To tell my friend she's being an awful wife

[MommaTonda]

Long story sorry. A very good friend of mine has a 3 year old and for the last 2 years has been trying to get pregnant again. She's had all the tests done and no issues. IVF will cost them £12k and only 20% chance of success due to her age. She is understandably really struggling emotionally and I'm there for her all the time. I listen, help with childcare, help her research IVF options etc.

Her husband is the most lovely, supportive, patient man and he loves her and their 3 year old dearly. He is also a friend of my husbands and they talk a lot.

Every month when they realise there is no pregnancy they are devastated. My friend then turns quite nasty towards her husband (shouting, blaming him for everything, throwing her dinner on the floor, swearing at him etc). This is not her normal personality and I'm massively worried.

I'm worried she's so obsessed with getting pregnant she's treating her husband like sh*t. She's also very short tempered with her 3 year old. As her friend I want to help. Her husband is at the end of his tether and has asked my husband and me to help.

When she is so emotionally unstable, am i being unreasonable to tell her straight? You're going to lose all chances of another baby if you continue treating your husband this way? Or should I just carry on supporting her but not say anything about how she's treating her man?

I really don't know how to help. I also want to avoid an "It's ok for you" scenario as I have 2 kids and got pregnant straight away so I literally don't know what she's going through 1st hand. But I can see it's bl*ody hard and I need to help her!

@Blossombathing living in a house where your partner keeps breaking plates, swearing, throwing things and blaming you for not having children is FUCKING ABUSING.

If my husband did that to me, I would leave immediately.

You have no fucking clue what you are talking about but you seem determined to prove that men are shit.

No advice but you sound like such a lovely friend.

Your friend is extremely abusive and I would struggle to remain friends with her.

You should absolutely call her out in it and tell her straight that her actions are wrong and if her DH leaves her then she’ll definitely have no baby.

Tbh I would be suggesting she stops trying for a baby until she sorts herself out and I’d be encouraging her DH to leave asap.

She is your long loved friend, she has changed, she is in dire straits, you know this for sure because she used to be your lovely friend. The hormones combined with the monthly dissapointment, plus probably the stress of being a new mum and not having time for any of this, are making her feel and act like shit to the ones she loves and herself. She is in pain, she is hurting, and she is your friend. Her husband can talk with his friend and come up with a plan for himself. But she needs you, someone who loves her no matter what. Maybe becoming a mother for a second time is not worth her losing her mind, maybe she needs to talk about this with a friend. You.

She hasn't broken any plates, she did throw her dinner on the floor. She has called him horrible things in anger (I was there) but she isn't openly blaming him for her not being pregnant. The anger is always because of something else (like when he accidentally knocked her tea over). Just making sure we're sticking to the facts!

That's abuse. And the victim is reaching out for help.
She shouldn't be around the child she has in this state let alone believe she is a good enough mother to create another victim!
Right not she needs help.
But they are more important than her

I can't believe anyone could be so unsupportive! I grew up in an abusive house and it was not uncommon for dinner's to flung on the floor/in the bin or even at people occasionally. This man is being abused and OP is right to look for help in supporting him rather than shrugging her shoulders and looking the other way.

Actually does it have a posting history? Advance search doesn’t work for me but it would be worth seeing whether they’re always this objectionable.

@Blossombathing

I have covered DV courts for 20 years and that would be a first!

What does this mean? Are you a court correspondent or something?

I'm staggered someone who speaks the way you do about DV has experience of DV courts.

Maybe they attend them regularly if you get my drift. ;)

It seems strange someone would throw their own dinner on the floor. Could it have been an accident? And she swore for that reason?
I have covered DV courts for 20 years and that would be a first!

@Blossombathing

How can you have never heard of this??

This was a regular occurrence by my abusive dad and I’ve heard it happen many times by people who’ve been in DV relationships.

It’s a very common tactic of abusive people.

I find it hard to believe you’ve worked in DV courts and never heard of this.

I suspect they don’t so much cover the DV courts as a job as that they’ve been attending over the past 20 years as a <ahem> client.

I don't think it's wrong to tell a very good friend some hard truths:

You're worried about her.

She needs to get help for her moods and temper otherwise she's going to end up divorced.

She needs to count her blessings. It would be great to have a second child but if it's not meant to be, is she going to ruin her current child's life by being abusive?

Sometimes people need a telling, however gently.

Oh come on, her suffering doesn't excuse being abusive to her husband. Imagine he was acting like this with his wife, yoh would be outraged. OP, I would have a gentle but honest talk with her if I were you...

I think you can suggest couples counselling, or a specific fertility counsellor. ITs not your job to sort it

Victims are not supposed to go to therapy with their abusers.

I have been here and I do get how she feels - absolutely desperate. Some level of emotional outburst when her period shows up is to be expected but this does sound extreme.

It's really important that she does not lose sight of what she does have - a loving husband and healthy child.

I would encourage her to join fertilityfriends (website). It's an excellent place to get support from others going through the same thing and it really helped me when I was going through this.

You going to tell abused women they should 'just leave' too?

I was thinking the same....I feel sorry for the DH but he is an adult....the innocent and vulnerable 3yo who has had no part in these goings on and the decisions around them, and I'm guessing no awareness of them either, should definitely not be taking the brunt of this mother's anger and frustration....certainly not on a regular basis.Maybe speak to the DH about that first, that he needs to protect and stand up for his child.

@Blossombathing IF all the accounts on here happened of course and they're not all making it up.

Perhaps we should ask all the women on here suffering abuse to speak to their husbands first so we know if they're lying or not.

This. If you haven't been through infertility, you can't understand. Its all-consuming and heartbreaking. Everything is triggering. I don't even think she's being unreasonable. I've been there and it's so awful. She needs support and understanding, not being picked up on her behaviour. You never forget the things people say to you when you're at the lowest. Make a plan with her, which includes doing nice things with her husband and DC.

I don't believe all the "once you relax it will happen" chat, but looking after yourself and treating yourself to small things is a good way forward to put you in a good place. Offer to babysit, let them go for a weekend away. Make a positive intervention, not a negative one. Suggest counselling as others have said. It's a long journey and while I got better over time, things weren't resolved until I got pregnant and currently 36 weeks now! Don't chastise her for what is to her a personal tragedy. Don't diminish the yearning for a child. If you do, she could end up cutting you out as I had to with my friends as they made my recovery harder by failing to try to understand my position.

Abuse. Not behaviour.
It's abuse. And being sad isn't an excuse.

If you haven't been through infertility, you can't understand. Its all-consuming and heartbreaking. Everything is triggering. I don't even think she's being unreasonable.

That doesn't excuse her abusing her husband. Infertility isn't a free pass to behave abusively.

So it would be ok for her DH to act like this every time she didn’t get pregnant?

She already has a child and has only been trying unsuccessfully for 2 years, so she doesn’t even have the excuse of being desperate for a baby (not that it would be an excuse anyway).

She is abusive and should not be allowed IVF as a child should not be brought up in an abusive home.