Dear Tazi:
I am 45 years old and recently married for the third time.
While my first wife and I were still dating, we discussed my intense desire to
have a large family and to start having children right away; she agreed with
me, saying that she too, wanted children. When we were married for a year and
were still not expecting, I pushed “Danielle” to talk to her gynecologist about
her inability to conceive.
When Danielle returned from the doctor she told me that the
doctor said it was not uncommon for women who were under stress to be unable to
conceive, and not to worry but to stop putting so much pressure on herself to
start a family – that it would happen when her body was ready. I was a little
upset with this hands-off approach, and made an appointment for Danielle with a
different doctor so she could get a second opinion. She claims to have
forgotten about the appointment and never went. After 18 months and still no conception,
I drove Danielle to the doctor myself to make sure she went and demanded that
she ask the doctor for fertility testing.
As I suspected, Danielle has fertility problems and would be
lucky if she is able to conceive at all. I felt like I had been lied to, like
this was something Danielle knew about or should have known about all along but
chose to ignore, and trapped me into a childless marriage for her own selfish
reasons. I of course filed for an annulment to the marriage, which Danielle
fought since she would have fared better in a divorce, which she eventually
got.
A few years after my divorce from Danielle I met “Sharon”.
We fell in love, and she was aware of my desire for a large family, but shortly
after our wedding she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had to have a
hysterectomy. She begged me not to leave, saying we could adopt children, but I
want my own children not somebody else’s, so I again filed for a legal
annulment and again things ended in divorce.
I am now married for the third time, and this time I was
smart about it: I made sure that my wife, “Emily” had a full physical complete
with fertility testing before our wedding. Everything seemed to be okay, but
even after a year of regular relations we still had not conceived. Additional
medical tests came back normal, so I reluctantly got tested only to discover
that my sperm count is now dreadfully low!
I feel as though I have been cheated out of the large family
I have always wanted. I cannot sue either of my ex-wives for fraud (that was
what I tried to do in order to get my legal annulments but was unable to prove
foreknowledge of the facts) so I cannot even feel the satisfaction of their
punishment for wasting my healthy years. Adding to my misery is the fact that I
heard through mutual friends that Danielle is re-married and expecting a child
while Sharon has gone through with her plan to adopt. I feel as though both of
these women owe me something for the misery that I has been inflicted upon me
and I cannot stop hoping that something terrible happens to their children! I
know I need help, Tazi; I am not a bad man, just broken-hearted. I am not even
sure why I am writing to you. I doubt there is anything you can say that would
heal me.
Signed,
Childless
Dear Childless:
On the one hand, you have my sympathies; nobody who
sincerely wants children should have to go through the pain of infertility. On
the other hand, your attitude is in severe need of adjusting. Twice you married
and divorced because you felt you had been cheated by the women you married,
but neither time did you bother to have your own fertility checked. You laid
the pain and suffering of your childless state squarely on the shoulders of
your wives, who had no foreknowledge or control over the situation. When these
women needed your emotional support all they got was the sound of the door
slamming as you walked out of it and out on them. Now that their dreams are
coming true and yours are not you are dreaming of harming the innocent? You
need to run, not walk, to the nearest in-patient therapy program and seek
treatment before you make your wishes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
 |
| You don't want to turn into this guy... |
A therapist will help you to see your situation more
clearly, to overcome the anger within you, and to help you deliberate the
different paths available to you. Low fertility is not the same exact thing as
infertility, and there are medical procedures that can assist you and your wife
to conceive. I beg you to get the assistance you need to help overcome your
pain, confusion, and hard feelings before looking into the process of assisted
conception. You need to cross this first bridge before setting your sights on
another.
Snuggles,
TaziAsk Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with Bachelors degrees in Communications and in Gender and Women's Studies. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.
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