Happy Whiny Wednesday! I hope you’re doing okay today. If not, this is the place to get it off your chest.
This week we turn to spotlight on the men in our lives and discuss the topic of:
Spouses or partners who aren’t dealing or healing
If you have one of these, we’d like to hear to about it.
Ha! That’s a ‘hot topic’ for me! My husband let me know in no uncertain terms about a month after we married that he didn’t want any more children. That was four years ago and, although I have tried to cope with it, and made positive steps in finding places like this (which has saved my life!), I increasingly realise I am not doing well. My husband has just become a grandfather for the first time and I have never seen him so happy. I try to be ‘happy for him’ but have to admit that I find it intensely painful. Especially as it doesn’t occur to him on any level to think about how this might be affecting me. It is now too late for me to have children of my own and while I am trying to find ways to cope with the grief and find some level of acceptance, trying to cope with my husband being in a completely different place in his life makes me wonder how our relationship will survive.
This is truly difficult – its very different for your husband because he has children and now a grandchild. I am so sorry, this must be so painful. I think you can only try talking to him and letting him know how you feel. He doesn’t seem to be seeing this from your point of view. I hope he listens or perhaps you can speak to a counsellor. My situation is very different in that my husband wanted children but we discovered early on that I had endometriosis and that we would need to pursue IVF, we did this for so long without any success. The journey ended finally last month because I am now too old (35 with your own eggs (at our UK clinic) and 48 with donor eggs. I was 48 last month. Throughout our 17 year TTC and 7 IVFs we didn’t seem to be dealing with it in the same way though. The only thing that saved our relationship was talking to a counsellor – my husband was reluctant but he went to one session (more recently) and I think we both were then able to be more honest with each other – I continued with the counselling on my own for several months – I think I would still be seeing her now but our surgery closed and I have found coming to this site very helpful, although I really think it helps to speak to someone who listens to you and never judges how you feel. Thinking of you
My husbands’ optimism,even in the face of the fact that we won’t be having children,breaks my heart every month to see how sad he gets when I’m not pregnant.He doesn’t seem to want to accept that it won’t happen.
My husband once said to me, “you don’t understand, I’m a man. If we don’t want to think about something, we don’t.”
Ultimately, I think the fact that I faced my grief and dealt with it – openly and with lots of online support – meant that I came to terms with my life without baby sooner than he did. Outwardly he seemed fine, but every so often he’d say something that showed me how he felt, and I noticed he withdrew from playing with children. Thankfully, he’s gone back to that, and is again the fantastic uncle he was before infertility.
Bitterness overtake me if I think, talk or write about this, so I won’t, but my story is very similar to M2L’s story.
There’s love and there’s hate, all mixed up in this relationship.
Hello Lin, I know how you feel. Good to hear from you. Take care.
Hi, I think I know how you feel to, because I recognised so much when I read your post.
Yes, to be gentle to oneself is the only way to get away from bitterness, I think, so I do my best, and so you also take care!