To be so flabbergasted by my husbands response to me asking him to get a vasectomy.

[Mumsgotaheadache01]

I've recently lost our 4th baby. Ive had 3 previous miscarriages. With 1 live birth, Of our very young child who has additional needs and was born with a birth defect. Was an IVF pregnancy. I have pcos, fibroids, fluid in pelvis the list goes on. And have only recently stopped breastfeeding our child. I really don't want to go on hormones for birth control as I don't want to mess up my hormones and my body anymore. I suffer enough and have had all number of procedures, tests, examinations, surgical procedures, scans and hormones pumped into my body. I just want to be left alone. I've been injured while giving birth very traumatically, many stitches, hemorrhaged etc. We don't have sex often for many reasons. Mainly being I'm exhausted from being mummy and in pain a lot. When we do it's lovely and I do love my husband very much. But this evening I asked him if he would think about getting a vasectomy. So we can enjoy our sex life again in the knowledge I won't get pregnant and have a miscarriage or another baby. Before I could even put to him my point of view he flat out refused. And said "I wouldn't put myself through that". I am just completely shocked by how selfish that is. It's upset me so much. Aibu to be flabbergasted or should I just calm down and try a see this from his point of view.

That's an operation under GA. A vasectomy is half an hour on a Friday under local anaesthetic. My exhusband had it done. I drove him there. Sat in the carpark while ge had it done and drove him home afterwards. He went back to work on Monday. The surgery ran a Friday afternoon vasectomy clinic specifically so men could avoid losing a weekday work day.

If you read all the posts there are posters who state why their men don't like the idea. I understand why SOME men feel like this, not all men so I didnt want to take the risk when I was very happy to take charge.

So some men are fragile, misogynistic pricks, you fear your husband is likely one of them so you'd better do it yourself. You're a mug.

Ah, men's psychological issues. It gets them a free pass every time, doesn't it. Bugger the physical and psychological issues their wives have to go through, dreading an unwanted pregnancy or a miscarriage or another child with a birth defect. The misogyny of it all.

My husband felt similarly to yours. After 3 live births, a total of 27 months of my life spent being pregnant (not to mention all of the days and nights spent breastfeeding and generally carrying the can postnatally) I decided that my body had been through more than enough too. I refused to have sex with him, and reader, he is now booked in (booked all by himself I might add) for a vasectomy early next month.

If your partner hates condoms and never wants a vasectomy then he’s completely abdicating all responsibility for contraception to you. What a catch !! You’ve conveniently bypassed the fact that OP has been poked, prodded and had surgical and hormonal interventions in the attempt to have children and has good reasons for not wanting hormonal birth control or any more surgery. Before marriage you can discuss your preferences as much as you like but life isn’t always straightforward and when you find yourself in a serious situation which you couldn’t have foreseen, such as the one OP now finds herself in, you have to find a mutually agreeable solution in spite of what you may or may not have discussed beforehand. You sound smug to be honest.

Op I totally get what you are feeling. You have been through so much and he immediately dismissed what in most cases is a minor simple procedure as something he wouldn’t put himself through. I know it is his choice but my god what a inconsiderate answer to give. I would be annoyed too. I agree with posters who say condoms or abstinence if you don’t want to use other methods (very understandably, I also do not for the same reasons as you).

I think men fear vasectomies more than women fear sterilisation. The procedure for men is simple but the fear is emotional. It amused me to be at the hospital waiting to see a doctor when the nurse was looking for the missing men who had been booked for vasectomies. I think you should gently ask your husband to look into it. There are myths about how it affects men that scare them. It is braver to have the snip than not and he'll need time to see that.point of view.

According to some posters here men have a perfect right to say ‘I want to be able to father children with a different woman in the future’ regardless of the risk that stance poses for the actual woman they are married to now. I have the distinct impression that a lot of posters on this thread are men.

Firstly I'm so sorry for your losses.

Secondly he's very selfish! A vasectomy is a procedure I've literally known men get it done after finishing work a couple of hours ago early

I would refuse sex

I had a similar experience in the waiting room before an MRI. A nurse came looking for the man who should have been called in just before me. He’d scarpered. The nurse confided that men seem particularly afraid of the confined space involved in the procedure and either disappear after booking in for the scan, or just not turning up.

My husband had the vasectomy. After 7 years of fertility treatment, 2 D&C and 2 Csections we decided we didn't want any more children. I basically said no condom no sex. He called the GP and the CF sent him a leaflet of all the contraceptives I could take and actively discouraged him. He had the vasectomy a few months later. It took 20 minutes. He had pain for 2 days and an ache for 2 weeks.

I have to agree with a few previous posters, but so manyn others are just parroting, “His body, his choice.”

WE KNOW IT’S HIS BODY AND HIS CHOICE. WE ALL FUCKING KNOW. OP KNOWS. WE GET IT. WE KNEW AT THE START. YOU’RE NOT CLEVER, NEW, ORIGINAL, OR ADDING ANYTHING.

The point of this ENTIRE thread is that after OP has been through a hell of a lot of pain and suffering that they BOTH agreed to, he said, “I’m wouldn’t put myself through that,” as if an outpatient procedure that requires no general anesthetic and only a few days rest after is such a huge sacrifice, in comparison to the miscarriages, fibroids, hemorrhages, pelvic fluid, birth injuries, birth control side effects, and anything else OP has had to deal with. Of COURSE he can choose not to get a vasectomy; but if his reasoning belittles OP’s pain, then he’s still an arsehole. I don’t know why this is so hard for so many people to understand.

OP is not willing to suffer anymore. That is her right. That means they either stop having sex completely or he takes responsibility for the contraception after all these years: he could buy condoms, even though I do understand they’re not 100% effective, or he can get a vasectomy, or they can not have sex. Yes, it’s his body, his choices, but choices have consequences and OP has the right to say no to sex without foolproof protection.

Absolutely nailed it.

To say that he has the same chips in the game is to devalue op's pain and emotional hurt and suggest that her partner experienced the exact same as she did throughout. Of course she has more chips in the bloody game!

There are no chips. It’s not a game.

This thread is exhausting isn’t it ? You know what they say - arguing with stupidity is like playing chess with a pigeon. Sooner or later it will shit on the board and strut around as though it won anyway !!

To say that he has the same chips in the game is to devalue op's pain and emotional hurt and suggest that her partner experienced the exact same as she did throughout. Of course she has more chips in the bloody game!

But as her partner he does not want to see her at risk either, that's my point, it's not her vs him, they are a unit, they are (presumably) at the same decision of not wanting children, they both don't want the OP to come to harm via pregnancy so they should have a joint desire and responsibility to not want a pregnancy. You can not compare a single person's responsibility to a couple's.

There's always some pendant on here who wants to use language to misunderstand an actual point. Whoosh!

For those unable to comprehend. The person who stands to be harmed by one specific outcome is more invested in preventing this outcome and ensuring their ideal outcome.

Pendant

It also massively increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in many women.

For those unable to comprehend. The person who stands to be harmed by one specific outcome is more invested in preventing this outcome and ensuring their ideal outcome.

Yes that's a given, but in a RELATIONSHIP your partner should equally not want to see you come to harm. A vasectomy has risks, that's why a man should look at the risks overall, to both him and the woman, and in most cases recognise that the most tolerable risk is for the man to be snipped. If both partners thought like you did neither might bother doing anything, or unnecessarily both get sterilised, they are a partnership trying to find a way of having sex with each other safely, it is a joint process.

this response early on nailed it.

Of course it's his body his choice - although if I were the OP I would want to discuss with him whether he wanted to carry on having sex with me, and what he thinks you (jointly) should do to prevent future pregnancies. It needs to be a JOINT discussion and decision. It is MORE than reasonable for a woman to want to stop using hormonal birth control after years on it; to want to be using a failsafe method against pregnancy, and for the OP to feel that her body has been through MORE than her fair share of trauma and invasive procedures. I'd be interested to know from him if he wanted us to be having sex and he didn't want a vasectomy what HE thinks should be done to prevent pregnancy. It might be that he isn't bothered about having sex, or he thinks condoms are fine; or it might be that he assumes his wife should be okay with hormonal methods, or invasive procedures. I suspect he hasn't really thought it all through at all, which is why the conversation quoted above is such a good one to have with him.

Proving my ownt point nicely.

Pedant *

I presume that they haven't reached an age where that they find that their body's reaction to it has changed over time, or that the NHS stops funding the brand they were on and swiches them to another cheaper one which "is exactly the same" but fucks with their body or mind in new and not fun ways; nor that they have been on hormonal BC for 20 years and found that it's really fucked their whole body up, nor have they been alive long enough to have changed their mind over several decades, that they have never gone from having a healthy womb to fibroids, endo or menhorragia with no known cause; and they certainly have never been through peri and/or menopause and found that the flooding bleeds are made worse by hormonal contraception, nor that their body reacts differently to it post-pregnancy, nor that the GP refuses to prescribe the BC you were happily on, any more because you have now hit an arbitary age, and that they too in their early 20s were knowledgeable about peri- and menopause... or they wouldn't chat such shit.