Whereas that was reassuring and flattering, I countered. I still felt it was important that we prepared ourselves now for the future, because knowledge was empowerment. Just like we had prepared ourselves prior to getting our children by, for example attending parenting classes well before they came along, it would help if we prepared for the next stage in our lives.

"How do you propose to do that? For instance, how can you prepare yourself for the hot flushes that come with menopause? By sitting in a sauna to mimic them? Or how can I prepare myself now for loss of libido? At the moment, that is the least of my problems," he said.

"Is that a joke or are you serious?" I was a little irritated as I felt he was making light of a discussion that I didn’t think was a joke.

"No, I am serious. I just think we don’t have to get too serious about this now as we still have a few years to go before we are ripe candidates for menopause and mid-life," he responded.

"Not quite, you know. There have been cases where some people begun experiencing menopause long before the expected 40 years of age, and that is where we are now. So anytime now is a possibility".

We then agreed that perhaps talking to older couples who had already faced menopause or mid-life crisis could be a good starting point. Our dilemma though, surfaced from the fact that the few older couples we felt we could approach did not seem the kind of people who would readily talk.

My parents were one such example. I remember many years ago noticing that my mum suddenly began complaining that it was constantly hot. She would make us open all the windows no matter how cold we felt. At the time, we thought she was sick and I remember her getting very upset when my sisters and I suggested she sees a doctor.

My dad was no better either. Our questioning him, when mum was absent, about what he thought was the problem came a cropper as he told us they were looking into the matter and left it at that.

In my view, trying to ask my parents to talk about menopause or mid-life crisis seemed almost like a taboo area to venture in and my husband’s parents, he also felt would be of no use either.

"We probably need to do a bit of research on this in the next couple of months," I remarked, "and maybe get our friends to work with us on this as we will all be going through this at the same time in the very near future".

I will let you know of the outcome of our research once we are done.