Inability to be happy for friends

[butternut80]

Does anyone have any advice of what I can do or perhaps offer some hope that things get better. I have been ttc for 16months now with no luck. DH is fine and apparently there is nothing wrong with me either- all bloods fine, early 30s, healthy, clockwork cycles etc etc. But in the meantime I have friends and family falling pregnant left right and centre. Even my bestest friend is pregnant and I find myself thinking awful bitter thoughts about things. However hard I try, it would seem I just can?t be happy for her. She knows our difficulties yet stills regularly emails me to let me know how big she is getting and all the kicking she is feeling. Rather than accept her excitement, I just feel like she is rubbing it in my face and it just makes me angry and upset.

In order to protect myself through my SiL ?s pregnancy, I did everything to avoid seeing them as I couldn?t cope with hearing about the morning sickness as I just sat there thinking you don?t know how lucky you are. Now they have had their baby , I have no interest in going to see them, I don?t ask DH how they?re getting on? I just don?t want to know as I find it too painful.. I have never been like this before; I know envy/jealousy are horrible traits and don?t help anyone least of all me but I just can?t seem to help it. I dread seeing friends because I worry they are going to tell me they are pregnant. I suppose my greatest fear is that if it never happens for us, I will end up becoming a bitter old hag who has no friends and who driven her husband towards a woman who can give him kids.

Am I truly an awful person or has anyone else felt like this before and if so how did you handle it??

In my view it's a situation that calls for a bit of empathy and understanding on both sides. I am seeing this played out at the moment between two of my friends. The two of them and me would quite often get together with our other halves. They got PG around the same time (I was a teensy bit jealous but also happy for them) and then one miscarried at about 6 weeks. She now will not see the pregnant one and doesn't want to hear about her, etc. The pregnant one feels hard done by as she feels it's not her fault that she stayed when pregnant when the other didn't.

I am stuck in the middle and staying friends with both of them (and getting it in the ear from both of them!). I can see both points of view. I can understand why it is difficult for the non-pregnant friend to be around the pregnant one with a similar due date to hers, etc but I also feel that at some point she needs to bite the bullet and stop avoiding the PG friend. Is it going to be any easier to see her when the baby is born? Or are they never going to speak again? At the same time, I think PG friend could be a little bit more sensitive about how she approaches it. Most of the time she is pretty good but she makes the occasional comment that is stupidly insenstive.

Thank you ariesgirl, sorry if I seem a bit blunt. Am struggling myself at the moment. Hope you are well, are you still using the hut?

Fwiw, I second everything eurochick has said. Its not the non-if friends fault that they are pg when you aren't. My bf dreaded telling me when his dw got up the pole because of how bitter I had become. At some point you have to let go of all that shite, because you can't change it and you need your friends to support you. Its a two way street.

Ah but the "relax" bollocks is a totally different issue. Relaxing doesn't get you pg, nor does avoiding pineapple, sticking legs in the air or carrying juniper berries. All I mean is that while its natural to cry and get all twisted about other people, it is inportant to tell yourself that its noones fault. I have a thread in chat atm about my cousin, I find it very hard to separate my if from her scumminess.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I've lost friends because of my behaviour which was understandable, but it wasn't their fault. Noone should have to feel guilty for being happy.

The hut, Lissie?

Sounds like a very dodgy place!

Dammit, sorry misread your post lottie.

Oooh did I get you confused? Its the hut of gloom.

Although, tbh I've been avoiding the conception boards lately.

Sorry for hijack.

Ladies, goodness, i?ve just taken some time to trawl through all the comments ? i thought the post had gone dead! Anyway there are some really helpful and kind posts on here. It?s clearly such an emotional subject when there are two camps involved. When you can?t conceive there are so many emotions that go with it - the feeling of being left behind, that awful longing maternal urge you get but I have found I also feel like a complete failure and I feel guilty that I can?t give DH a child. Worry and anxiety are both present as well not to mention feeling bitter, angry and jealous at others. No one in their right mind would ever want to feel like this and I have been desperately trying to change my thought processes! I?m very good at putting a face on things and I will email back my pregnant friend saying i hope she is ok and looking after herself ? of course through gritted teeth but I don?t want her to know this is what I?m feeling. I will avoid seeing people but I guess it?s more to do with self protection.

thisisstupid - i have no doubt that telling people you are pregnant is incredibly exciting and I guess I don?t know what it would feel like to tell a friend I was pregnant and to be greeted by someone who didn?t want to know. But I do know that what might be my good news for me may not be someone else?s and i would be highly sensitive to this and if a friend had to avoid me because she was in a bad place, I would totally understand. I would never go out shopping with friends who were struggling and take them to baby shops and maternity sections. You are lucky that you found someone to have babies when you were still young, many women don?t - although i don?t think i?m particularly over the hill in my early 30s!

Hardertokidnap - i really liked your positive post and appreciate you taking the time to write. It?s so true what you say and I must always remember that there are other options if I can never have kids of my own.

Londonlottie - it?s so nice to hear you had a positive outcome in the end and that you were able to patch things up with long lost friends. I completely understand why you would have cut yourself off from people.

lissielou - it sounds like you have had a horrendous time. And it?s interesting that as time has gone by , you now find it easier to deal with albeit with the tantrums every now and again. Really best of luck with everything.

thank you. I truly hope that you dont have to find that it gets easier, but it really does. we've been ttc for nearly 6y now and had several mc's. tbh I got sick of being avoided and hating everyone for something taht was neither my fault or theirs.

I'm not being insenstive what i'm saying is that whilst it's awful that you can't have children or are having trouble ttc the world doesn't stop for you and you can't expect it to. Everyone has problems, i've had huge problems in pregnancy, i nearly died of a bloodclot while pregnant with my first, is it insensitive to moan about that, i have to inject myself with fragmin daily now and i've been in and out of hospital this time round.
The point is if you waited till you were over 33 to have children then what do you expect when medical research tells you that fertilty drops signifigantly at that age, it's like smoking and then wondering why you have cancer, you can't beat mother nature.
The only point that i was making was if you can't be happy for your friends and get past the jealousy then you are going to be miserable.
If i couldn't have children naturtally instead of getting so worked up and bitter i'd adopt, my partners dad was adopted for that reason, 50 years ago they didn't have ivf.
I didn't dump my friends for not going maternity shopping with me i dumped them because they refused to be happy for me and behave like friends. All i'm saying is if you want your friends and family to support you when you are pregnant (and you will) you have to be willing to support them however hard it may be. I'm not being insensitive i'm being realistic.

isstupid I think that 'being insensitive' is something that you can't really measure for yourself. It's a bit like being 'rascist' or 'saying the wrong thing to someone who is bereaved'- only someone else can tell you if they are offended by what you are saying.

Many people have now told you that they are offended by what you are saying, and here is another one.

I think you need to accept that you are being insensitive.

I don't doubt that you have some interesting points, and there are those of us on here who have probably been treated quite 'sensitively' during our experiences of infertility, so it is interesting to see another point of view, but please don't judge us with what you assume would have been your reaction to struggling to conceive; 'instead of getting so worked up and bitter I'd adopt'. In fact, seeing as you're clearly quite bitter about your friends' reactions to your pregnancies, enough to keep posting, I can quite see you being one of those 'I can't have a baby and all my friends are deliberately getting pregnant to upset me types'. Just my opinion, I'm not being insensitive.

I think the fact that you still don't have the sense to realise that you should not be posting here displays your lack of empathy and possibly intellect. Apparently you think that women reading your pieces of advice would slap their hands to their heads and say "Well, silly me! I should have conceived BEFORE I was 33. Silly, silly old me!!" And apparently you are also too daft to realise that none of the women posting on here expect the world to stop for them - it is very clear from their posts. I repeat my point that if you were to ever go looking for advice and sympathy on the Relationships board because your partner has left you for a younger woman, possibly one who is still pert and youthful because she has not had children, none of us would dream of going on to your thread and saying "What did you expect? Your body has been ruined by childbearing. Look at it from his point of view."

I'm not being insensitive, just being realistic.

PS After all, you can't beat Mother Nature.

I too have to take anticoagulants daily for the rest of my life thisisstupid after nearly dying of a blood clot. I swear that I would take that each and every time again and again over being infertile. It is NOTHING compared to that grief.
You have very little empathy I think.
Also - why do you need so much fricking support during pregnancy? You seem obssessed by it!

stupid I think that you are missing the point of this thread. Most of us have said that we know the world can't stop because we are having problems conceiving and we realise that it is a negative and damaging emotion to be envious of pregnant friends. The point of this thread is that we can't help it and the OP was asking how best to deal with the emotions and grief associated with fertility issues and perhaps looking for some kind of validation that she is not alone with these ugly emotions.

I am sorry to hear that you have experienced health issues since your last pregnancy and of course it isn't 'insensitive for you to moan about that'. I'm sure that all of us on here would be able to empathise with your problems but that is the key here I think you have shown a distinct lack of empathy.

I also find your comment "if I couldn't have children naturally instead of getting so worked up and bitter I would adopt" particularly crude and unhelpful. The issue is far more complex than that as someone who has fertility issues would know.

Thanks also for pointing out how fertility declines after 33. Using your reasoning I can only summise that my fertility issues are all my own fault and I should not have waited to find a good man to be the father of my children & delayed having a family until we were financially able to provide for it. Well done you for taking a more laissez faire approach to contraception & parenthood.

thisisstupid, in that case do you feel that it is more responsible to have children with the wrong person rather than wait? I defended you earlier and am regretting that now. what you are saying isnt wrong, I said it myself, but there are ways of getting your point across, and the last thing people who are living with the utter dejection and shame that IF brings is someone telliung them that its their own fault and that adopting is the option.

I did wait till i could finacially afford a child i didn't wake up one morning and think i'm bored i know ill get up the duff today. My partner though young has a well paid job, we own our own home, i'm in a position where i can be a stay at home mum should i want. What i'm saying is that it might not be fair and you might not like it but women have a biological clock and unlike men we can't indefinatly reproduce, it's not fair but it's life. I admit i was blunt in my posts but the only point i was ever making was pushing people away isn't going to help, it'll just make things worse in the long run, i'd rather friends be blunt and honest with me and say i'm happy for you but i'm finding it hard than avoid me. You can get as angry as you want with me and anyone else who has children but it won't change your situation. All this thread has shown me is that i was right to not wait i'd hate to be as angry at the world as you all seem, maybe i won't wait another 5 years for my next child.

thisisstupid

I think that you have more than made your point. I sincerely believe that you are unable to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is struggling to conceive, and whether you intend to or not you come across as incredibly judgemental.

Having been on both sides of this, and now having 2 kids while some very dear friends of mine are still trying to get pregnant I have to say that I have never felt as you describe. I have been aware how hard it has been for my friends despite how much they care about me, and have tried my best to be sensitive and give them space where needed.

Yes, you can feel shit when you are pregnant. Yes, it is horrible to be ill and worried. This doesn't make it easier for your friends.

As an analogy... I have a good job, that pays well, working with great people. Yet it is also very stressful and it doesn't always make me happy. The last person I would choose to complain to about my job would be a friend who is out of work, struggling for cash and despite their best efforts not getting hired. Because I would expect them to feel uncomfortable or even resentful that I couldn't see how lucky I am to even have these worries.

I would also never tell someone WHO IS TRYING AND DESPERATELY SAD that the situation is their own fault. Sorry for shouting but you don't seem to get that people here are talking about their PRIVATE unhappiness. They have come here for support, they're not shouting this from the rooftops ffs.

Please, please, have a bit of compassion and leave the thread now. You are making an already tough situation worse.

Oh you ghastly, ghastly woman. Also, learn to spell, you appalling individual.

That was to thisisstupidcrassignorantandtwattish, obviously, not to dear Gin .

oh fgs, for the majority of women on here the issue isnt their age. as much as you would like to believe that the infertile are that way because they left it too late, or arent relaxed enough or smoke or drink or are overweight or are underweight its often not the case. I have one ds, he is 6.5. we have been ttc for 6y and I am 33. I suffer from secondary infertility thanks to complications and recurrent mc. no, you shouldnt wait 5y, simply because you never know what will happen. the best laid plans etc. yes, the posters on here are bitter. they are bitter because their "friends" suggest they "relax" or make them feel guilty for not being able to have another child, or tell them that they need to "get a move on", or get upset because not everyone is fascinated by their pregnancies. you are right about the age thing, but maybe instead of being so smug, you should instead thank your lucky stars that you have never had to sob every month as you bleed. lie on a bed, numb as yet another mw tells you that your baby has died. all while trying to put on a brave face and say "we'll see" when people ask you what your plans are.

Lissie, I read your other thread with great sadness and can only say I wish you all the luck in the world. I truly hope this all comes right for you very soon.

It's great that fate smiled on you in that you were in a good position to have babies at a relatively young age. Some of us were not in that position until later in life and hence motherhood was delayed.

Perhaps the friends who you say have avoided you during your pregnancy have been on the receiving end of your "blunt & honest" advice before and don't wish to be told that they are angry with the world and have bought their troubles on themselves. Just a thought.

For the record nobody is "angry" with people who have children (perhaps angry at the universe/fate) I personally am just angry at your apparent insensitivity.

I am happy to have provided you with the validation that you were "right not to wait" & to have spared you my apparent "anger at the world". Will I post you your medal?