to think about leaving DH due to infertility

[backoftheplane]

DH and I have been together nearly 11 years (for context, he's actually DP, we're not married but we've just been together for ages and that's how we refer to each other). We found out last year that we have no chance of conceiving naturally due to male factor infertility. I want to explore whether ICSI is an option. I found an excellent fertility doctor for DH a month ago and he still hasn't made an appointment. He said he wants to think about whether or not he even does. I'm devastated. I've posted previously about how depressed the whole situation is making me. Beyond saying he wants to "think about it" DH won't talk about it (he gets angry when I bring it up). He has said no to donor sperm (which I tend to feel the same way about). I just want him to go get a scan. I want to know that we did everything we could. He says he definitely wouldn't have an operation - even the small one needed if ICSI were to be an option. I'm not coping, and I'm considering leaving – but this also feels unfair to DH. When I brought it up again today he snapped that he wouldn't put pressure on me if the situation were reversed.

I've been looking at a lot of previous MN posts about this. It seems that when women who are infertile post about their male partners leaving because of infertility, the overwhelming advice is that the male partner is awful, should be prioritising the female partner with infertility issues and standing by them etc.

When it's the opposite way (my situation) – a woman who is with a male partner with male factor infertility, the overwhelming advice is to leave because otherwise the female partner will regret not having children.

I'm so torn. I know it's not necessarily fair to leave because of something outside of DH's control – but I do feel like it is within his control to explore our options, and he is not doing this. And, even if I do leave where does that leave me? I'm not automatically just going to have children. I'm 38. I will be grieving the end of a decade-long relationship, trying to set up my whole life again, and I'm sure that partners that you want to have children with don't just suddenly appear. So instead of being childless and in a relationship, I would be childless and single. I'm not interested in 'going it alone' either – I simply don't have the support network or financial security on my own.

I just think about the future and feel so sad and lonely. I also live on the other side of the world to all my family and good friends, and I just don't know where to turn.

Please note, I am NOT looking for suggestions like adoption, donor sperm, lifestyle changes etc... I have spent 6 months looking into this and I already know what my options are and what would / wouldn't work for us.

People here have such unsympathetic attitude. Cannot believe these women are raising next generation of our society.

@Mari9999 agreed. Op should leave dp and let him have a chance to be in a relationship where he is valued.
Op's dp was really naive to buy a place in her name.

The lack of compassion is amazing. Some people can only see male infertility inasmuch it affects the woman.

I am so sorry to hear what you and your DP are going through. You have my every sympathy. I went through 13 years of infertility before I had my two DS following IVF. It is an incredibly stressful, lonely and sad time - like you're grieving all the time.

It is very difficult for you that your partner doesn’t want to discuss how to move forward. The awful thing is that his sadness and presumably grief and hurt are impacting on both of you. You are 38 years old and realistically you have only a short window to conceive a biological child. I guess you have a number of options, none of them easy:

ICSI

Is ICSI an option with no sperm? It would be costly and perhaps has a low chance of success but as you say it would be good to investigate it as a successful outcome would be what you both want.

ADOPTION

DONOR SPERM

If ICSI isn’t an option but you want to be parents with your partner donor sperm would be a way for you both to become parents and have a child together without going through adoption which is very stressful and can take years. It would also avoid the costliness of ICSI with its low chance of success

CHILDLESSNESS - accepting that if you stay with your partner that you could remain childless but unless you discuss this together you are shoring up problems for the future :-(

If you decided to separate from your partner and go it alone you could try for a child

with donor sperm,

a friend,

a stranger

or hope you can meet and settle down with someone very quickly.

You are not the first person to consider separation from a partner because s/he doesn’t want to have a child or go through fertility / donor treatment. It must be especially hard for you that your partner doesn’t want to talk about the situation and your options. I hope that he realises that it would help him and you to start talking, painful though it is.

Something that helped me a lot was a support group/forum online attended by women throughout the world going through similar situations. I got armed with loads of information and it helped me navigate the medical side of things and make decisions. It was also a tremendous source of support in a situation where you really feel alone.

I wish you and your DP all the very best. I hope that he will try and talk to you so that you can think of ways to navigate this together.

He says he definitely wouldn't have an operation - even the small one needed if ICSI were to be an option

And he won't have counselling...

I think you might be right to consider you options. It just sounds as though he doesn't want a child but doesn't know how to tell you.

I think the crux of this is his refusal to even consider a scan, when he can see your turmoil.
A scan would settle things. It would give you both the information to consider what to do next. Either an op is possible, or it is not.
Leaving it in this murky uncertainty is more upsetting I think.
If the op is not possible you could move forward with that. Or if it is, you would have info about the procedure, the likely chances of success and if it would be too much for him or not.
But he's effectively left you in Limbo without seeming to consider what you are supposed to do with that. Its leaving you guessing about possibilities when a simple scan could provide you both with so much information. It's not the same as forcing him to go down the IV route. Its denying you the chance to even think about it and I think that is very selfish.

I think your husband is feeling disappointed deep down and sounds like he may need a bit of time to get his head around it. I would just give him a bit of time. Not everyone is able to just snap into action and get on with the next plan. He’s possibly feeling overwhelmed. If you truly love this man don’t contemplate leaving him. Give him a bit of time and space. Possibly consider counselling.

@Mumof3confused we have recently spoken and understanding a bit more about the reasons for the infertility, I can see where he is coming from (I won't say anything more about this as it is his story, not mine). There is a very, very, incredibly small chance that any kind of treatment would work for us. But I'm thankful that we are now speaking. I did contact Jonathan Ramsay, but unfortunately he is unwell and not accepting any patients currently. My partner has said that he will still go and see the specialist who Jonathan Ramsay's team recommended, but it's very unlikely to result in any treatment options.

@ilikepinknblue I'm not sure what your issue is – but you seem to have taken great liberty with interpreting my OP and all subsequent posts... At no point did I say I was staying with my partner because of financial security. I said I would not use donor sperm and bring a child into the world on my own if I left because my financial situation wouldn't support myself and a child. I would be renting a studio or very small one bedroom apartment in London.

It was also established fairly early on in the thread that my actual issue is not with infertility as such but with my partner not talking to me about it, not engaging with me about something that is so important to both of our futures, and getting angry at me etc. Choosing not to explore our options to see if there are any, and infertility are two separate issues. I perhaps worded my OP badly, but I am really struggling at the moment.

You also seem to have taken issue with any potential child I have being an only child, not having any cousins, and having a potential medical issue - I'm not sure where any of this comes from and none of it is relevant to my OP.

This is very sad and very difficult. I was in a similar situation at your age in that there was zero chance of kids with DH and I did not have the financial security or support network to go it alone. Plus I wanted kids as part of a stable nuclear family. My options were a) stay with DH no kids b) try to meet someone else and have kids c) go back to my hometown and try to get pregnant by a random and rely on my hard-up mum for help.
I chose option a. I am now 60. So how has it turned out? I still wish we had kids but we’ve had a very good life so far.
My mental health was terrible at first coming to terms with it all but I got there. I’ve had a fabulous career which wouldn’t have been the case with kids I don’t think - I know some women do, but I’m not superwoman and I doubt I could have done both! Our relationship is very close and I don’t resent DH as many have suggested. I love him and can’t imagine life without him. (Of course the prospect of widowhood is even worse without children, as we are well aware as he had cancer a few years ago). Financially we are much better off than we would have been - this doesn’t matter in the deep scheme of things of course but it’s nice to have money and we’re both from poor backgrounds so we appreciate it. I’ve also been able to devote more time to my own parents who are still going. I’ve also been able to support my niece emotionally and financially and have a lovely relationship with her little boy. Yes, I do wish I had kids and now grandkids but we’ve made a good life together anyway. I hope we have some golden years together when I retire - he has already retired after his illness - with holidays abroad, long walks in the countryside and evenings in front of the log burner. There is no right or wrong decision here. You have to take a decision in good faith then work at it to make it a right one. Good luck.

Wondering if some support from men who have been through this might help? Shaun Greenaway is a fertility advocate for men, he has been through this himself, his website is

https://www.knackeredknackers.com

(yes I know it’s a bit of a funny name!)
I hope he gets some support that might help him take some steps towards treatment. (And I know you said you don’t want to consider donor sperm, but I’m a mum via donor egg and my husband and I couldn’t love our daughter more if we tried, she is the child we were always meant to have and I would never change her for the world.)

@ilikepinknblue are we even reading the same thread?! You are going off on some random tangents!

I have known women who have wanted children but decided that they didn’t want fertility treatment as they didn’t think they could cope with it emotionally. Instead it was easier to come to terms with not being a parent. It could be that he just doesn’t want any further tests/interventions incase it fails. I don’t think you can expect him have any procedure he doesn’t want to.
You need to discuss this with him and consider all options, including not having children at all.

I've only read the first 5 pages here, but thought i would share my experience.

25 years ago i was in the same situation as your husband. After trying for some time, losing pregnancies, and going through various tests and investigations, i was told it would be very difficult for me to get pregnant as my eggs were of poor quality and even if i did, the chances of me carrying a viable pregnancy were slim. We were advised to consider adoption.

My husband was beside himself. He wanted 'his' biological child and nothing else would suffice. He felt sure that if i only cooperated and did X or tried treatment Y which he had read about, then this would all be fine....i felt like an utter failure and as though the only thing that mattered to him was manufacturing his baby.

We didn't last. When i overheard him telling his parents that there wouldn't be any grandkids because i 'couldn't be bothered to try', my heart just broke. I realised we weren't on the same team anymore...

I guess i just want to say that maybe he is still processing, and grieving the life he thought he was going to have. He clearly isn't comfortable undergoing these tests and procedures right now, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's being deliberately difficult or stringing you along. Just that he doesn't want this as badly as you do, right now. He is allowed to be upset about this too.

(In my case, and looking back, i might have come around to trying some options if I'd been allowed time to come to terms with things. In time I remarried a few years later to a guy who was willing to look into adoption with me, and ended up having 2 'surprise' kids perfectly naturally. Ex husband also remarried but never had kids. Go figure.)

It's really devastating for you

Women go through all sorts to have a baby and if icsi is viable, the process is pretty tough on you . Before we even get to pregnancy and birth

And yet poor man cannot face a scan or tiny op

Get a sperm donor, problem solved.

I'd leave personally. He doesn't seem to want children as much as you do. I'll bet if he went for scans and was pro active, you'd be more inclined to stay. I say this as my ex did go through hoops to have our children. But ultimately you want different things as you'll always resent him for not trying

I think also you have to be an incredibly tight unit to get through fertility treatment and it doesnt sound like you are

I rarely comment on threads here but felt like contributing here.
How was your relationship with DH before the finding of male factor infertility? Was he also keen to conceive before ?
You mention your MH is poor at current, you have no much support locally where you are & financially difficult for you to raise a child on your own etc- if you were to leave your long term DH due to him declining investigations (at the end of the day- his body, his choice) how do you think it will impact your Mental health? Will you have support where you are at present (you mention away from family etc) if you leave him or will this involve moving back to where your family is? How do you feel about these decisions?
I totally understand you long to have a biological child & have ruled out other options etc. Did DH want a biological child? Does he normally open up about his emotions? You mention he gets angry- could that be he hasn’t quite processed the information etc or his way of deal with a possibly life changing diagnosis for him (especially if he was keen to have a biological child) is to ignore it than face it? Is that his “coping mechanism”?
At the end of the day only you can decide what to do- but weigh pros & cons of what is it that you hope to achieve by leaving DH of 11years & how likely is it that you can have what you desire after you leave him. How important is this relationship for you Vs how important is it for you to have a biological child? And more importantly if you were to accept his decision not to have further investigations & choose to carry on with the relationship, would your relationship go back to what it was before the infertility diagnosis? (Which was hopefully a good healthy one which made you happy)

Not the same but I divorced at 35 and basically felt like my chance to have a family was over. People will say that’s ridiculous, but I was told my chance of having a child over 35 was incredibly slim and being newly divorced is not exactly attractive to men. Starting dating, and most men interested in me were older and already had kids or much younger and not interested in settling down. But I kept going and at 38 I met my husband. At 39 I was pregnant (naturally). Since then I have met so many women who had babies at your age or older.
This is not my point though. My point is this — can you live the rest of your time with your DP knowing you gave up your chance to have a kid? If so, then do it. No one is judging you for staying with someone you love. You still have a chance though if you really want it, to meet someone else and have a child. If you don’t meet someone and have a kid, I don’t think you’ll be worse off. You are making a lot of assumptions that you just won’t meet anyone or have another chance etc etc.

If he made an effort and you still couldn’t have any children would you stay with him? That seems to be the crux of it.

They’ve only recently started TTC and that’s when they found out about the lack of sperm Hopless