern if they are a healthy match. But, I’ve rarely heard menstrual health brought up in pre-marital planning and it definitely is worth discussion.

Menstruation is “decreed for the daughters of Adam”. By Allah’s grace, we are gifted wombs, the only organ that shares in Allah’s name, Ar-Raḥmān and Ar-Raḥīm. As keepers of the womb, we have a cyclical nature that not only rises and sets like the sun, but also wanes and waxes like the moon. Our dynamic bodies will experience shifting hormonal phases that not only determine if we can have a period or not, but also adjust our entire physiology, from brain focus to gut health, throughout our menstrual cycle.

Take as an example: your most fertile self. When we approach ovulation, our body is primed for communication and connection. This literally means that our verbal skills are at their peak, our skin and hair both glow and grow more radiantly, rising estrogen levels enhance our ability to empathize and feel socially connected to others, and we are generally the most attractive version of ourselves in every sense of the word.  ‘Ovulatory you’ might be very different from ‘luteal you’ who might not be as glowy and confident as she was weeks prior.  

For some, the luteal phase can be unpleasant with shifting moods, cravings, and less tolerance for stress. “Luteal you” is still you, but the part of you that needs more support as your body contends with lower resting blood sugar and higher resting cortisol levels.  When we don’t practice more intentional self-care at this time, like eating blood sugar stabilizing meals or taking more time to rest, we might not feel at our best. This can be even more rocky for women who regularly experience PMS (premenstrual syndrome) or PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder).  

It’s important that your partner in life knows how to partner with you and your menstrual cycle and here’s why.

Your menstrual cycle is your fifth vital sign and barometer of your health

Your period impacts so much more than if you’re pregnant or not. Your moods, mental focus, digestion, metabolism, libido, and energy are all impacted by your menstrual cycle. It can be confusing when you and your husband can’t understand how your interests or tolerances change over the course of the month. By tracking where you are in your menstrual cycle, you can both plan around when and how your energy, physical strength, social interests, need for solitude, or desire for spontaneity ebbs and flows.

Your menstrual problems become his too

Crippled in pain, passing golf ball-sized clots, vomiting, passing out, or continuous bleeding are not only yours to endure.  A compassionate partner wants to understand what’s happening to you, what you need, and how to support. If you know that your shared lifestyle habits are contributing to your monthly menstrual drama, talking about them together, not ignoring them, will help you both be proactive in aligning eating, sleeping, and self-care habits that are most supportive of a healthy period.  If your husband knows how much fried foods and late nights contribute to inflammation and period pain, he might think more creatively about how you can have quality time together that you won’t pay for at the end of the month.

Your sexual health is impacted by your menstrual health

Your interest, availability, and experience of marital intimacy is impacted by your hormones. The female body is not like a machine that is turned on with a switch. More accurately, the female body is like a switchboard with varying levels of influences that impact how intimacy plays out. If we feel rested, safe, and supported enough in our health and relationship, we should notice a rise in libido, by design, at the times we are most fertile or aroused. Hormone levels impact lubrication and comfort, while challenges like fibroids, endometriosis, and recurring infections can make intercourse uncomfortable and painful.

Fertility is impacted by menstrual health

With rising fertility challenges faced globally, we might feel like infertility is a mystery that won’t be unveiled until we start trying to conceive. However, fertility is reflected in our monthly menstrual cycle every month. True infertility, also known as involuntary childlessness, is statistically rare.  However, secondary infertility is much more common and is linked to modern diets, lifestyle habits, chemical exposure, environmental pollutants, etc. Knowing how to track the fertility indicators of your menstrual cycle will help you make fertility-friendly choices way before you’re ready to start family planning.

The menstrual cycle can help you better understand yourself

Body literacy and self-awareness are timeless gifts that will benefit any and all of your relationships.  Your ability to observe what’s happening in your body without judgment, understand what your body needs, and respond accordingly will significantly influence all aspects of your life. Many times we see our body as a problem to be fixed or our symptoms as a story about ourselves that is not always true. We call ourselves lazy, unproductive, or greedy instead of getting curious about what we’re experiencing and learning how to lovingly respond.  When you can practice self-care and healthy boundaries rooted in the truth of your physiology, you can teach those who love you how exactly you need to be loved.

This can look like: 

• “Habibi, I know you want to host guests this weekend, but my period is about to start.  Let’s schedule that two weeks later when I’m ovulating and have more energy and drive to socialize.”  
• “Love, I know you have a sweet tooth, but I don’t want sugary foods around the house when I’m prone to my premenstrual cravings.  Let’s make some dates dipped in dark chocolate or avocado mousse instead for our snack this week.”  
• “Mi amor, I’d really appreciate some time and space to rest on the first few days of my period, so my bleeding is not as heavy and doesn’t last as long.”

As a Womb Wellness Educator and Author, my life’s work is helping girls and women experience peaceful periods and hormonal harmony. It is such an honor to celebrate milestones together like their first pain-free period, first positive pregnancy test, or the news of no longer needing surgical intervention. Added to this is the joy I feel when husbands notice the beautiful changes in their beloved’s menstrual cycle too.  They’ve reported observations like “you’re no longer a dragon complaining about sore boobs before your period”; “you’re not as sick as you usually are before your period this month”; and “you’re generally so much more positive about your period than before”.  

For the husbands reading this, depending on your cultural upbringing, what I share here may sound overwhelming. If you grew up in a household where the sight of sanitary pads was forbidden and your mother or sisters pretended to pray and fast while menstruating, you might feel out of place stepping into the world of menstrual cycles.  However, our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was not too shy to speak about al-haydh, celebrate a girl’s first period, or comfort his wives with tenderness and care during their time of the month.  Knowing your wife’s menstrual cycle is a way to cultivate a better understanding of her needs and deepen your connection with one another.  And if you have a daughter, her self-esteem and confidence are positively impacted when she doesn’t have to hide her period from you. The women in your life benefit from your awareness, concern, and care.

As a wife of almost 20 years and mother of 14 years, the more I understand and care for my menstrual cycle, the better equipped I am to care for myself, my husband, family, and community. Too many of us have stumbled for decades not really understanding our periods or why we have them. We thought that there was nothing we could do about period pain, irregular bleeding, recurring infections, or difficulty conceiving.  But, al hamdu lillah, we know so much more now than we did before and the next generation of wives and mothers will be so much better equipped than we were.  

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a Womb Health Checklist: 7 Signs of a Healthy and Fertile Womb, so you can assess where you’re at and start cultivating a healthy relationship with your womb.

Key Terms

Cortisol: a hormone released by the adrenal glands to respond to stress

Endometriosis: a painful condition in which tissue akin to the uterine lining grows outside of the uterus

Estrogen: a female hormone that primarily drives reproduction and sexual development

Fibroids: benign growths inside the uterus

Luteal Phase: the phase of the menstrual cycle that follows ovulation and continues until menstruation

Ovulation: release of a mature egg from the ovaries