Boyfriend told me he'd leave if I'm infertile. I'm considering moving on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP would stay with someone who couldn't earn anymore or got impotent.

It’s very common for men to dump their partners after a cancer diagnosis, so much so that the doctors office will often mention this. Women are more likely to stick around.

Nope.

It’s incredibly common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He wants to have children with you. If that's not possible, he still wants to have children. If you are offended that he would not stay with you no matter what, consider if you are so committed to him that you would also stay no matter what.

I would not have broken up with a man who was infertile, but I did break up with men who expressly did not want to have children, because I did. It wasn't that they were not good guys. We just wanted different things.

Does he? Sounds like he just wants a womb

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boyfriend of 2 years began talking about children making emphasis that he wanted them to be his. I then asked what would happen if I can't have kids. He said he would discontinue the relationship. While I recognize his right to pursue bio children, I feel uncomfortable with someone that would say something like this to me and I'm leaning towards moving on.

Has anybody had a similar experience?

You are going to screen for dishonest men. You will wind up with someone who is a good liar..If you don't want to hear honest answers to difficult questions, then don't ask them.

You think all men want kids?
Or that men who want kids want to trick women who don't into marrying them and then, what, replace their partners' birth control pills with aspirin tablets?

Are you insane, or is this, like, a fetish for you?

Your post makes no sense and is not a response. OPs bf wants kids. So has nothing to do with men who don't. OP hasn't said she wants kids herself in the first place. I think you actually realize that's the issue here since you're talking about her birth control pills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm anti IVF and understand his desire for natural children but id dump him. You take the person as they come. I'm sure he also wants a healthy wife who can walk and talk. So he'd leave you if you became disabled, got sick, turned out to be inferile. He doesn't love you for you, you're a means to end, he feels like women are fungible.

This. He sounds like someone who would leave you if it turned out you couldn’t carry a biologically yours pregnancy , for whatever reason. This could easily be someone who would also leave you if you couldn’t drop the baby weight, or if you got fired and couldn’t find comparable employment , or if you developed leukemia. Or lost the use of your legs in a car accident. Don’t get me wrong, these things can cause turmoil in many marriages , but for him to be like “yeah I’d leave you” is an absolute gift right now. Leave him and don’t look back. Find someone who loves you for you.

I mean, there are men who leave their perfectly healthy wives all the time because some AP made them feel special and alive. This guy at least is being upfront about it.

Right, which is why I said he’s giving her the gift of knowing ahead of time. So that she can move on and find someone else.

[Anonymous]

No one is obligated to stay in any relationship. A lot of women in their 20s and 30s would be out from the start if a man said he was infertile and can't have children.

Things change if a couple is in love and all that and have a great relationship. And then they discover issues with infertility. A strong couple works with that and deals. Most people don't fall in love very often. The relationship matters. A partner bailing over this issue is sad and wasn't a great life partner to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He wants to have children with you. If that's not possible, he still wants to have children. If you are offended that he would not stay with you no matter what, consider if you are so committed to him that you would also stay no matter what.

I would not have broken up with a man who was infertile, but I did break up with men who expressly did not want to have children, because I did. It wasn't that they were not good guys. We just wanted different things.

Does he? Sounds like he just wants a womb

This doesn't make sense either. OP didn't say she wants to be child free but is afraid to tell her bf that. And if she's infertile then he doesn't get to use her womb so based on the premise of her question, no need to worry about that, either. Ok didn't say she objects to bf wanting to use her womb. Of that's what the real issue is, she would have asked him a different question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one is obligated to stay in any relationship. A lot of women in their 20s and 30s would be out from the start if a man said he was infertile and can't have children.

Things change if a couple is in love and all that and have a great relationship. And then they discover issues with infertility. A strong couple works with that and deals. Most people don't fall in love very often. The relationship matters. A partner bailing over this issue is sad and wasn't a great life partner to begin with.

OPs bf (not "partner", they aren't married or engaged) didn't bail out on the relationship
OP is bailing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP would stay with someone who couldn't earn anymore or got impotent.

It’s very common for men to dump their partners after a cancer diagnosis, so much so that the doctors office will often mention this. Women are more likely to stick around.

Nope.

Reality resists your preconceptions about it.

In sickness and in health? For men, maybe not
SCCA study finds husbands more likely than wives to leave sick spouse
https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2009/11/sickness-and-health.html

A married man is six times more likely to separate from or divorce his wife soon after a diagnosis of cancer or multiple sclerosis than a married woman in the same situation, according to a study that examined the role gender played in so-called “partner abandonment.”

The study confirmed earlier research that put the overall divorce or separation rate among cancer patients at 11.6 percent, similar to the population as a whole. However, researchers were surprised by the difference in separation and divorce rates experienced by gender: 20.8 percent for female patients compared to 2.9 percent for male patients.

Educate yourself.

A 17-year old study of 515 patients with no baseline data where they didn’t even identify whether it was the husband or wife filed?

I agree. Education is warranted.

[Anonymous]

Kids being a deal breaker is understandable, in either direction.

OP’s implication is that her BF is saying he would leave after getting married and then learning about infertility. Assuming traditional, western marriage vows, that is a red flag. Sickness/health. Richer/poorer. All that jazz.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He wants to have children with you. If that's not possible, he still wants to have children. If you are offended that he would not stay with you no matter what, consider if you are so committed to him that you would also stay no matter what.

I would not have broken up with a man who was infertile, but I did break up with men who expressly did not want to have children, because I did. It wasn't that they were not good guys. We just wanted different things.

Does he? Sounds like he just wants a womb

This doesn't make sense either. OP didn't say she wants to be child free but is afraid to tell her bf that. And if she's infertile then he doesn't get to use her womb so based on the premise of her question, no need to worry about that, either. Ok didn't say she objects to bf wanting to use her womb. Of that's what the real issue is, she would have asked him a different question.

Of course it makes sense. Did op's boyfriend say I want kids with you? It sounds like he is only looking for someone to carry his kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being honest is a crime now? What would we say if genders were swapped here?

Yes the crime is being honest.

OP isn't infertile. She just doesn't want to be the "bad guy" responsible for the breakup because it is rather obvious that her real issue is she either knows she doesn't want to have children with him or isn't sure about it.

Instead of telling him the truth and letting the chips fall, she asked an inherently dishonest question creating a false premise and which falsely infers that she too wants to have bio children but can't.

Her question about what happens if she can't have children isn't even relevant until she actually commits to wanting to at least try to have children with him.

Which she doesn't. So she destroys the relationship but wants to blame him for it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being honest is a crime now? What would we say if genders were swapped here?

Yes the crime is being honest.

OP isn't infertile. She just doesn't want to be the "bad guy" responsible for the breakup because it is rather obvious that her real issue is she either knows she doesn't want to have children with him or isn't sure about it.

Instead of telling him the truth and letting the chips fall, she asked an inherently dishonest question creating a false premise and which falsely infers that she too wants to have bio children but can't.

Her question about what happens if she can't have children isn't even relevant until she actually commits to wanting to at least try to have children with him.

Which she doesn't. So she destroys the relationship but wants to blame him for it

Oof, you're doing an insane amount of projecting here.

[Anonymous]

1.

Anonymous wrote:Boyfriend of 2 years began talking about children making emphasis that he wanted them to be his. I then asked what would happen if I can't have kids. He said he would discontinue the relationship. While I recognize his right to pursue bio children, I feel uncomfortable with someone that would say something like this to me and I'm leaning towards moving on.

Has anybody had a similar experience?

2.

You are going to screen for dishonest men. You will wind up with someone who is a good liar..If you don't want to hear honest answers to difficult questions, then don't ask them.

3.

You think all men want kids?
Or that men who want kids want to trick women who don't into marrying them and then, what, replace their partners' birth control pills with aspirin tablets?

Are you insane, or is this, like, a fetish for you?

4.

Your post makes no sense and is not a response. OPs bf wants kids. So has nothing to do with men who don't. OP hasn't said she wants kids herself in the first place. I think you actually realize that's the issue here since you're talking about her birth control pills.

The only way her question "screens for dishonest men" is if either all men want kids, or the ones that do will lie to her. It's your response that makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a female and I only wanted biological children. But I would not leave my spouse if we could not have our own. We would remain childless.

OP Isn't married or engaged to him. She also followed up and said her question was actually more along the lines of "what if we didn't have children, even if it was due to [OP] being infertile"?

The "even if" is telling. The real meat if her question is not hypothetical future infertility. That's just a straw man. The real issue is that OP doesn't want to have children with him, fertile or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being honest is a crime now? What would we say if genders were swapped here?

Yes the crime is being honest.

OP isn't infertile. She just doesn't want to be the "bad guy" responsible for the breakup because it is rather obvious that her real issue is she either knows she doesn't want to have children with him or isn't sure about it.

Instead of telling him the truth and letting the chips fall, she asked an inherently dishonest question creating a false premise and which falsely infers that she too wants to have bio children but can't.

Her question about what happens if she can't have children isn't even relevant until she actually commits to wanting to at least try to have children with him.

Which she doesn't. So she destroys the relationship but wants to blame him for it

What's inherently dishonest about her question?