BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids frustrated by my friends' lack of understanding

my husband and i are CF, but not by choice. we tried for 8 years to have a baby before finally deciding it's just not God's plan. anyway, we had been told that with IVF, we had a 1% chance of it working because of my uterus (most IVF patients have a 50% - 60% chance). and my husband is actually against IVF anyway. i think it's because of his catholic upbringing, but i'm not really sure. he never wants to talk about it, so i learned to just avoid the subject.

anyway, one of my dear dear friends who did IVF to conceive her twins just doesn't get it. and the fact that she doesn't get it worries me that my other friends don't either. she told someone that i had been unable to have children, but that i didn't consider IVF an option. ummmm, excuse me? i would do it in a heartbeat if my husband agreed to it. even though i'm 99% sure it won't work, at least we did what we could. does that make sense? my heart wants to do it, but i'm tired of the stress on my marriage, so i'm not going to bully my husband into it. besides after 12 years of marriage, i think a child would really throw us for a loop.

anyway, it bugs me that my friend feels this way. was she just not listening to me? how do i gently drop the hint that i know what she said and that it bothers me? i love to talk to her, and i love to spend time with her and her girls. but i'm really hurt by this. i feel that i'm being judged unfairly. it makes me wonder if people think, "well, if she REALLY wanted kids, she would have mortgaged her house and destroyed her marriage to do IVF even though it wouldn't work."

and please don't suggest adoption. it's another issue where we got really really close, but my husband got cold feet. sometimes i wonder if he even really wanted kids to begin with. trying to conceive was his idea, but after several years, he was ready to move on, while i was still desperate to become a parent. he's very content with life, but i'm still struggling, and it hurts when other think i just didn't try hard enough or long enough.

rant's over. boy that felt good.

how about just confronting the friend who supposedly said this and telling her in front of the others what you just told us? The doctors do not think that even IVF will work and I want to give my marriage a break from the stress and leave it in God's hands? There, that was easy enough doncha think?

It doesn't really mattere "why" you did not try IVF. If the person is your friend, all that should matter is that you chose not to do it. She should support your decision. I would have tried IVF if we had the money to do so. It would take us literally YEARS to save up enough cash to do it unless we cut EVERY extra expense out of our lives. We are not willing to do that, or to wait years to even try IVF. So that has brought us to the decision to be childfree. If we wanted a child bad enough, we'd find a way. If your husband wanted it bad enough, he'd want to try it, no matter how slim the chance. You both have to be willing to travel every mile on the infertility trail, if one of you isn't willing to go farther(ivf,adoption), then that is the end of that journey. I know how painful it is, but try to find and embrace all the MANY positive aspects of life without children. That's what I'm doing and it helps tremendously.

I hate when friends pressure their idea's on you. My friends are great and wouldnt do that, but thats because I had to weed out the one's that did.

Just do what you want and what makes you feel right. She doesnt need you to explain it to her.

I have 2 friends who had terrible problems with infertility. One ended up having a child and the other has given up. In both cases, these friends told everyone they knew that they were doing the whole infertility treatment thing and how much it cost, and a blow-by-blow account of each month's progress, etc. It was a terrible process for both women beause it was a long, drawn out thing and everyone knew about it, thus, everybody kept asking them, "SO WHEN'S THE BABY COMING?" The friend who did not have a child is now looked upon as this sorry individual whose life is incomplete because she wanted a child so badly and everyone feels sorry for her and feels like they can't invite her to baby showers or birthday parties. To me, she's just my childfree friend. In my opinion, I don't think it's a good idea to tell people these things in case it doesn't work out. I certainly wouldn't want people looking at me as the person who was never able to have a child despite all the treatments!

i don't want people to look at me that way either. actually, i'm letting my friend's comment go because everyone has their own opinions.

we didn't plan on telling anyone about our struggles, but about 5 years into trying, it got hard to hide the sadness. esp because so many of my friends were getting pregnant and asking me when i was going to have kids or why didn't i have kids. then it sort of worked its way out into the open. and the missed work because of surgeries, specialist appts, procedures, etc. people figured it out. and unfortunately, people can't keep their mouths closed, so word spread like wildfire. people i NEVER talk to at work have made comments about it. even now after we have moved on and stopped trying (stopped about 2 years ago actually).

anyway, thanks for letting me vent. i needed to that night i guess. i worry that i'm going to do that too much. i understand most of the women on this forum are childfree by choice. and i'm trying to feel better about how things turned out. but somedays i do wish it had gone another way. or i could have made this decision on my own. that would have saved us a lot of hurt.

trying to live by the phrase "bloom where you're planted." it's kind of hard though.

thanks again. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

It sounds like there's another layer to this problem. You deserve to know and understand the reason your husband didn't want to go down this road. It may be something that's difficult for him to put into words, or he may resist talking about it, but it's important to your relationship that you understand him. It's also important to him that he be understood.

Please know that my comment is coming from my own experience. When you said you learned to "avoid the subject," that struck a familiar chord with me. I used to do that a lot with my husband. There's a long story there, but suffice it to say that he was very non-communicative, and resented me trying to get him to communicate. He would respond to me by shutting down further, so I learned to avoid certain types of discussions with him all together. I ended up feeling like I was walking on eggshells around him.

This cycle actually caused us to break up. We ultimately worked through it, and have wound up in a much healthier, happier state after having dealt with it. But I'd love to be able to help you avoid that heartbreak and drama if I can.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is it sounds like your irritation with your friend may have more to do with the fact that you didn't really decide against IVF, but your husband did, and you're not clear as to why. If that's true, then talk to him. Tell him that you want and need to understand his position. You never know -- his reasoning might just be so clear that you agree with it. You might also disagree with it completely, but now is the time to discover and deal with that, rather than when you're both 65.

If you don't address it, you could wind up harboring resentment against him that will just grow over the years.

I hope this came across right -- I'm really just trying to help!

Hi holles..I know exactly what you're going through. My husband and I can't have children and we lived through 3 adoptions that fell through. But you know what? We've never been happier. We have decided to focus on what we have rather than what we don't have. We are happy together and love trying new things..now we have the freedom to do that..plus we have two new puppies! Life is great now and we are living day by day and we're happy that the fates worked in our favor because we're meant to be child free! Plus, sadly I don't think we ever wanted a child for us, it was what was expected of us...what a bad life for a child!

<img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Yep, I agree. That's what I was trying to say. My husband and I exchange the same glances when we see children in restaurants or shopping centers. And we love the time we spend together. I run into people I went to high school with and I look 10 years younger than them (they have kids) what does that tell you? And my sister and her husband barely talk (they have 2 kids) There is all the argument you need.