What would I do if my husband couldn't be happy without having children?
Someone recently asked me what I, an infertile woman, would do if my husband couldn't be happy without having children.
My husband and I would never be in the position where we would be having that conversation because our relationship and personal satisfaction in life doesn't rest upon us being able to conceive. His mother had to receive fertility treatments to even bring him into this world, so he knows better than that. He also doesn't expect me to be responsible for his feelings and emotions. But if through some cartoonish series of events he was hypothetically coming to me with such a dilemma, there is only one thing I could say at that point.
"That sounds like a You problem."
It is not my job to make my husband happy. It is not the job of me and my body parts, such as they function, to fulfill every expectation he has in life.
He's an adult who is responsible for his own feelings, emotions, disappointments, and the redirections we each get handed by life. He still has to wake up and do those things for himself every day if we never end up having any children.
If I can wake up every day and confront the reality of what infertility means for my life, my health, and my ongoing happiness, so can he.
It is not my responsibility to shield him from the effects and consequences of the health conditions I've had for all of my life.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I was supposed to answer this question. Be okay with him divorcing me? Allowing him to take a mistress? Stealing a baby from the Walmart parking lot?
What was I supposed to say?
You are not entitled to have children!
Your spouse is not responsible for giving them to you. And if you find yourself in a marriage where you haven't gotten your way on children because of infertility, let me tell you a secret:
Your spouse still has it worse than you.
Infertility is hard for spouses with healthy fertility. No one is disputing that.
It's still harder for the one experiencing the infertility, especially when the infertility is related to a chronic illness.
Feel your pain. Feel your loss. Feel whatever you need to feel. But be half as strong as your spouse is by not taking that pain out on them.
Do not make this devastating situation any worse by making it all about you.
