Anger, Husband, Pregnancy

[AnyaLavrov002]

Am I in the wrong to be furious at my husband. He is refusing to pay for my close friend to have IVF because in his mind she waited 10 years too long to try! We're wealthy, it won't affect us financially and it will give my friend what she so desperately wants with her husband.
He has outright refused despite the fact we live in a beautiful home with some beautiful land all paid for. It is not a financial thing so I don't understand the spitefulness. I adore him, he has given me and our four boys the world but I cry for my friend.
I was stupid and told her we would pay before speaking with my husband, she is excited and I don't want to crush her dreams! He has refused to speak about it for two days and has stayed in his games room with the boys. My friend is 36 years old and time is not good for her.
She had one IVF cycle on the NHS and it didn't work, her and her husband don't have fertility problems or none that was discovered. I want her to have what we have and cherish so bad!

Being 36 isn’t too old to try for a child. She clearly can’t conceive. You don’t know that you paying would help her either. She can adopt or foster sorry or better yet if you care that much offer to be her surrogate

This. If she can't conceive at 36, it's unlikely IVF will work.

If you still want to pay for it, sell some of your personal items.

Your husband probably sees it as taking money from his own family to help someone he's not close to. And he's right.

OP, I meant to add on the para below:

I think you're a very kind person, OP, whose heart is in the right place.

However, he says no, and it's causing friction between you, so you'd better apologise to him and say it's OK. And you'll just have to 'fess up to your friend, that you didn't clear it with him first. Don't say that he said no, say that there are some financial commitments you weren't aware of, or that business is slow, or something. I don't see what else you can do, because he doesn't want to give the gift, and someone else's fertility problems aren't worth weakening your marriage over. Apologise to him and just say that you were a bit overcome with compassion for her, which seems to be true.

For a 36-year-old with primary infertility and one one previous IVF attempt, the average live birth rate is 25% to 31%.

Multiple rounds can get the probability to 50%.

It is not a magic bullet.

Unfortunately, having or not having children is not someone one either deserves or doesn't deserve. You want to promise your friend she can have a baby, but that's out of your control. You could pay for ten rounds of IVF and she could still end up childless.

You are doing this for you, not her, so you can somehow give yourself a giant pat on the back.

If money was no object, I would've liked to help my friend too, but not without discussing it with my husband. Also,
would it be an open ended offer as how many rounds of ivf do you buy? It may never work, then they want to explore other options , like international adoption or surrogacy, would you fund them too?

Did you see the interview with Robert Winston recently who talked about how small the odds of success are? And he was an ivf pioneer.

If there's no identified cause of infertility then she may get pregnant spontaneously if she can keep having sex regularly. IVF isn't necessarily a proportionate response in her situation as it can fail repeatedly and is very hard on the body. It's a hard situation for her and unclear what approach would be right but IVF is definitely not making someone's dreams come true if it doesn't lead to a baby.

She would if someone paid her to stay at home raising four boys. Which would be a good deal because most nannies wouldn't take four.

Good God, how did you come to that conclusion? By that logic, everything that anyone ever does that isn't for themselves is only to give themselves a back-pat! Jealous much?

I have suffered infertility and also had IVF. It is staggeringly expensive and as others have said there is no guarantee of success. How many cycles would you be agreeing to? One? Three? As many as she needs? I understand you’re trying to do a kind thing but I also totally understand your husband not wanting to spend thousands of your own family money on this. What a devastating situation 😢

This.
Plus what an unbelievably stupid thing to do. Also, if they have no fertility problems they can crack on with trying themselves.

If no infertility problems have been found, why have they had a round of IVF on the NHS?

It's lovely of you to want to help your friend but your DH was probably ever going to react well to his money being spend without his permission.

I hate the sneer that a women has waited too long. There is a tiny window in the socially accepted time to get pregnant and the stars of good fortune don't align with a lot of women. Under 25 and you're too young, over 35 and you're much too old, not married and you're unstable, don't own your own home and you're irresponsible, your partner already has children and you're unfair, you've been together less than a year and you're unprepared, your wage is too low and you weren't ready ....... Women just can't win. If they have a baby under less than ideal circumstances then they are always at fault. If they try to do the right thing and wait for safe, stable circumstances then they prioritised other thing and don't deserve help.

I wish society would recognise that women make the best choices they can. Would your husband have smiled if the friend had had a baby at 26 with a partner who turned out to be feckless, unstable rental that kicked her out and a wage that went no where so she ended up on welfare? I'm not sure he would have thought she was the height of irresponsible so she couldn't win then either.

Sorry, I'm with your husband here. I would be furious with you for so many reasons.

You have behaved really badly @AnyaLavrov002
You shouldn't have promised your friend any money without discussing it with your DH first. This was a HUGE mistake and extremely disrespectful to your DH.

Your DH is allowed to say 'no'

IVF is rarely one round. How many rounds would he/ you be paying for? What sums of money are we talking about?

To move this forward, it might be useful to know why your DH is refusing this money. Is it because of the way you have behaved? Is it because he doesn't want to get involved in this highly emotional process? Is it because he doesn't want 1 round of IVF to become 3? Is it because he has other big investments coming up?......All and any other reasons are valid.

You have handled this very poorly. Please learn from this. You and your DH are a team, act like it. Big decisions like this need to be made together. You need to sincerely apologise.

“An incredible wife” 🤢

I also agree with your husband I’m afraid. No way would I dabble in someone else’s IVF in any way. Imagine if if all went wrong and you’d paid / encouraged it. I’d feel so responsible. You also seem to think that you can pay the money and it just works- I don’t think it’s as simply as that at all and I think has a high chance of failure. If she asks you to pay for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th, when do you say no? It’s a path to huge problems. Having children isn’t a right and sometimes it’s doesnt happen.

I’d want to help my life time friends too in this situation, who wouldn’t? I find some of these responses odd. If I saw a close friend hurting because they were desperate for a child and money was holding them back, and I was a millionaire, of course i’d want to help. But you should never have offered without speaking to your husband.

I agree with your husband. I’m currently trying to save for IVF myself and I’m 2 years younger than her so I understand how hard it can be. If she wants it so badly she can save like everyone else or put it on credit cards like a lot of other people do.

This 100%.

Well, you’ve just made things worse for your friend, surely, by making an irresponsible offer you then had to retract.

Surely you have your own savings?

He doesn’t want to use his savings or the family pot, which is fair enough.

But you can choose to spend your savings how you want, you worked hard for it and so you can spend it on whatever you wants as long as it is only coming out of your savings and not the family money.

Also, your title is completely misleading.