Should I tell my ex my fertility test results after our split?

[ThatCuteGirl]

The thing that just sucks about this whole thing is it wasn't a case of "He wants kids and I don't" or "He wants kids and I can't have them."

So the reason for our breakup….was a difference in opinion (in his mind) on kids. Bear in mind this was something we had talked about all along, and we were always on the same page. It was always..."If it happens, it happens. And hopefully, it does. If it doesn't, we will explore the other options." Like I said, we were both in agreement. Up until the last month or so. I guess his thoughts on the matter had shifted, which is fair…totally his right.

The thing is….we were still mostly on the same page….I was just taking a much more pragmatic approach of…Let's take things one thing/kid at a time, type of thing. His desires for kids had become very, very specific. he wanted 2, preferably 3 kids….biological kids. He wasn't really (and he had never told me this before) a fan of surrogacy. He wanted to have kids the old-fashioned way, essentially.

To be fair, I didn't help. I always approached our conversations from a very "prepare for the worst" place. I always said there is a chance I can't have kids. It was never, "Oh I can't wait to have kids with you!" It was…"I hope so, but we'll see…." It was a self-defense mechanism. Or not wanting to get his hopes up if I can't deliver. During the breakup, he made it clear that my hesitancy and lack of enthusiasm played a part.

So, he had sort of done the math, and knew how long it had taken his Mom to have 3 kids, and knew his Mom had a hysterectomy at a certain age, and ultimately, told me he thought he needed to look for someone younger. He said he still loved me, and he always thought he was going to marry me. But…he didn't want to have regrets 5, 10 years from now. And that was that.

Now, I never shared our conversations with anyone, I always kept them between us, and now I am kind of wishing I hadn't. Because after the fact I talked to several people, including my sister who is a labor and delivery nurse, and they kind of…acted like I was silly to assume the worst. They feel like I jumped the gun by jumping to fertility issues and alternatives. Don't get me wrong…they think he is silly too, to put a number on things. For all he knows, he might have trouble. He isn't young. Or if he does meet a younger woman…maybe she has trouble. Or maybe after 1, she decides she doesn't want anymore. There's just no guarantee, with anyone.

But like I said…my sister is a labor and delivery nurse, so her opinion mattered the most, both professionally and as my sister. She asked me if there was any reason to believe that I cannot have kids. Any concrete reason. No. Basically what she said….the long and short of it….was that we had these conversations based on a lot of assumptions and virtually no actual data. She said that moms and first time moms my age were a regular occurrence. I wouldn't be some miracle exception…women like me are the new normal, essentially. And she urged me to get tested, not for him, but for my own peace of mind.

So I did. And the numbers aren't good…..they are great. Exceptional. My doctor said if she saw these numbers in a woman several years younger than me, she would still think they are good numbers. So for me….they are excellent. It's very bittersweet because I feel like if I had had these conversations with my loved ones and knew the numbers….I feel like those kid talks with him would have gone very differently. I would have been able to have them with enthusiasm and excitement. Because I did want kids with him. I did want a family with him. Anytime he mentioned our future kids, I would tense up, because...like I said before, I feared that I wouldn't be able to do it. But, inside, in my heart, I was so emotional at the thought of it.

I feel like I should tell him. But...I also feel like...he's made his decision and it may not make a difference anyway. My age is still my age, and on average, a younger woman would be a safer bet than an older woman. But...it's also not a complete shot in the dark anymore. By all we know now, the doctor feels like I should be able to have kids naturally, with vitamins and timing. But...he didn't choose me. He didn't choose me the way I would have chosen him if the roles were reversed. At the same time, it's hard for me to be angry at him for his reasoning.

His sudden clarity on number of kids he wanted sounds like a convenient excuse to breakup.
A man who genuinely wants kids wouldn’t start a relationship with a woman in her 40s in the first place.
Dont get hung up on the fertility reason or try to change his mind.

Meet him for coffee and tell him. You can't spend your life thinking about what could have happened. But neither of you were honest with each other. You both apparently wanted children but didn't really make this clear to each other. He might be lying to you as a convenient excuse to break up or this could be a reunion and having everything you wanted,

He wants kids more than he wants you. Let him go and find someone who wants you.

I had my first baby at 42, but we met at 35, started trying at 37 and only after double digit losses did we succeed using IVF and immune treatment to safeguard against miscarriage. It’s not an easy journey but I wanted a child so much (we both did) that we tried everything & didn’t give up. If you really want something, you try everything. But I’m getting ambivalence from you here…

(Our embryos are with 39 year old eggs & even getting those was tough. I too ‘had great numbers’).

Ultimately he left you for a younger woman that doesn’t exist - he left you because he just doesn’t want to be with you. Obviously having 2-3 kids when starting out at age 42+ isn’t that likely if we are being totally honest. But that’s not even the point, he just doesn’t want to be with you. Hopefully you can find someone better suited to you

I think he’s just not that into you and using kids as an excuse

i think you’re now panicking that this might be your last chance and you missed it so woukd settle for him

sounds blunt i know

He sounds unrealistic and unrelentingly so. I did also wonder if he had found someone else.

would you trust him if, after you managed to explain your view and you both overcame these communication difficulties, you got back together and tried again: would you be able to trust his commitment and stability?

Reading your post OP your need to be understood (which is completely fair) and how you have approached the baby topic strikes me as you being ND and his unyielding requirement to recreate his childhood in one way only also strikes me as ND. If so, there are books on communication in ND relationships which may help you (and him if you start back up..)

Best of luck OP: if you want children, then throw anything you can at it now.

I would tell him on the basis that he might want to get checked out because you have and your results show that you've either been very unlucky not to get pregnant or he might need to work on some things.

I think you should leave well alone. You have split up, if he really wants children he has plenty of time to have them - but unfortunately time isn't on your side. Your results may be amazing for a 42 year old woman but not for a woman 10 years younger. Do you want him or do you want children with him? It doesn't sound like you were being honest with each other. Very few couples take an 'if it happens it happens' approach to starting a family. Perhaps in terms of timing yes, but not whether to have children at all. If you really wanted a baby at your age, there would have been some urgency in your actions - I say this as someone who had a first/only child at 44 after 8 years of actively TTC, gave up at 42 and conceived naturally 2 years later. I was desperate for a child and 'if it happens it happens' would never have entered my thinking. I wonder if you're reacting to the thought of him moving on and having a baby with someone else?

Did you actually try to have a baby at all? It seems like an awful lot of over thinking if you weren't actually trying to conceive.

Don't tell him in the hopes you will get back together and have a baby to 'undo' the breakup. That is no different to someone having a child to fix their marriage.

@ThatCuteGirl I don’t think this breakup was really about fertility at all. It reads much more like a communication mismatch and two people handling uncertainty in very different ways.

You approached the topic of children cautiously because you didn’t want to promise something you weren’t sure you could deliver. That wasn’t lack of enthusiasm, it was fear of disappointing someone you loved and setting yourself up for a fall. It was also a very realistic stance given the ages of those concerned and one HE should have thought through before dating you. He interpreted your caution as ambivalence, which wasn’t true, but you can see how the wires got crossed.

Meanwhile, he seems to have had a spike of anxiety about time, age and “future regret”, and instead of talking that through with you, he created a very rigid picture of what he needed: 2–3 biological children, conceived naturally, on a specific timeline. That kind of specificity usually comes from fear, not logic. It’s also not something you ever had the chance to respond to properly, because he’d already made the decision in his head. But lets be realistic, fertility at your age starts to decline, so yes at 42 you may happily conceive but would that get him the 2-3 child he clearly now craves - I think it was a compromise he clearly wasn't willing to make.

Your test results are great, but they don’t change the core issue: he didn’t stay to work through the uncertainty with you. He didn’t invite you into the problem‑solving. He chose a hypothetical future over the actual relationship.

Even if your numbers had been perfect at the time, the outcome may have been the same because the problem wasn’t your fertility, it was how both of you communicated around fear.

And lets be realistic, you don't mention engagement, living together or marriage, its not even like he had made a long term commitment to you. And this is where my stumbling block is. If he REALLY loved you, he would have stuck around to explore further, but he decided the age clock was ticking and his chances to have the life is decided he wanted late in your relationship, probably would not transpire and its those odds that drove him away. He is allowed to change his mind but he isn't allowed to blame you for it and make you feel any less. He knew your age when he started to date you and at the point he decided to date you, any rationale person would understand the diminished odds for 2-3 kids - this is not a "try your prospective partner before you buy" scenario.

You can tell him your results if you need closure, but don’t tell him because you think it will change anything. The man who left because he thought a younger woman was a “safer bet” is not the man who would have been a steady partner through pregnancy, parenthood, or any of life’s curveballs.

You are way underselling yourself and your right to be loved for you alone. Children are benefits, an all consuming consolidation of the relationship but not the reason for it or at least they shouldn't be in this day and age.

It’s bittersweet, because with better communication this might have gone differently. But your results don’t mean you should chase someone who didn’t choose you. They mean you can move forward with confidence, knowing the door to motherhood is still open, with someone who wants to walk through it with you, not someone who panicked and ran. I do it on your own, yu sound very capable,

You need to value yourself as a sufficient prize for ANY man. He needs to understand that he is presumably older too and he needs to be realistic about his life choices, his automatic stance that you are the issue with conception and consolidate his wish list before sampling the goods and rejecting you because of his failure to make rationale dating decisions.

Love is not rational, that is what makes it so difficult, and when who love someone, truly love someone, you find another way. He has shown you who he is, believe him, you deserve better.

If a woman gets to 42 without ever trying to have a baby I’d think she didn’t want a child, which is fine. Putting things in god’s hands is weird, he isn’t going to drop off a baby with a stork!

Well, I think it sounds like it’s probably
for the best the relationship ended and I wouldn’t be telling him about your fertility test. As you said yourself - he didn’t choose you. He chose to seek a younger woman.

You had only been together for a year or even less. I know at your age time isn’t on your side, but how old is he for starting a family? How old will he be by the time his 3rd child is born, and then when his youngest is 16 etc? He could have tried with you for one baby, he could have chosen to look at other options. He just left.

The whole thing is like a weird plan he wants to stick to (having 3 children like his parents and whoever). The woman in the picture is just some faceless appliance to fit into it all. I wouldn’t spend 5 minutes chasing after this man.

A person of faith… having sex before marriage?

It’s not going to be easy to conceive at 42, no matter what the numbers say

TBF we don't know that he wasn't also taking that into account, hence his urgency to decide NOW.
The @ThatCuteGirl is the one refusing, despite both their ages, to be proactive about conceiving, not him.

I think you were right to exercise caution - 42 is late for starting a family and there are no guarantees. In the end, he chose to get into a relationship with you, knowing your age and to me he was being unrealistic thinking you could just pop out 3 babies on a timetable determined by when his mum had kids. Idk, something feels 'off' - this whole thing is giving me vibes of him viewing you as a means to an end, rather than a valued partner that he wanted to spend his life with! It's not unreasonable to not want to rush into making babies when you've only been together a year.
Look, he chose to get into this with you, knowing your age and that fertility does decline and then he seemed to want to railroad you into being on his timetable - you barely know each other one year in.

Equally he's chosen to leave you because he doesn't want to be with you more than he wants these theoretical children. So no, I don't think you should contact him or tell him. If he came back you would always know that he wasn't really choosing you above all else, he would be choosing you with conditions attached. And that happens if you can't have dc - nothing is certain regardless of test results.

Find a man who loves you beyond everything. Or have a baby by yourself if you truly want to and feel that time isn't on your side. But don't settle for this man.

I would not tell him.

He decided you were no longer of use to him because you may not provide him with what HE wants.

Nothing bad in what he wants of course but there is no guarantee he will fulfil his requirements with someone else and he is making this about you.

It is none of his business now. He made his call.

OP, you had been together less than a year, he wants kids, maybe 3 and you didn't appear to be on board with that so he ended the relationship. He is allowed to do that.

Women can and do have children in their 40's but to actively start planning that at 42 with somebody you have known for less than a year, and not seen regularly during that time, is a little crazy.

He wants the hypothetical kids more than he wants you, hard as that is to hear.

Even if you tell him the test results, it's not a guarantee that you will have kids.

When XH proposed, I knew that he may not be able to have kids. I also thought that I would have trouble conceiving, and I married him because I wanted to spend my life with him, with or without kids. I am really sorry that your ex partner didn't feel like that .

A very insightful response. This says exactly what I would want to say to you OP. Read this carefully, save it somewhere, read it again and again…

When I married my husband he had always been clear that he wanted children and I was much more ambivalent. I’d been TOLD by 2 doctors that I would struggle to conceive without assistance and I know that my husband would have loved me unconditionally with or without children.

A year is too soon within a relationship to realistically start trying for a family. He’s shown you what his sticking power is.

My mentor (in his 90s now) is one of 2 naturally conceived twins whose mother was 46. Tbf the doctor was surprised.

My uncles and one of my best friends similarly were conceived naturally by mothers in their 40s.

these tests don’t change anything. You didn’t feel the need to have the tests when these conversations were happening.

the man wants to settle down & start a family, you weren’t on the same page.

you have to let him go & find someone else. There is no point in raking over old coals