Hi all,
I’m feeling really anxious and lost at the moment and don’t know where to turn, so I thought I’d reach out here for some support.
My husband and I have been married for 8 years and together for 14. Over the last 6 months, we’ve been going through fertility treatment. It’s been emotionally and physically draining, and I’ve tried to stay strong through all the medication and some mood swings caused by hormones.
Since last week, my husband has been very quiet and withdrawn. When I try to talk to him about it, he just says “I’m not happy” and doesn’t elaborate, apart from saying we’ve been arguing more recently and he doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He says he wants to ‘have a child’ but it feels upsetting to me he isn’t saying more along the lines of ‘I want to have a family together’. We’ve just been told that our next step is IVF, and he’s said he never imagined this is the path our lives would take.
Adding to everything, early in our marriage (about a year in) he cheated with a work colleague. At the time I was devastated, but we went to couples counselling, spent a lot of time and money working through it, and I genuinely felt we’d moved past it. Apart from the usual marriage niggles, things have felt okay since then. He admitted fault of the cheating at the time and said he was struggling since grief a few years earlier when his mum died which was hard to accept but I did, desperate to save the marriage.
Now, I can’t help but feel like the fertility issues have somehow brought this out – like he’s finally suggesting he doesn’t want to be married. I feel completely dragged along, anxious, numb, and deeply upset. I don’t really have much of a support network, and I’m terrified about what’s happening.
For context, we are both 35. I feel like if I leave this marriage I will probably not meet anyone else and have children, it’s such a risk. I am so upset as my dream has always to be a mum. I know he would be a good dad but I’m not sure he can be a good husband/I can live with this uncertainty. We have a dog and cat together and I’ll be so sad to split them up/not see them.
I don’t earn very well (28k a year) and I’d only get approx 25k in a divorce so I’m also so scared about if I can afford to live on my own.
I don’t know what to do – how to support him, how to support myself, or even how to make sense of all of this. I was only just processing the fertility treatment so this has completely blindsided me. Has anyone been through something similar or can offer any advice or perspective?
Thank you so much. 😢