To think not having children because you've never met the right person...

[user1485342611]

is just as sad for someone as not being able to have children due to infertility?

I have a friend in this position. She has always longed for a baby but just never met the right person to marry and start a family with. She's 45 now and recently had to have a hysterectomy.

I was saying to a mutual friend how sad I felt for her because she would have been a great mum. The friend just shrugged her shoulders and said 'well, that's life'.

Fair enough, you might think. But mutual friend has been terribly sympathetic to other friends who have been unable to conceive. So AIBU to think she should be equally sympathetic towards this friend?

I agree OP. Obviously everybody's situation is different but of course not being able to have children because you haven't met the right person can be just as heart-breaking as infertility. I struggled with infertility and miscarriages for many years (my husband and I now have an INCREDIBLE adopted daughter) but I always felt like I could talk to friends and family about it and everyone was supportive and understanding. I have single friends who I know would love to meet the right person and have a family but we very rarely talk about it. It's like the elephant in the room. I think loneliness is still a great social taboo whereas there a lot less stigma attached to infertility these days.

I think too many people put too much emphasis on finding the right person. Most people don't meet the right person and they either split up or decide to grin and bear it.

Neutrogena! You're assuming my standards are ludicrously high! They're not. You know nothing about me but you're persisting with this assumption. My standards are only as high as I would need them to be to have a happy relationship. No more. No higher. And I haven't found that.

Neutrogena, NameChanger -- while I sort of agree that some people might "settle" for a good-enough spouse, I really don't advise anyone to do that so they can have children. Don't forget the children will take after the "not good enough" parent too!

I have decided to go ahead with a donor for this very reason. The thought of getting to age 44 ( I am now 30) without a child is heartbreaking for me. There is nothing wrong with wanting marriage/relationship and kids, however if you desire for children is stronger go with it! You may meet a man at some point in the future, but once your eggs are gone they're gone :(

I'm glad you're sympathising with your friend op - and offering her support.

I agree that your friends issue is particularly relative to 'that's life' - people have children in the wrong relationships, in abusive relationships, can't have children, never met someone and wanted to...and a zillion other things.

At the risk of sounding horrifically trite, we're all different, it's great that you recognise your friends feelings and can support her...I just wouldn't discuss it with anyone else. Especially if they are not going to support her because they are focused on their own needs.

@honeyroar
I don't think it's quite as sad as someone who has made the decision to try for a baby and then gone throught the hope and let down each month of waiting and then not being pregnant. The feeling of "why can't I?" and feeling a bit of a failure. (Just taken from my own experiences).

I'm amazed this post went unnoticed. How incredibly narrow minded to think that your own situation is far sadder than someone else's, just because it happened to you.

Being single is not always a choice, and there are still feelings of 'why can't I' and 'being a failure' when everyone around you is seemingly perfectly capable of finding relationships and having children.

I'm disgusted at those that are making comparisons between infertility and not having children because of circumstances.

The end result is the same - where someone who is desperately wanting to have a child is unable to, and that is incredibly sad whatever the reason or circumstances.

so true Panda81, at least there IS hope in honeyroar's situation, hope and companionship!

I was single for a really long time. People say "oh just get a sperm donor" but how could I afford that? I wouldn't be able to afford to bring up a child alone, I'm self employed. Also come from quite a traditional background and I would have support but less than if I had a baby in a relationship.

I don't think people realise how much of a failure you feel when you are single for a long time through no choice of your own. Especially when you are watching your fertility slip away.

There is an element of choice here though. If you can;t have children for medical reasons, you don't have any choice in that. If you never had a baby because you "didn't find the right person", its not the same thing. We don't know why that happened. Maybe they didn't try. Maybe they dumped everyone as not being good enough. Maybe they had terrible taste in men. Maybe a lot of things....

This thread is on TES Personal!

Lowering one's standards with regards a mate would in my case have meant accepting one of the following (these are all people I have dated): someone abusive who wanted to restrict my access to friends and family, someone selfish whose idea of a serious relationship was just wanted to hang out one evening a week, someone manipulative who wanted to hurt me during sex. There was the man who wasn't all that into me and was just hanging around waiting for a better option. There was an alcoholic (he found that funny), someone who lived with his parents at the age of 42 and had no money. Someone who didn't wash. At all. Ever. Oh and someone who wanted to keep a room of his house just for himself to fill with mud and keep mudskippers in and who said he'd only ever love me if I proved to be his intellectual superior and changed his mind about something.

I am not picky. I love the idea of being in a relationship. One of the above dates would have married me. In fact three of them would have done so. I am not sorry I didn't settle. I will never settle. I have no qualms about dating someone with flaws but many are a step too far. Being on my own is very hard sometimes but I love my freedom.

It was your choice to date all those men though. Sorry but your standards sound quite low if that is your dating pool.

What's TES personal?

Found it

There are many sad situations which lead to someone being childless. It isn't a competition and it's devastating whatever your circumstances. That's all there is to it really isn't there?

I have M.E. I am part of a group of friends who have mostly been ill since adolescence or childhood (there are 250000 M.E sufferers in this country and I'm friends with people who are more severely affected/housebound)

Firstly we missed out on friendships and boyfriends in adolescence because of being stuck in bed. We all in some capacity missed out on our education.
We watched our school friends go of to uni, go to festivals, have first jobs and crappy relationships
We have watched the same people take their first steps in exciting careers and build good lives for themselves.
We've watched people couple up and get married (most of us still being stuck in our childhood bedrooms)
We've then watched as our friends have children.

I know a lot of my friends would agree with me that not being able to have children is the biggest sadness after years and years of so many other losses. To be honest it feels just about unbearable to deal with. There must be people with other chronic illnesses and disabilities who are the same.

Totally understandable because of how invisible we are but I think we get forgotten in discussions about not being able to have children. I'm still hoping research will progress enough that I will get a cure. I want a life and I still have time to have children. I know it's very unlikely any cure will come in time but I can hope. I live independently these days but only just and this is being written from bed, in my childhood home where I still spend maybe 50% of my life. Off to put an eyemask on and ear plugs in and spend the next 4 hours resting. My nephew is visiting. I haven't seen him in 6 months but I'm not well enough to go and play with him today.

It was your choice to date all those men though. Sorry but your standards sound quite low if that is your dating pool.

livelong Sorry but that made me chuckle!! It's my fault?! I didn't date any of them for any great length of time! Some of them we had one date. They were so awful I ran away as fast as I could. Reality is that these are the men who have been interested in me. I haven't had interest from better quality men unfortunately. I've been single most of my life precisely because I have higher standards than wanting to couple up with the above men.

Yeh that made me laugh too. Hello, {waves wand} I'll just conjure up a perfect man who turns out not to get bored in 7 weeks, or who turns out not to have an attachment disorder or who turns out to be as interesting as he seemed at first, or who turns out not to be in debt/drink too much/start losing interest. They all seem lovely to begin with. Until they're not. The idea that there is a vast pool of brilliant men out there if only you weren't so fucked up is hilarious and insulting!

dustmotesinthesun I hear you, I haven't had interest from better quality men either and so I am long term single because I won't settle for somebody who has a chaotic life or is unemployed or who treats me casually or who begins to bore me or.... wants a fwb and tries to change the goal posts

The only reason why I'm married now is because I made it a point to date people who knew I was looking (eventually) for a long term relationship - blind dates, online dating, matrimonial sites, through sports club socials etc. I'm wary as a person, not very trusting, and very overweight at the time, but even I found a pool of really nice men. The trick is to get back on the horse immediately after a failure and not to take rejection or a failed relationship personally. Resilience is the key here as it is in life really.

I agree with your friend, your other friend simply had priorities that were greater than having a child and yes "such is life". As distressing as the consequences of her choice was, for a long time she at least had one.

Your friend is entitled to only have wanted children in a particular circumstance but I'm not going to pretend that I won't make a distinction between not being physically able and being physically able. Some say addictio is a disease and the fallout from an addiction can be devastating but I would make the distinction between say alcoholism and MS.

Your friend isn't being unsympathetic but she's being honest by revealing that she sees a difference.

Personally, I think the

Sorrry if somebody else has put this point across but I don't think it's as simple as saying one had a choice and choose not to have a child simply because they hadn't met the right person and another didn't have the choice as even though they had met the right person they had fertility issues.

Both people in this case wanted to be a mother but, their circumstances, whether through their possible control or not (you don't know if the person waiting to find "the one" would be able to conceive or not) did result in them being a mother. Who is to say who should be more upset. Each persons circumstances are different just like their strength of desire is.

I'm about to hit 40 and although I told myself throughout my 20's and early 30's that I probably didn't want to have children part of this was through being told at an early(ish) age that the chances of me conceiving and then carrying full term were slim. Given that I "got on with my life" but I do regret not having that chance, whether that was through meeting the right person or not listening to the doctors is irrelevant. I feel how I feel about it and nobody has the right to say one persons upset is worse than another's it's about how that person feels.

I'm curious to know, from those that think being infertile is more devastating than not finding someone to have children with, what you think about a couple that are infertile that 'choose' not to have, or continue with, fertility treatment (even if there is a chance of success) or if one partner is actually fertile but 'chooses' to stay with their infertile partner?

Do these circumstances, where choice is involved, mean it's less heartbreaking for them? Because at the end of the day they still had choices to start or continue treatment, or find another partner, but 'chose' not to?

Is there some sort of 'choice' scale where the less choice you had the more heartbreaking it is for that person?

"Choice" or "lower your standards" FFS. That's even worse than "that's life"

My friend did not have priorities that were 'greater than having a child'. That was the thing she wanted most in life. But for her having a child came as part of a loving relationship.

If someone was upset because their wife/husband was infertile and they badly wanted a child would you take the view that they obviously prioritised staying with their partner over having a child, so it was their choice not to have children?