Husband-to-be shouldn’t ignore woman’s fertility timeline

CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: I’m getting married in April and turning 34 in July. My iance and I had agreed to wait a while before starting to try to get pregnant. However, two of my three sisters have recently had fertility issues. We don’t know whether this is coincidence or a family issue, but it has me thinking I should push up my timeline.

My future husband resents this idea, as he feels it is a way of letting outside drama infect our marriage. He de initely wants children but doesn’t want to start worrying about it yet, since he thinks infertility has corroded my sisters’ marriages.

I don’t know how to compromise with him on this. Any suggestions? — Compromising

on a Timeline

Compromising on a Timeline: If you feel strongly about bearing children, then you need to be clear with him that forcing an embargo on talking about and trying for pregnancy could have lifechanging consequences.

He can want what he wants, of course.

But he doesn’t get to live in a little reality-proof bubble of his own creation.

You are in possession of medical information about two sisters that might be relevant to you. You are also almost 34. These three data points aren’t about feelings or drama or marital corrosion, they’re about biology.

Of course, there are other things in life than having children, and there are other ways of having children that don’t involve your fertility, and there are other valid family planning strategies. If your iance is A OK with taking your lives together at an unhurried pace and either having or not having children, then he’s entitled to that approach — as long as he’s honest about that with you, of course, so you can decide whether to go through with the wedding on those terms.

But I get no sense of his having such a realistic worldview here; what I see instead is someone who has witnessed things get messy for other couples and who has decided to put his ingers in his ears and go NAH NAH NAH NAH.

Maybe you already know this about him, and embrace it as part of the man you’ve chosen to go through life with. Maybe you’re even OK with postponing children.

But if children are at the center of what you hope your life to be, then, I agree with you that compromise isn’t how this is going to go.

Make your case plainly: “I understand why you’re spooked by this. I would be, too — but I know time is a luxury I don’t have.” Then explain to him that your body has deadlines whether you like them or not, and neither of you knows if you’re missing them while you wait. Then ask him to join you at an appointment with an OB GYN to discuss your options.

If he refuses to make even that accommodation, then please see this for what it is: a resistance to reasonable conversation about a dif icult topic. Life brings what it brings; you want a partnership that helps absorb any impact, not one that ampli ies it.