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!

There are probably some cultural differences at play here. From the name and a few of her comments (36 being too old to have children, 'incredible wife'), the OP is a Russian woman married to a wealthy British man. Lots of Russians wouldn't think twice about greenlighting this, but OP, it doesn't work like it does back home, British people will not usually do this kind of thing for anyone who isn't close family, our friendship bonds are not as strong as Russian ones. You need to apologise profusely to your husband and never make unilateral promises to spend family money like this again.

Why don’t you have your own funds?

But (if true) I can see you are trying to do a nice thing.

Ask to discuss at a calm relaxed time, apologise for offering without discussing and see if there is anyway this can be done without affecting the net position of your family finances. EG, does he buy you expensive gifts? If this gets funded, does it hit a neutral position if you don’t get birthday or Christmas presents for 5 years, say? Then it’s yours, rather than ‘family’.

More importantly OP, this should be a wake up call to your security and financial stability…. you have none. You need to consider your position and plans to return to work.

How about selling some of your clothes and jewellery to pay for it?

what I mean is- if it means thst much to you but you haven’t got an income of your own and it is all shared money, then try to fundraise any other way.

Assuming this is real… We suffered with complex infertility and had three private rounds of IVF; with the various testing, extra procedures, add-ons etc the total cost came to about £60k. I still think YABU to have committed to this without discussing and agreeing it with your husband first.

Also, talking about giving your friend what you have isn’t necessarily realistic, there’s no guarantee that another one round of IVF would work, it might or it might not. There are plenty of things your friend could be doing in the meantime that cost less than IVF (second opinion from a really good clinic, additional tests on both sides (e.g. vaginal microbiome, sperm DNA fragmentation etc. etc., improved diet and supplements). In their position, even if I had the money for another round, I would want to have as much information as possible before proceeding with any more treatment. It’s very easy for fertility treatment costs to escalate quickly and for it to turn out in hindsight that there are contributing factors which have been overlooked. There are also lots of options for financing IVF nowadays and cheaper but high quality clinics abroad which your friend could look into.

Paying for your friend's IVF won't necessarily mean it will work, they've already had a round with NHS and it didn't work

@AnyaLavrov002 you were totally out of order for promising such a big thing without any discussion with your DH. For that alone, I support his decision to say no.

My husband is also a millionaire, his money is my money but there is no way I’d gift anything without discussing with him first and nor would he.

Paying for someone’s IVF is also something I would never get into. It’s a recipe for disaster.

I can’t believe you would promise such a thing without your husband’s input.

Wouldn't you think the husband was Russian since he was the one saying OPs friend left it for too late?

Or alternatively how would you feel about your husband being a sperm donor?

You're speaking as if it's guaranteed. Sadly, it's not. You can't play God.

I am with your Husband.

You were silly to promise to give family money to a friend without consulting your Husband, especially if he made the majority of it.

You do sound like you want to swoop in like the saviour.

Just tell your friend you can't do it, and support her in other ways.

Your Husband sounds like he has his head on straight to me.

I think it is a lovely thing to want to help a friend when you can afford to. If I were you I would sell some things of your own to finance it or just not tell your husband! How much does it cost for a round of IVF? Good luck to you and your friend.

Have a word with yourself, you didn’t offer to take her out to dinner.
Honestly, it’s hoping for threads like that keep me coming back to MN.

Yep. Oddly I am reminded of the immortal Rinkworks Book-A-Minute. www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/

Perhaps Mumsnet needs a Thread-Inna-Minute?

Sell some of your stuff if you want to help your friend

Sounds like cultural differences may be at play here. It would definitely be outside the norm in the UK to pay for a friend's IVF, even if you could afford it. Although I actually agree - why not if you can? If it was my mate and I could help out, I would. (I definitely couldn't though as I am not personally wealthy or married to a millionaire!).

I’ve had IVF. I wouldn’t dream of asking someone else to pay for it. It’s also one of the few things you can pay thousands and thousands for and end up with nothing. Why should your husband pay ten grand per cycle and it might result in nothing? It’s too much of an emotional process to involve friends in my opinion. It’s brutal. Me and my DH dealt with it together.

I also feel like if you can’t afford to pay for the IVF, you’ll be equally as hard up when it comes to child rearing. Is your DH expected to pay for her loss of salary during maternity leave?

Where is your friend’s partner in all this? Is he happy for another bloke to pay for his wife to have a child? How does that sit with him? Where are the grandparents? Can they help?

Bringing a child in to the world is down to two parents. Not your best mates, loaded husband.

Your DH is right to keep out of this. Step back.

You are both unreasonable.

He's unreasonable to withhold the money because of her age. That's super judgy - 36 is not abnormally old to have a child.

He is however perfectly within his rights to say no.

Because you are wildly unreasonable - and cruel - offering the money without speaking to him first.

Speaking as a woman who needed fertility treatment, and didn't qualify for NHS funding.

You are being unreasonable.

"...she doesn't deserve to be childless"

Have my first ever "....wow"

I can't quite believe you wrote that. I've just had an inkling of exactly what sort of person you really are and it ain't pretty.

How odd you'd think he's be fine with such an arrangement.

Her fertility issues are none of his concern. And it's not your money to give!

If she can't afford IVF then she should look into fostering or adoption. And if she can't afford those then she can't afford to raise a kid anyway.

@SurferRona She's probably a SAHM and doesn't want to earn her own money. She does want to offer her husband's earnings to her friend (without his consent) though, and his money is hers.
You're not allowed to make a judgement on that here - feminism when it suits women and all of that.

This isn’t about money op, your husband is probably thinking you failed to communicate something massive with him which technically he has worked for. You should have discussed it with him first. It’s an amazing thing to offer to a friend but he is your husband I think you should have discussed it first.

I can understand why you want to do this for your friend, @AnyaLavrov002, and it is a loving thing for you to want to do - but expenditure like this should be agreed by both partners in a marriage, so I’m sorry, but I have to agree with your dh.

Hope it all
works out op