Leaving Work During Perimenopause: How to Decide, Prepare, and Find Your Way Back

When Perimenopause and Work Feel Incompatible

For some women, perimenopause and the demands of their work reach a point that feels genuinely incompatible. This is not a failure of character or resilience. When severe symptoms, poor sleep, cognitive impairment, and chronic fatigue accumulate over months, continuing to perform in a demanding role can become genuinely unsustainable, not just difficult.

Research supports what many women already know from experience. Studies in the UK and Australia have found that significant proportions of women in perimenopause have reduced their hours, declined promotions, or left their jobs entirely because of symptoms. The UK's Menopause and the Workplace report found that one in ten women has left a job because of perimenopause, and many more have considered it. These numbers represent real people making hard decisions under hard circumstances.

The question for many women is not whether leaving is a failure but whether it is the right decision for them, at this time, given their specific situation. And that question deserves a careful answer, not a reactive one made at the peak of a bad week, and not a self-sacrificial one made because asking for help feels impossible.

The Decision: Making It with Your Eyes Open

The most important thing about the decision to leave work during perimenopause is to not make it in the fog. Brain fog, severe fatigue, depression, and the emotional volatility that hormonal fluctuation can bring are all conditions that distort judgment, particularly about permanent decisions. A week of particularly severe symptoms is not a reliable basis for a resignation that will affect your financial security, your professional identity, and your future options.

Before making the decision, it is worth asking whether every available option has genuinely been tried. Have you seen a doctor about your symptoms and explored treatment options, including hormone therapy and non-hormonal approaches? Have you requested specific workplace accommodations, even modest ones? Have you discussed flexible working, reduced hours, or a temporary leave of absence with your employer? Have you identified whether the work itself is the problem or whether the symptoms, if better managed, would make the work tolerable again?

None of these questions are meant to talk you out of leaving if leaving is genuinely right for you. They are meant to ensure that the decision is made fully informed, so that if you do leave, you have done so deliberately and with a clear understanding of what you are trading and what you are gaining.

Distinguishing Perimenopause Burnout from the Right Time to Leave

There is a real distinction between leaving work because perimenopause symptoms have made it impossible to continue, and leaving work because perimenopause has clarified that this particular role, organization, or career direction was not where you wanted to be anyway. Both are valid, but they point toward different next steps.

If the problem is primarily symptoms, the calculus changes if those symptoms are better treated. Many women who felt they could not continue in their roles describe a significant shift after starting hormone therapy or another effective treatment, sometimes within weeks. If you have not yet tried treatment, or if your current treatment is not working, it is worth pursuing that before making a structural change to your working life.

If perimenopause has functioned as a clarity catalyst and you have realized that you want something different from your work, something with different hours, different demands, different values alignment, or a different industry entirely, that is a different kind of decision. It is not a crisis decision. It is a life direction decision that happens to have been catalyzed by a health transition. Those decisions benefit from deliberate planning rather than immediate action.

Financial Preparation If You Decide to Leave

If you have decided that leaving is the right choice, the financial preparation that precedes your departure matters enormously. The difference between a planned exit and a reactive resignation is primarily financial: planned exits happen when you have a runway, reactive ones do not.

The minimum financial preparation before leaving employment is knowing exactly what you have: what you will receive as severance or accrued leave if you resign or negotiate an exit, what your monthly essential expenses are, how much you have in savings, and how long that will sustain you without income. Running these numbers clearly, ideally with the help of a financial advisor or a trusted person who can review them with you, gives you a realistic picture of what you can actually afford.

If you have a pension, understanding what happens to your employer contributions when you leave, and what options you have for continuing contributions independently, matters for your longer-term financial security. If you have employer-provided health insurance, understanding how you will cover healthcare after leaving, particularly important given perimenopause treatment costs, needs to be part of the plan before you hand in your notice. These are not reasons not to leave. They are things that a clear-headed departure plan addresses in advance.

Leaves of Absence as an Alternative to Resignation

Before resigning, it is worth understanding whether a leave of absence, either paid or unpaid, is available to you. In many organizations and jurisdictions, medical leave is a formal right rather than a discretionary benefit, and a period of medically supported leave gives you time to stabilize your symptoms, recover from burnout, and make a clearer decision about whether and how to return, without permanently closing the door.

In some countries, long-term sick leave supported by a doctor's note is available for mental health and physical health conditions, including those caused by perimenopause. This leave protects your employment status and, in many cases, your benefits, while giving you the space you need. It is not a perfect solution, since returning after a long absence has its own challenges, but it is a better option than resignation for women who are not yet sure what they want long-term.

A sabbatical, where your employer offers one, is another option worth exploring. Some organizations have formal sabbatical policies for employees who have reached a certain tenure, and this kind of structured career break preserves your return path much more cleanly than a resignation does.

The Identity Dimension of Leaving

For many women, particularly those whose professional identity has been central to how they define themselves over the course of a long career, leaving work is not just a financial or logistical change. It is an identity shift of considerable significance. Work provides structure, social connection, a sense of purpose, and a framework of competence and contribution that does not automatically transfer to a life without it.

Perimenopause, which already involves significant identity disruption as the body changes and the cultural markers of youth recede, can make this transition particularly complex. You may be leaving a role that was a major part of who you were, at a moment when you are also navigating other questions about identity and what this chapter of life means.

If you leave work during perimenopause, building structure deliberately into your days matters more than it might seem in advance. The structure that work provides, the rhythm of it, the obligations, the social contact, the feedback that you are contributing something, needs to be replaced consciously or it leaves a vacuum that low mood and purposelessness can fill. That is not a reason to stay in work that is genuinely harming you. It is a reason to plan for life outside of it with the same intentionality you would bring to any other major life transition.

Returning to the Workforce After a Perimenopause Break

The employment gap that perimenopause causes, whether a few months or a few years, is one that many women worry will permanently damage their professional standing. This concern is understandable, but the reality is more nuanced and more hopeful than the fear suggests.

Career breaks for health reasons, caregiving, or personal transition are increasingly common and increasingly normalized, particularly for women in midlife. Many employers, especially in sectors that depend heavily on experienced talent, have active returnship programs designed to bring people back into the workforce after a gap. These programs often provide onboarding support, reduced initial hours, and mentoring that makes the transition back more manageable.

When returning, being prepared to address the gap in a way that is honest without being overly detailed is useful. Framing the break as a period during which you managed a health issue, and which has now resolved or is well-managed, is accurate and sufficient for most conversations. You do not need to disclose that it was perimenopause specifically. What matters to most employers is that you are now ready, capable, and clear about what you want to do.

Reinvention as a Possibility

Not every woman who leaves the workforce during perimenopause returns to the same kind of work she left. For some, the break becomes a genuine opportunity for reflection and, eventually, reinvention. Whether that means a different industry, a different role type, freelance or consulting work, starting a business, or returning to education, the pause can create conditions for a different kind of professional chapter.

This does not happen automatically or without effort. Reinvention requires the energy and clarity to think about what you actually want, which is often hard to access during the acute phase of severe perimenopause symptoms. But as symptoms are better managed, whether through treatment, lifestyle changes, or simply the natural progression through the transition, many women find that the clarity that perimenopause began to provide becomes more accessible.

PeriPlan's tracking features can support this phase by helping you understand your own patterns well enough to plan purposefully around them. Knowing your energy rhythms, your cognitive high points, and your symptom variability makes it easier to identify when you are ready to return to work, and what kind of work matches your actual current capacity rather than a version of yourself from before the transition.

You Are Not Alone in This

If you have left work or are considering it because of perimenopause, one of the most important things to hold onto is that you are far from alone. The silence around this topic has made it feel more isolating than it is. Thousands of women make this decision every year, and many of them do so without anyone around them knowing the real reason.

Connecting with others who have been through this, whether through online communities, local health groups, or simply honest conversations with peers, can change the experience significantly. Having a community of people who understand what perimenopause actually involves, and who have navigated the same professional disruptions, provides perspective, practical ideas, and the normalization that comes from knowing you are not unusual.

The decision to leave work is significant. The ability to make it thoughtfully, with support and good information, rather than in crisis and isolation, is something that is increasingly possible as the conversation around perimenopause becomes more honest and more public. You deserve to make this decision from a position of knowledge, not shame.

Medical Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. If perimenopause symptoms are significantly affecting your ability to work, please consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any major career decisions. Treatment options exist that may significantly change the picture. For employment rights and financial planning specific to your situation, please consult the appropriate qualified professionals.