‘Dating in the menopause men told me I was too fat and I struggled to feel sexy while bleeding – now I’ve found love’

A mother-of-two has spoken openly about dating during menopause, including struggling to feel “sexy” amid intermittent bleeding and men telling her she was “too fat” after she put on a stone in weight.

Genevieve Zawada, 53, re-entered the dating scene post-divorce aged 47 for four years – an experience which has now helped inform her 30-year career as a professional relationship expert and encouraged her to launch a podcast about the courtship experiences of women over the age of 40.

Around the same time, Genevieve started dating again, she also started going through menopause, saying she found her changing body and intermittent bleeding “challenging” when it came to engaging in new sexual relationships.

The tribulations Genevieve faced also included running away from a date after discovering he “looked about 20 years older” than photos he had sent her and “unsolicited attention from younger men” thanks to “the cougar phenomenon”.

However, once she tapped into a new-found level of confidence, Genevieve said she felt “empowered” for the first time in her life which greatly improved her dating experiences – leading her to find love in May 2022 when she met her 58-year-old partner Steve, who did not wish to share his surname, on a dating site.

The couple now live together in East Sussex and Genevieve’s candid sharing about her quest for love has provided her with a successful career.

Her biggest recommendation to other women going through menopause while engaging in new romances is to “put yourself first” – adding the complexities of dating in later life require women to be “emotionally resilient and confident”.

“I think the biggest challenge is a lot of men don’t want to date women in this age range and they feel dating women of a certain age comes with all sorts of problems, which is the biggest misconception actually,” Genevieve told PA Real Life.

“Men always try and date 10 years younger or much younger because they don’t want to date a menopausal woman.

“I think that’s been my biggest hurdle to overcome and sort of explain to people that I wasn’t in that space and in fact, I’m far more together and far more confident.”

Following her separation from the father of her children, Genevieve re-entered the dating scene at the age of 47 and around the same time she also started to go through menopause.

Describing the difficulties this posed, she said: “How can you have sex when you don’t know when you’re going to bleed?

“The bleeding would sometimes go on for weeks – it’s very draining and it stops you feeling sexy.

“I always seemed to be waiting for a period and that was difficult, not knowing when it was coming.”

Genevieve also became aware of feeling “heavier” and she had “a few knocks” to her confidence following comments made by some of the men she dated about her weight.

“I couldn’t lose weight and I put on a stone which was really challenging and really nasty,” she said.

“When I first started dating and I went on a couple of dates, some of the guys said to me ‘You’re really lovely but you’re just too fat for me’… I went from a size 10 to a size 12 – that knocked me.”

Genevieve said she would meet men organically and through online dating sites, but found the modern world of courtship to be very different from when she was last in it.

“One of the very first dates I ever went on went horribly wrong… he looked about 20 years older, he had literally no hair and I didn’t even think it was him when he said hello,” she said.

“The photos he sent me must have been about 20 years old and he actually admitted he used photos which were from a long, long time ago.

“I thought anyone that starts off with this deception is not right for me and I literally said ‘I need to go now’ and ran out of there.

“Another time, I actually escaped out the back door of the pub because it was like I was going out on a date with his father.

“He lied about his age, everything he said and did was a lie and within 10 minutes of being there, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and left out a door to the side.”

Genevieve also found her age would pose a few interesting challenges to the kinds of men she would attract, saying she was “batting off the younger guys” while trying to meet someone within her age range.

“It was the unsolicited attention from younger men and the older guys wanting someone younger – it’s almost like you can’t win,” she said.

“Funnily enough, I used to get a lot more approaches by much younger men because they wanted to be with an older woman.

“I think the whole cougar phenomenon was going on, but that’s not what I wanted.”

Genevieve said her time on the dating scene improved after she tapped into a level of new-found confidence, leading her to “feeling empowered” for the first time in her life and allowing her to have a stronger sense of who she wanted to pursue.

“I think you get to a certain age in life, and I think it’s sort of that 45-plus, where you know what you want, you know who you are, you know what you’re not going to put up with anymore and you know yourself a lot better,” she said.

“For me personally, that was really significant, for the first time in my life I actually felt empowered as a woman to say yes or no to who I wanted to date and who I wanted to pursue things with.”

Genevieve met her now-partner Steve in May 2022.

“He had a really good energy and we laughed a lot – we just got on so well,” she said.

“We’ve spoken about marriage, we’ve spoken about our retirement plans, we moved in (together) within a year of knowing each other and we’ve been together 24/7 since.”

Genevieve has 30 years’ experience helping single people find “the right love” and a “healthy” relationship through coaching sessions, workshops, seminars and events.

She also shares her pearls of wisdom through her YouTube podcast, Fizz & Tell, inviting women who specialise in areas of sex, intimacy and menopause to discuss their experiences.

“It’s about everything that life throws at us and is expected of us as women over 40 because never, ever in our lives have we had to take on as much as we do today,” she said.

In her advice to other women dating during menopause, Genevieve said: “Put yourself first, if you’re not ready to do it, don’t force it.

“You have to be emotionally resilient and confident and really know who you are and what you want and what’s important to you, but without narrowing it so much that you miss some really wonderful people.”