'My husband is insisting that 'we' impregnate his friend after finding I am unable to conceive.' UPDATED
"My husband is insisting that 'we' impregnate his friend after finding I am unable to conceive."
TW: Mentions of child loss.
I am honestly in a bit of shock after everything that has transpired in the past 24 hours and need some unbiased opinions to get me through. A little background, my SO and I have been married for four years and together for seven.
He is a civil engineer who is more so ambivalent to his career, his real passion lies in his hobbies, our relationship, and his friends. I am an emergency medicine doctor and this is my passion. I love my husband, my friends, and I have hobbies but my work is my absolute passion. Becoming a doctor was my dream since I was 12 and I have made it a reality.
Now my issue, about 14 months ago my husband was pushing me to get pregnant, he wanted a baby. I honestly did not, I was finally hitting my stride at work, we just bought our first condo together, and weren't living a really friendly kid life.
I did not tell him this, mostly because I was a coward and we had never really disagreed before, so I kept my mouth shut and decided it wouldn't be a huge sacrifice to have a baby. I could make it work.
We got pregnant. I was miserable, pregnancy did not suit me and I wanted it to be over. I felt disconnected from everything, especially my pregnancy, and sought out therapy.
My therapist told me that I was holding resentment against this baby as I was in a great spot in my career and was more worried about that then my unborn child. She was right. I worked on this and towards month six I was really excited to have this baby.
My husband and I were in a better place (my resentment and attitude really hurt our relationship during this time). Everything was going well, until it wasn't. Around seven months in, our baby was born as a stillbirth and I had some horrible complications which have caused my chances at ever getting pregnant at an incredibly low percent. I know that I am never getting pregnant.
After the initial shock, recovering from the physical trauma and the emotional trauma, I won't lie but I felt relieved. Massive relief. I didn't want to be a mother then, and I will down the road but I am a firm believer that this was just not meant to be. My husband took this harder, but with some therapy on both our ends. We seemed to be in a good spot...until last night.
Last night my husband approached me, he said that he really wants us to have a kid and "forgives" me for losing our son. He knows that I cannot conceive, but reminded me that he is more than capable.
I had to remind him that we have no options, if we want a baby then we need to look into adoption or getting donated eggs and going the surrogacy route, and right now we aren't in a financial position for either.
Then he asked what if there was another way? Naturally I asked, what? He told me that there was a woman at work that he has known for several years, apparently she knows about ALL of our marital problems and knows ALL about my health issues over the past year.
He said that they recently went to drinks together (I was on an overnight shift) and after a few drinks she offered to not only donate eggs, but to be our surrogate. This seems too good to be true right? Yep.
She will ONLY do this if my husband impregnates her the natural way. Having relations with her during her ovulation period until she gets pregnant. I was baffled by this. First, he was considering it and seemed genuinely excited for this.
Second, that this woman would offer such a thing without ever having met me. And finally, that he had shared such intimate details with her. He said that he then followed up with her when they were both sober via text and she responded "Oh, I would love to have your baby!"
This seems odd to me and I question the mental stability of this woman. But then my husbands entire demeanor shocks me. I told him I wasn't sure about this, if we go the surrogate route I would prefer it be all anonymous and our surrogate be a stranger. I don't want this getting messy or having to worry about running into the egg donor.
Instead of seeing the validity of my opinions he told me that having a baby with him was non-negotiable. That this "friend" wants to help us, he wouldn't mind doing it her way, and it would be the most cost efficient since we just discussed how cannot afford it at this time. He told me that if I love him and want a baby, then I will do this for him.
I tried to explain to him that I am not sure if I am ready for this, and that I don't know if I am comfortable with all of this. Especially with him sleeping with someone else. He brushed that off, telling me that it is "no big deal" if he were to sleep with her and that I am overreacting.
That he has stood by while I got my dream and he was left alone/ignored (I never knew he felt this way) and that I owed it to him to let him do this. Today I looked up this woman on Facebook, and she is VERY attractive.
I would say that my husband and I are both average looking but she is definitely striking, which makes my anxiety go even higher. Why do this for us? I don't get what she gets out of this.
Am I overreacting?
This seems completely bizarre for me and I am questioning everything in our relationship, what should I do?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Are you sure she's not already pregnant?
doctormcpuffy (OP)
I don't think she is. He told me that they mapped out her cycles (and insinuated that I could help figure out when is best for her) and that we could aim for a January insemination date so that we could have a fall baby. There is no way that if she is already pregnant (assuming 6+ weeks) that they could fool me with a fall baby.
This is so gross and inappropriate.
doctormcpuffy (OP)
It is. The fact that he has had conversations with her about her ovulation cycles (which we didn't even talk about when we were trying to conceive) is grossly inappropriate. That didn't even hit me until I started reading some of the comments.
Run. If you love him, you'll let him have relations with another woman, possibly multiple times, so that she can carry his child, and then you'll give up your career to raise it? Is that about the size of it? Yeah, run.
Six days later, the OP returned with an update.
Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post and to those who PM’d me. This is long. I spoke with my husband on Tuesday after he got home from work and before I had to leave for work.
I explained to him that even though I do want kids down the road, I would not be comfortable with his friend being our surrogate and that this would not change for me, ever. All of it made me uncomfortable and honestly made me question his fidelity. He was shocked by this. His exact words were “Are you saying that I cheated on you?”
I laid it out for him, pointing out a lot of things that were pointed out to me from my OP and stated that even if he hadn’t yet physically cheated that he emotionally cheated. He said that he did have an emotional connection with her, but beyond that nothing else.
I asked him if they had relations, kissing, anything intimate at all? He was baffled that I would even think this and adamant he did not have any physical contact with her. He reiterated that he loves me and I am the only one he wants.
The whole idea of this was because he wanted to give us a family and help “repair” the loss, this was just a way to do that and he never saw it as cheating because it would be something we would both agree to. I told him that isn't true because he emotionally manipulated me, or tried to, into going along with it. I told him I needed to know what their relationship was like.
He admitted that over the past year, even while I was pregnant, he confided in her about my obvious lack of interest in the pregnancy, my disdain towards motherhood, his fear of me hating our baby, and the issues that persisted in our relationship.
Apparently she was shocked that I would feel this way towards a baby, she told him that she has only ever wanted to be a mother. Since then they have only gotten closer, but he denies it has ever gotten physical or that he felt any romantic inclinations towards her.
He said that the surrogacy was completely her idea and she has been hinting at it for weeks. Telling him how she would carry our baby for us, how he deserves to be a dad, but he informed her that we did not have any frozen eggs so our options were egg donation or adoption, which we couldn’t afford. No problem, she suggested to use her eggs. Which is how the plan took shape.
He said that they could do artificial insemination but she said she didn’t want medical records of this, and natural insemination would keep costs down. I asked him what in the world was he thinking talking to her about stuff like this and thinking that this was okay?!
He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. I asked him how he would feel if I did this? If he was the infertile one and I had an attractive doctor friend knock me up with no strings attached at HIS suggestion, how would he feel? He had nothing to say to this.
I told him that I felt absolutely betrayed by all of this. Clearly she has some sort of mental health problems and an unhealthy attachment to my husband but beyond that his relationship with her is inappropriate. He said “obviously I shared too much.” No duh.
I told him that I am upset that he “forgave” me for the loss of our baby which I had no control over and that he used that to emotionally manipulate me. He apologized for that, he never meant it to come out like that and in no way blames me.
After that everything calmed down but I told him I needed some space from him for a bit. He asked if our marriage was over? I told him I didn’t think so, but this has been a really emotionally turbulent few days and I need to process it.
He told me that he does not want our marriage to be over if this was something I was considering. He says he loves me more than anything and cannot bear to lose me over this.
That losing our baby was devastating and has made him depressed, confused, and angry but he does not want to lose me at all. I told him he should have thought about that before planning to stick his pen in crazy (not my finest moment).
I told him that if he wants to keep open communication, he needs to cut ties with her, obviously he works with her but nothing beyond whatever work contact they have to have, he needs to go to individual counseling and come to at least one counseling session with me per week.
Before he left he changed his phone number, blocked her on Facebook and deactivated it. Told me that he would give me access to whatever I wanted to see that the “relationship” is severed and that it was nothing more than what he has told me. His parting words were "I just wanted to build a family with you" which absolutely gutted me.
Wednesday afternoon I checked his email, there was nothing. Nothing in the deleted bin or recover deleted items bin in Outlook. Facebook was hard to look at, there were a lot of chat messages between the two of them spanning the last eight months when he added her on Facebook.
Overall his messages were friendly, a few times he was flirty but never intimate or what I what consider too much for what should be friends, but hers were pretty clear in her meaning.
The messages are clear, she's making some kind of play for him. I took screen shots of all the conversations (don't worry I triple checked for any deleted messages, hidden apps, or other messaging services) and re-deactivated his Facebook.
I have his iPad so I was able to look at the iMessages on there, they appear to delete every 30 days which left me with that to look at. Overall all the texts and chats line up with his story, but the whole exchange about the logistics make me sick.
She talks about making the baby as though it's a date, that she doesn't want it to be sterile or feel like she's being used. Her comments were inappropriate but he never stopped her or corrected her.
She even insulted me several times when he expressed concern about how I would feel, saying things like "she's cold hearted" and "maybe you should just do this on your own so you don't have to worry about her rejecting the baby," he didn't really stand up for me but said that he didn't think I would do that. It was all very hard to read but I feel better about my decision overall.
We didn’t really speak on Wednesday, he checked in a few times but I let him know that we would talk Thursday. Thursday morning he let me know that he turned in his letter of resignation Wednesday morning. He hasn’t heard from her but doesn’t intend to seek her out to say goodbye either.
He apologized, he just thought he was doing the right thing and thought this would make me happy. I still feel extremely betrayed, he is still dealing with the loss and other things. We both agreed that our communication has really deteriorated in the past year and that we need to fix this. So, no lawyer, no gym, just therapy for us.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Jeeeez. I still don't think he understands exactly how bad he messed up, but hopefully he realizes it in therapy. I read your last post, and I'm really surprised he was willing to do all the "right" things ro fix this. If he really is that committed to working things out, there might be hope, and I'm glad you are giving it a try.
Even if he doesn't understand the depth of betrayal against you, hopefully he understands how wrong it was to do everything he did and said. Hopefully you can come to some sort of agreement and peace about your future. Best of luck to both of you.
doctormcpuffy (OP)
I think he talked about it with his brother who was probably like "bro this is absolutely the worst idea you have ever had and she is probably going to drop some divorce documents on you immediately" because when we did talk he mentioned that he thought about this a lot and realized how awful it all sounded after he left. When we spoke Thursday, he seemed more aware of how bad this was on his side.
Not sure how this relationship continues but op seems to want to try.
Man, if it were me, I'd have immediately called a divorce lawyer. He was excitedly talking about having a child with another woman. It's obvious she has something for the husband, and obviously she wouldn't give up the baby. The husband is an idiot at best and thinks OP is also an idiot.
Seems like overall things are looking up. Everyone ripped him in the last post, but in my estimation he wouldn't change his phone, shut down his facebook, and do the rest without being serious about making this work. And if he did something inappropriate, there would have probably been more evidence in the messages/email.