# Husband cannot, or refuses, to understand TTC emotion



## violeta

Hi ladies,

If you haven't read my intro post, I'm Violeta, I've been married since April 2013 and have been TTC for one year with no luck. Yesterday I found out about a fourth announcement in two weeks, which has kicked me in the teeth as it seems to be happening for so many people with ease. I'm trying to keep a handle on things so I can tell if I'm ov-ing, and BBT charting is one of them. However for the fourth time this week I find myself awake after three hours of getting to sleep, and not being able to drift off again, which means it's yet another night where I cannot chart. Tonight I tried to control my breathing and was successful in taking my mind away from TTC however I still didn't fall back asleep (after two hours). I got very frustrated and came into the living room crying. My husband followed me and whilst I was crying he said "you sound mental, you've got to relax etc etc" which is the worst thing he could have said. I asked him whether he felt anything at all about the whole thing and he said "sorry but no, I wish we could have a baby but I'm not sad". 

I'm finding it very lonely and very difficult being the only one who seemingly gives a toss about this. I'm trying to do the right things by taking vitamins, eat right, drink less, chart, pee into cups etc., and I've had my dream come crashing down for 13 cycles, which I know in comparison to some is tiny but it's still crushing. He does NOT understand this aspect of it at all and doesn't see that I have to live with it every single day, but it's almost like he refuses to understand it. If it were that easy to relax, doesn't he think I would just do it? He even said that he finds it hard to hug me when I'm crying "because it doesn't solve anything". He's a fixer, so I've had to explain that even though it doesn't solve the problem, it makes the short term a hell of a lot easier to deal with. He has this idea that we can go straight to IVF but that just shows how much he knows about the subject, as if IVF will be the answer to everything when, even if going there was an option, the success rate I believe is not amazingly high.

I hate what TTC has the ability to do to me and our relationship. He thinks I'm the one ruining things but he can't see how him being so blasé about it is damaging me too. Am I being incredibly selfish here?

TIA. 

V x


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## goldbunny

no, you aren't.
i understand how frustrating this is for you
men 'don't get it' - they seem to deal with things differently - and you are unlikely to change that, though hopefully he will be a bit more sympathetic about how you feel. but you probably won't change how he feels. 
i believe (though it is an unscientific theory) that you can rest your body effectively even if you can't switch your mind off. i found youtube videos about relaxation or meditation helpful. it's good you did the breathing control. i think with practise you could get better at 'switching off' or at least getting your body into a fully relaxed state. good luck. i hope you soon get your dream.


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## bundles

Hi Violeta  
As GB says, men are just different   When I was cycling I used a Paul McKenna cd, I Can Make You Calm. I listened to it on my cd Walkman under my pillow & often it sent me right off to sleep   definitely worth a go !
Good luck
xx


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## staceysm

Hi,

I tend to agree with the other ladies.  I wouldn't say he is deliberately being like this.  I TTC for 4 years and when I got AF each month and had a little cry, my hubby would just say it will happen and not to stress about it.  He genuinely cared about me and wanted us to have a baby, but he just didn't feel the same way about it not happening.

I can see that you have made a lot of changes to help achieve a pregnancy, but try not to let TTC consume your whole life.  It really can destroy/damage relationships.

Make sure you still have fun together.  You still have time for a natural BFP.  It took my sister in law 18 months and then two years to conceive her children.

Good luck
X


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## melbg

I agree with the pp's that it's a man thing. My dh was the same up until the point we were getting appts through to attend gynae and then fertility clinics. At that point, something seemed to click with him that it was serious and not just in my head.

If I could go back and change anything, I'd tell my stressed-out self that I'll still be doing this in 3 years and will need ivf anyway so to not bother so much. Totally different with hindsight as when you're living it, and with all the uncertainty about will it ever work, will I ever be a mum, it is one of the most stressful things you will go through. Not even taking into account the issues it causes in relationships. All I can do is offer sympathy and hugs, it's hard but you will cope, you will get through it. Xxx


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## kerryh

I'm sorry you are having such a hard time. I don't know how far you are into any investigations but I know that year of trying to conceive marker was a really hard period of time for me too. I was lucky that I had a GP who took my concerns seriously and set up appointments for investigations quite quickly. What I found hard was every month that passed without success I got more and more worked up about what might be wrong. 

My DH wants a baby but he's not crushed by the disappointment of not having one like I am. It feels very lonely to carry all that upset on your own and at first I kept it all to myself and that was what started to really make me feel like I was going mad. Now we've had more time to talk about it things are better. I try to make more of an effort to explain how I feel, rather than just expecting him to know, and being disappointed that he didn't feel the same.  One thing I talked to my DH about, that helped to make him understand, was the biological aspect of the situation - my biological desire to have children. I tried to explain what a powerful urge it is and how difficult it is to be full of hormones that are all screaming at you to have a child. There is no off switch for that. It's like being hungry and being given nothing to eat. Except once a month you think somebody might feed you, but then they don't. It sounds daft but this did help him get his head around it!

I hope more than anything to see you on here again having conceived and in the meantime I hope you start to feel better


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## rmatz

Hi  

Sorry it's been so hard. I know what you mean. I am a barrel of nerves myself. 
Everyone has said the truth, men react differently in general. Another point that comes to my mind is that women's hormones fluctuate a bit more than men's anyway (even without the drugs if you haven't yet started).

Also, society teaches men that they have to push down emotions and so maybe your hubby is doing a bit of that. Not that all men are unfeeling, but they aren't exactly encouraged to pour their emotions out, are they? So, they get trained to push it down, hide it or avoid it.  Often, as is the case with my husband, he doesn't have a clue what he's feeling about things.

That said, he is actually more emotional about the failures than I am, but the stress of organizing and managing all of this, he is oblivious and infuriatingly uninvolved.  He will sit all day and watch videos to learn lots and lots of things, but he has never put any of his own time into educating himself on all of this, while I have spent a month of Sundays researching and organizing.  Now that I think of it, I think it is self-preservation for him.  He avoids a lot of emotional things. Kind of like turns it off in a way.  And you know what, if I could do the same, I just might...at least for a bit.

So, I am betting your hubby cares more than even he knows.  The others have recommended trying to pace yourself. This can be a long, bumpy road.  Stop at as many rest stops as you need and take the curves as slowly as you need to feel safe.  It helped me to think of it all as a medical proceedure. I told myself that is all it was until I am pregnant.  When my hormones got really bad, I would tell myself over and over that how I was feeling wasn't completely real and I tried to develop techniques to bring me down. Like you're doing already.  

And this site helped a lot, too.

Hope you feel better soon.


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## violeta

It struck me that I didn't ever say thank you all for your advice. Thank you - I'm sorry it took me this long to reply. 

I'm currently on CD1 today but knew I was out on Monday when my temp dropped. Thankfully my husband was absolutely brilliant at handling everything, all he did was give me a massive hug. I think the fact that my gyno gave me a fertility booklet which detailed IUI and IVF in (with stats) gave him a bit of a wake up call - I don't think he really understood the procedures and when we were reading it it did hit him that I would be the one having to physically go through everything, so I think that helped him empathise a bit better.

This cycle I've decided to not actively try. My first blood test is tomorrow, my second on October 7th and once the results are in from that I'll be going in for my HSG. So before it gets all invasive I want to just have one month where the two of us reconnect, as corny as that sounds.

Thanks to you all again, very much appreciated. 

V. Xx


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## Molly99

Good luck    That's fantastic if your DH has had a little light bulb moment (they can be few and far between with men in these circumstance!)

I've posted about this so much.  I have a 'fixer' DH and he doesn't feel emotion when he can't do anything about the situation.  I think that my DH takes this to the extreme however, he wasn't emotionally (or often physically) present for any of our cycles and worse still, he didn't even feel the need to be with me on any of my results days (he took his children on mini breaks instead).  On our very last cycle, when I was on the floor sobbing he was booking a camping pod and then left.

The strange thing is that he is such a loving man in all other circumstances, I wouldn't in a million years ever have imagined him behaving so coldly.  He has to live with the consequences of me feeling hurt & just a teensiest bit bitter about his behaviour now.  I'm sure that, in hindsight, he would do it all differently now even if it was just for a quiet life  

Stress and emotion does weird things to men.  They're just a weird species in general sometimes


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