To call off the wedding because he won't get a vasectomy

[Messymaker]

Me and dp, 27, have had dc not too long ago. We both agreed for various reasons (health,money ect) that we don't want another child and that is that. Whenever we get pressed on when we are going to have the next one dp always calmly responds with "we won't be" and it made me feel relief that we are on the same page.

Without getting into details i had a horrible birth and pregnancy and have been told that if I have a second I will have an increased risk of getting certain illnesses. Even to this day I'm still suffering with side effects of the pregnancy, which I don't know if it's normal or not. But at 27 I've accepted my body isn't the same anymore and is more like used goods. I've come to peace with never being the same condition again.

Dp agrees he would never want to put me through it, and values me and dc we have now as a priority.

Great!

So we have discussed many a times, him getting a vasectomy. Mainly because it's more accessible and easier for him to do rather than me get my tubes tied. He said he would start looking into it all. Except, nothing has come from it. As a consequence I don't want to have sex with him as I'm scared about any risk of pregnancy. Yes we use contraception but we all know that isn't full proof. The other night we talked about our wedding for next year and I brought up the topic of the vasectomy. He very quickly said "but its so permanent"....

Now I'm so confused. I said to dp I thought that we agreed we was on the same page. Yes we are still quite young fertility wise but we've had the substantial amount of experience to know another child isn't what we want, and pregnancy on my body is definitely something I CANT and WONT have again. I said to dp that inclined he may want the choice to change his mind down the line and if that is the case who does he have in mind because it won't be me?

Now I don't know what to think. I have this horrible gut feeling he will secretly want kids further down the line, we will get married, he will realise this and leave me for another woman. I don't understand where any of this has come from. Dp has witness first hand how awful it all was for me and said he would never want to inflict that trauma onto me again. But clearly although he parades around telling others and me he doesn't want another child he subconsciously does?

In this the end of our 5 year relationship? Do I call off the marriage. I'm so confused and tired from the thought of this a

So you’re the one with the issue, I personally think you need to get sterilised. Why should he have a vasectomy? What if you were to pass away and your husband to be wants children with someone else? You’re being very selfish.

Marriage is a statement of intended commitment, not a guarantee.

OP it seems that you're being deliberately obtuse and evasive, and refusing to answer the one question that LOADS of people are asking, so I'll ask yet again...

If you leave him (either by splitting up or you dying) do you want to actively prevent him from having children with anyone else?

And also, are you so naive as to think that all marriages where both people are 100000% committed last forever?

YABVU

What if you die and he wants children with his next partner / wife?

FYI speaking as someone who was very poorly, in hospital with both planned pregnancys:
NEITHER of us wanted any more...
DH refused to have a vasectomy ("in case I died and he married another woman")
we muddled on...
10 years later I got pregnant and (about a year ago) VERY NEARLY DIED as a result of this 3rd unplanned pregnancy. 5 hospital admissions and 2 operations later I'm alive (but the baby isn't, i'd have died in pregnancy unless the baby died first; baby would have been unlikely to survive until the end) I'm steralised as they did it during my second operation. It was considered very dangerous for me to be pregnant again...

Yes being pregant for a 3rd time had me admitted to hospital 5 times, 4 emergancy admisssions, 3 of which I'd have DIED within a few days if not admitted there and then..... and DH STILL "didnt want" a vasectomy.... and i still respected his decision... because I'm his wife and respect his body / his choice.

I STILL think you are being VERY VERY VERY unreasonable on this one, and perhaps your DH should consider if you are the wife for him...

I'm leaving this thread now as I've been told ahundred times I can die tomorrow or my partner can divorce me. Therefore everything in life is meaningless. I might as well not even buy a place with this man incase we hypothetical divorce in the future, got to protect myself and think of my best interest incase we aren together.

Christ, this is immature. Call off the wedding if that is the answer you actually wanted but aren't getting. You seem to be ignoring all answers, including polite ones like putting the idea of anyone being sterilised on hold, and the wedding on hold, whilst you unpick this. You clearly want to be told to either call off the wedding or that YANBU, but YABU, so call off the wedding.

Op have you ever had counselling to talk about your pregnancy/birth? It sounds like you are traumatised and scared of sex due to your experience.
Your partner agreeing not to get you pregnant again and telling others you are stopping at one, and proposing to you suggests to me that he does love you and support you. But 27 is young and a vasectomy is very final, so I understand him thinking that maybe one day he or both of you might regret it if you recover from your birth trauma and change your minds.
It certainly doesn't mean he's planning to divorce you or have babies with someone else.
I have one child who took 48 hours to get out from when my labour started and I needed counselling to talk about it, and haven't had another seven years later so I do understand the fear.

You are on the verge of making a decision which you can regret hugely: leaving the father of your child, who probably loves you and is committed to your family.
He cannot get a vasectomy this young. What if you would sadly pass away? After that horrible pain, he could meet another woman. What if the biggest wish of this woman was to have a child? Not difficult to imagine at a later age. Would he be untruthful to you in that circumstance? What if he could not go on with his life after mourning you because he is not fertile anymore?
What if a new child was a new hope to get on with his life after the heartbreak?

What if the vasectomy surgery went wrong, and he would not sustain an erection again? Unlikely, but possible. Also it has been stated that vasectomy can be reversed, but not always works. What if his surgery went wrong, he would resent you his whole life and you would have to live with that guilt? I would not want to be responsible for something like that. I would have surgery myself.

What if it wasn't a vasectomy? Can you force someone you love into the choice or: "you need to undergo surgery to prove that you love me?" Is that love?
Does he have the freedom over his future? Yes, he does. Does it mean he is longing for a different future? No, it doesn't. If you musn't bear children again and you don't trust contraceptives, you should have the surgery yourself, even if it is more costly.

If you still feel this way, I would start asking myself if I really do love him. Maybe you don't love him, maybe it is you who subconsciously blames him for having put you through all that misery, thanks to the procreation pressure. Were you decided to have children? Or maybe you are resented because it is so unfair it is the woman who will be scarred forever in order to provide the family with descendants. Or do you think that after the physical damage you have sustained, it is his duty to do something to his body as a payback? This would support the possibility that you may subconsciously feel that he should pay with his body for the bodily damage you are enduring. It may all possibly be behind your feelings. But understand that what you are asking of him is not love-driven. And if you feel this way, you may be the one that needs help. And definitively, it would put me on breaks to go on with the wedding, but not because he is not committed or may not love you enough, but because you may not love him or have forgiven the fact that you have sustained so much pain and trauma. Will you ever forgive him for that?

None of what I have written is intended to harm you. I totally empathise with you and think you have suffered so much, and it has been and is so terrifying. But try to look at things with your sharper eyes and evaluate the person you will be losing and the impact it will have on your dear child to be deprived of their dad.
Please consider getting help.
🙏

Wow. Your DH sounds like an utter prick.

@crostini thank you. As I specified in my op YES we are 27 BUT we have had the necessary life experience to know what we want or do not want!!!!

Well yes. And he doesn't want to have a vasectomy. You want him to have one but that isn't your choice to make. I completely understand your desire not to have another pregnancy but I think you need to take control of that yourself - the risk is to you. In similar circumstances I used an iud. I know women who had their tubes tied.

It also may be that you won't want to continue with this relationship. You might find that his refusal changes how you feel about him. That's ok too. Although as someone said, are you then going to ask all future partners to undergo a vasectomy before having sex with them?

Reverse the sexes in this and see how reasonable that sounds!

Instead of pressuring him as he obviously doesn’t want to do the procedure, could you get your tubes tied?

Shoe on the other foot a moment - how would you feel if he refused to marry you because you weren't willing to get your tubes tied, and didn't see any point in the relationship any more? I'm not saying he's right, but neither are you and if you're willing to call off the wedding over hypocritical umbrage then I don't think you should be getting married either!

If you’re homeless, I think you should put your effort and energy into that rather than getting married anyway to be honest?

I think you're getting a really hard time here too OP. It's a really difficult situation.

Of course he has bodily autonomy, and has the right to freely choose whether or not to have a vasectomy.

You also have bodily autonomy, and have the right to choose not to put yourself in a situation where you might get pregnant. You can decide that for whatever reasons are important to you.

So: in the present situation, the choice for both of you is between sterilisation for at least one of you, OR no sex. Every other method of contraception is fallible.

Both vasectomies and tubal ligation carry risks. It may be that one carries higher risks, but that doesn't mean the other 'should' have the procedure, because each of you is free to choose not to want any of those risks.

If neither of you feel comfortable choosing sterilisation, then the answer is no sex. That is just a factual reality.

If both of you are comfortable having a no sex relationship, then no problem.

But that may well not be the case. Sex is usually pretty important.

So both of you are now in a position where you could feel emotionally blackmailed into having a sterilisation. You because you'd be thinking he'll be more likely to leave you if you're not willing to sleep with him. And him because he'd feel like you were more likely to call off the relationship/ affect his access to his DC if he doesn't have a sterilisation.

It's an incredibly difficult situation. I don't have a solution to suggest except to try to talk it through with him in the way I've set it out above, so that you both feel you have autonomy in the discussion and you can both freely discuss your concerns/priorities.

I wish you well

Well that's fine too. What isnt fine is her emotional blackmail.

@onetwothreeee why on earth wouldn’t you have had an early abortion knowing this?!

@onetwothreeee I know I said I'm not going to respond but before I get this thread taken down I just need to say your husband is horrible for knowing that pregnancy could potentially kill you and yet refused to do the one single he thing he could of done to contribute and save your life.

Quite frankly that isn't someone who loves or cares for you. You don't need to be a martyr about the fact that it's "because you respect his decision" when he clearly doesn't even respect your life!!!

@Messymaker massive squishes. I too would be wondering about the shared future in your shoes.

I also wouldn’t want to go through a procedure as a woman which is much more invasive and takes longer to recover from after already enduring a horrific pregnancy and birth that has left me with health complications. And hormonally I’d be worried about any further issues.

And if contraption has failed once I wouldn’t want to keep experimenting with more and more things being done to my body to see if the next one happens to work.

I’d sit him down and explain - that if he’s looked into it he knows it can be reversed etc. That is he thinking he might like another child in the future?

But I wouldn’t be having a wedding and tying myself to this man legally if he can’t commit or explain his need to stay a virile young stud in a relationship that’s decided between you you don’t want more children. And if he can’t make this decision and sacrifice to his family unit after what you have been through and the risk to you - then it might be relationship off let alone wedding. Staying with someone who feels like they already have one foot out the door would kill my love and any desire to have sex with them again.

Can I ask how old dc is? The only reason I ask is that we were EXACTLY the same after our first dc. Pregnancy was horrific all the way through and the birth was highly traumatic, with ongoing issues. I was also at much higher risk of some complications in both pregnancy and birth in subsequent pregnancies. DH and I had exactly the same discussion on multiple occasions. When DS was nearly 2, I changed my mind. I guess the biological drive to have children overrode our rational thought processes. I’m not saying you will change your mind, but I guess I wouldn’t be opting for permanent contraception until your dc is 2…. But from reading your first post, it sounds like you might have a relatively young baby…
maybe something like the mirena or rod could give you some breathing room for a couple of years, without needing to make a permanent decision for either of you.

But in your OP you said he agreed to research getting a vasectomy. That's not the same as agreeing to have the procedure.
I think you need to accept that he isn't keen on the idea and make your decision re marrying him from there. None of us can make that decision for you.

Has it occurred to you that there is always a possibility of someone's partner dying, and the widow/widower eventually meeting someone who wants children? Life is messy and complex, you never know what might happen. I can understand him not wanting to do something so permanent when you never know what life will throw at you.

We don't go about life thinking "oh well this may not last". When we agreed to marry its because we are adamant this is what we want forever. Otherwise what is the point of anything

At 27 you might be too young to realise that you just don't know what's around the corner. Whilst one is absolutely sure, when you marry, that this is what you want forever - you just cannot know what the future holds. 42% of marriages end in divorce. It's not a very romantic thought but it is harsh reality.

27 is way too young for anyone to choose infertility for life. Especially for someone else,

YABU to think you can decide what other people do to their body. Perhaps he should call off the wedding on that basis.