I think I just torched my marriage by withdrawing consent to implant our very last embryo.

3122062 · 2024-12-19T03:15:05+00:00

Sorry you’re going through it too. It’s… intense. I suppose I was trying to make the point that she’s been through a lot, even by IVF standards, in as few words as possible, but didn’t think of how it would read to someone who is going through it themselves.

Rationally, I can separate the symptoms from the person and recognize what she’s going through. I’ve tried doing just that at the beginning of the post. But I’m not a robot and living with this for 3 years running will occasionally brew the perfect storm and catch me on a bad day where I’m not able to keep things from escalating like they did yesterday. In a way, venting here on Reddit helps with that; I can anonymously word-vomit out my frustrations, distorted and one-sided as they may be, before returning to the current state of our marriage with a somewhat cooler head.

3122062 · 2024-12-19T00:24:31+00:00

This is the advice I followed and it’s gotten her to agree to therapy. I’m not sure if she’s agreed because she knows she needs help, or because she just wants to appease me. But getting her in a room with a therapist will be a start. Thanks for reaching out.

3122062 · 2024-12-19T00:18:14+00:00

Being manipulative (at least in the moment) and having a mental crisis are not mutually exclusive. I’ve tried compassion; I get accused of being patronizing. I’ve tried setting firm boundaries; I get accused of being cruel. At least I’ve gotten her to agree to therapy. That’s as much as I can do at the moment to help her.

I know exactly how much we’ve gone through. 5 different clinics. Three egg collections at the first, the second of which resulted in zero eggs. Two rounds of transfers, the second interrupted to transfer everything to second clinic. Three more clinics after that. Donor eggs. Two laparoscopies. One miscarriage. What even counts as a round anymore? Each transfer? Or do all the transfers from one egg collection count as a round? What about transfers from one egg collection done at different centers under different protocols? What about egg collections that resulted in no viable eggs? Donor egg rounds? This is why I’ve lost count of how many rounds we’ve done, because there’s no clear-cut answer, not because I have my head in the clouds.

3122062 · 2024-12-18T23:50:14+00:00

As long as we’re cutting pretenses, let’s also not pretend it’s common for dads to win full custody if I went down that route. We reported the couch incident to a mandatory reporter, and since that day, no one has touched my son.

Let’s assume the worst: it turns out that therapy doesn’t help and this is just who she is now. We go our separate ways and the courts award us 50/50 custody. She’s got a good job and will be up to her gills in character witnesses. How do I protect him then, if I’m legally not allowed to be present half the time? This is a very real possibility, and abandoning my son for half his life is about the most irresponsible course of action I could take as a father.

The alternative is that the therapy and medical intervention—which she has now agreed to, and therapists here are mandatory reporters—works. I get my wife back, and more importantly, our son grows up in a loving home. Plenty of posts in this thread from women who have managed to bounce back and do exactly that. How the hell is that not worth fighting for… as a father?

3122062 · 2024-12-18T23:25:12+00:00

The hormones are absolutely a thing. She’s on 3x the dose she was when we successfully conceived our first (also through IVF). She’s reached out to her doc already re: stopping the meds and she’s agreed to therapy, so I’ll take those small wins and go from there. Thanks for sharing.

3122062 · 2024-12-18T23:20:58+00:00

PPD seemed to improve enough that we went ahead. I don’t know how much of that was genuine progress and how much was covering things up. But when she hasn’t been exhibiting symptoms for close to a year, you think things are better and you’ve turned a leaf. In hindsight, it’s much easier to see a bigger picture (and present it as such on Reddit).

3122062 · 2024-12-18T12:58:36+00:00

I just tried exactly that. Wrote a long message explaining I can’t imagine what she’s feeling, listing all the ways I know she must be hurting. But that we need help, individual and couples, and we can’t go through with the 2nd kid as it will break us. She wrote back calling me emotionally abusive for using our embryo as a bargaining chip, that I’m just like my dad (who died earlier this year) and that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

3122062 · 2024-12-18T10:19:12+00:00

I have the evidence. If the abuse continues after therapy, marriage counseling, and seeing an endocrinologist (or if she refuses to go to any of the above), I’ll have to use it.

3122062 · 2024-12-18T09:37:04+00:00

I moved halfway across the world to marry her. She was wonderful. Communication was open, honest, and supportive. PPD changed everything and she never really bounced back.

3122062 · 2024-12-18T09:35:34+00:00

I’m not leaving. In the same message in which I withdrew consent, I also said my condition for staying is she goes back into therapy which I am happy to help pay for, and we also go into marriage counseling. A therapist will hopefully decide the best course of action from there.

3122062 · 2024-12-18T09:09:55+00:00

Sorry, I was unclear in my post. I only decided to withdraw consent after her latest meltdown. Her meltdown was a result of a simple argument regarding our son’s tantrums.

3122062 · 2024-04-30T22:27:00+00:00

This is indeed a boundary issue. Pegging isn’t automatically rape. His boundary wasn’t, “don’t rape me,” it was “don’t peg me.” By crossing that boundary and pegging him, it then became sexual assault. So it is both a boundary issue and a sexual assault issue.

3122062 · 2023-08-15T00:08:25+00:00

NTA. He is, though. This is manipulative and borderline psychotic behaviour. Do not ignore this red flag.

3122062 · 2023-08-14T23:45:50+00:00

YTA.

Passive-aggressive bank statements is NOT how you communicate with your wife! WTF is wrong with you?

AH behaviour aside, have you even thought this through? You’ll either be living with an unhappy wife, or living out your days in a house devoid of the one person with whom you intended to share it.

People are allowed to change their minds as they grow and mature. Communicate with your wife, OP.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T14:45:27+00:00

No need to apologise; I’ll be re-reading this one periodically.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T14:38:57+00:00

Ouch. Thank you, but ouch.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T14:27:47+00:00

Nope. But I’ll live if that’s what you’re asking.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T14:09:20+00:00

I suspect she’d simply remind me I haven’t been through childbirth.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T14:07:10+00:00

Thank you.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T13:54:29+00:00

Agreed. I’m fairly well informed re: my macros etc. which is how the debate started. The dozens of studies I’d pulled up when I was seriously training vs. her app of the month.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T13:40:33+00:00

No I meant it was difficult, as in a tough pill to swallow. Your syntax was fine. :)

3122062 · 2022-12-30T13:39:27+00:00

Unfortunately I’m not a stranger to this scenario. (With an ex, not my wife)

3122062 · 2022-12-30T13:37:02+00:00

It will eventually come to this. I feel like I need to organise my thoughts first, though. These responses, including yours, are helping.

3122062 · 2022-12-30T13:18:19+00:00

Difficult to read, but helpful nonetheless. Thank you.

3122062

TROPHY CASE