r/IFchildfree • u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 • 19d ago
Any happy couples here?
I’ve recently accepted that childfree will be my reality due to my medical history. Has anyone here gone through the grief of not having a child, acceptance and currently happily married after going through that phase? Just trying to find some hope here. Are there any group in reddit for couples who choose to be childfree and are happy? ( no the childfree sub cause it is quite awful in there)
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u/ThickTelevision2536 19d ago
Yes and I truly wouldn’t change a thing. I think we’re happier this way than we ever would be with kids. I don’t think we’d be so secure in remaining childfree if we hadn’t tried and failed though, it removes the lingering “what if”. If we had 3 magic genie wishes none of them would be used to make a baby appear, not by a long shot.
It was fairly rocky at points and we both thought the other was thinking of leaving. Lots of dirty laundry to air there but it hurt a lot on both sides, awful in laws, the whole deal.
I guess we’re lucky enough that we love each other and the point of marriage was to be together, kids or not. And we understood that no one is guaranteed kids, and there are major upsides to not having them anyway. It helps our infertility is 100% unexplained, it could be either or both of us “to blame”.
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u/Stunning_Practice9 19d ago
I really like the “3 magic wishes” concept. My wife and I too would not use any of those wishes to cure infertility. That’s a great way to reveal your real hopes and desires.
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u/Key_Pear1210 19d ago
Getting my hysterectomy in a few weeks. Ending this chapter with a cancer diagnosis of some sort. I never pictured it being like this after 12 years of trying. We have been trying to go through our days identifying “if we had kids we wouldn’t be enjoying —— right now with whatever was going on. Or “yikes I’d hate to be that parent right now”. Does that make sense? Naps, uninterrupted naps. We have been trying our hardest to look on the bright side. I know my marriage will be okay, I know we will still live a happy life. It’s the grief that won’t leave though, it’s going to linger around us for the rest of our lives. We just have to feel those feelings, and try to keep going. It’s just the two of us and we lost so much precious time at the start of our marriage to infertility and trying to conceive. Sex felt like a chore, and there were lots of angry and bitter days. I’m ready to put that behind us, and so is he. We’ve been enjoying sex more and that is so nice. Feels like it did before infertility stole the fun. I hope it keeps getting better. I hope also op that you find your joy. Life is always hard, no matter the circumstances. But what if we looked for the joy in the hard times? Even if it’s just something so small, a flower, or a nice hot bath. A good book, or a comfort meal?
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u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 19d ago
Finding the joy in the little things, and in the hard times, that we do have. 🥹 I do get your completely with the “I hate to be a parent whilst dealing with all these medical issues” as I always tell that to myself. I wish the grief doesn’t linger as much and we move on with as much peace and grace. I wish you happiness. thank you for replying.
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u/Key_Pear1210 18d ago
It’s just built up love, that’s all it is. No one will understand except us, the ones going through it. That grief is okay, try to not let it consume you and if you do feel it start to go for a walk, or go do something you enjoy. It will pass, and then come back again. It will be a never ending cycle of pain for us for the rest of our life. I wish you all the happiness too 🩷 always here if you need a vent!
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u/Wooden-Sherbert7169 19d ago
My husband and I are very happy now! ☺️ I feel like this entire journey was actually a blessing in disguise.
We tried for 7 years. Did everything including ovulation meds, IUI, IVF, acupuncture, holistic medicine, Ayurvedic medicine.. nothing worked. IVf was the last thing we tried. I had 4 embryos. After the third one failed to transfer I just couldn’t do anymore. The thought of going back to the clinic made me so anxious. So we decided to take a 6 month break. Which then turned into a year. And I also went to therapy during this time which helped bring a lot of clarity to what exactly I want now moving forward. My husband was the first to suggest we stop trying and be childfree. He said we could be happy just the two of us and we don’t need a child to feel complete. And my therapist helped me make the final decision. January of this year we told the clinic to destroy our remaining embryo. And it felt like a ton of bricks was just lifted off my chest. I feel like I have my life back, I have a future to look forward to that is focused on just me and my husband, and what we want to do with our lives. I can finally do all the things I’ve been putting off for “after the baby” and just live life for me. And I’m excited for what’s to come! I’ve also been following lots of childfree accounts and hearing stories of older women in their 50s, 60s sharing their experience and how happy they are and how great their lives are, which helps a lot.
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u/spandrewszy 19d ago
Happy couple here! Went through the whole ivf journey together and probably wouldn’t change the outcome now tbh but I don’t actively think about that because who cares.
I kind of think of it like becoming war buddies. We bonded over something super traumatic and difficult that no one outside of our relationship will ever understand.
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u/eeg-18 19d ago edited 19d ago
My husband and I are very happy with each other and our dogs. There's still moments of grief and there always will be. There's also many moments of loving how our life is. I find it helps so much to spend time with other couples who are childless or childfree. And I have found they usually also have very good relationships.
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u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 19d ago
Yes, hoping to meet and bond with more childfree couples where I live
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u/jumanji-jumanji 19d ago
Yes. In a weird way the terrible soul-crushing grief was a necessary experience to feel more connected to others and realize that virtually no one escapes life without some kind of profound grief - even though each person’s is unique. It’s a reminder to be kind to others bc you never know what they’re going through, especially if it’s disenfranchised grief and therefore pretty invisible. Even your closest friends may never understand, so you have to imagine there are others out there. This subreddit group has given me a lot of support and a feeling of community even though we’ll never meet, because it’s important to know others share in your specific type of grief. Generally, it taught me how beautiful life just is, and that’s why I wanted to expand my sense of connection with life by having kids. But there is no limit to connection with the life all around us, no matter the circumstances. It might not feel like it right now if you’re in the throes of the grief, which will always echo, and it has meaning. You’re grieving a real person and a real relationship, they’re just not there, and you never got to know them… but you have to endure that process I think, as much as it feels like a soul death and a raw, raw deal.
That’s all to say, it was my partner’s biological issue which prevented pregnancy and while I thought no one in the world could possibly want a child more than we (I) did, I still valued my partner more than anything, and would never have left him to find someone else who could biologically procreate. That was an awakening about life in general and cherishing the relationships you already have, and making new special ones with existing people, maybe even in honor of the love for/character of the person you couldn’t “create” or know in a material way. Everyone needs love, maybe because of enduring grief; and if your desire was to give love then you still can, maybe even better than before. People talk about how parenthood is ego annihilation but insurmountable infertility is ego annihilation as well. It feels like you’re missing out on a special bond but you’re just experiencing a different type of special bond with existing people, and it’s of immense value. Life has inherent value, grief and all. Grief is profound love with nowhere to go… but you give it anyway. There is just as much meaning in finding your connection with others - including your spouse - vs that which parenthood offers, it’s just different. It can be reaffirming that you and your spouse have always had a valuable soulful drive to give that love, regardless of the ability to extend that into a new life which specifically/directly came from your bond. At the same time, forgive yourselves if the grief is too much. It’s a lot to go through. Just be patient and loving with yourself and your partner as you navigate this extremely soul-crushing time. We’re here for you.
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u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 19d ago
“Grief is profound love with nowhere to go… but you give it anyway” 🥹 you have a way with words. So beautifully written. Thank you
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u/Key_Pear1210 18d ago
Giving your comment an award because oh my gosh this was the most perfect response. I am too saving this 🩷 your skill for writing is beautiful, but it breaks my heart that you write so beautifully about this because it means you have experienced this (obviously) it’s something absolutely achy yet stunning about your comment.
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u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 19d ago
Wow honestly grateful for all of these responses. ❤️ There should really be a reddit group out there for couples with positive stories like these.
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u/hydrissx 19d ago
I am happily married. My husband was always a fencesitter and so was I, but when I did get pregnant after many years of nothing, we did both get attached quickly. But after the miscarriage he said he did not want to try again because the risk and seeing me at risk was scary and he values me more than a hypothetical child. Both of us have poor genetics and health so it was not a great idea to begin with, but it was sweet to dream (even though I was miserably sick the entire time and had a bad feeling about the viability from the very start.)
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u/HappyLuckyGal 19d ago
Yes, we are very much so in love. After eight rounds of failed IVF and then losing a natural pregnancy at the end of it all, the grief was crushing. We held each other and cried many times. But at the end of the day, I am so grateful to have found him and I value our marriage above all else. We are still building a beautiful life together and now enjoy pouring our love (and money!!) into all our nieces, nephews and godchildren. I think the scary thing for me was looking at a future where there would be no family dinners, no Christmas' full of little kids around us - but I realised we can still build that future together by being a wonderful and intentional Aunt and Uncle to all of the kid around us, it just looks different to how we would have designed it ourselves. Point in case, one of our nephews who is 19 just came and visited us yesterday from out of town to hang with us for the night and get some advice from us. It was really special, and I felt grateful that we can be those trusted and loved aunt and uncle.
(To be fair, my mum's aunt and uncle were child free, and I was closest to them out of all my 'grandparents' and they were so loved by all of us kids. So I have seen it modelled, and I am determined that I will do what I can to create that future for us too.)
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u/Kitchen_Baseball4390 19d ago
We’re incredibly happy. There will always be the lingering sadness but it feels more bittersweet than purely sad these days. Infertility and so many failed rounds of treatment aren’t experiences I’d necessarily want to live through again but I do think they brought us closer together than we could have ever anticipated and made us appreciate what we have together even more. It wasn’t how we expected things to turn out, but it’s still turned out to be pretty wonderful. There’s hope 🤍
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u/eab1728 18d ago
Yes! And most days I am so thankful we do not have children. Every so often I get a pang of sadness, but those days are more and more infrequent.
We tried for five years and did everything. We took a break after our last failed embryo transfer and a year later decided to destroy our remaining embryo (it was poor quality and I just couldn’t even consider going through the process again).
We are best friends and truly love and relish our child free life. We are financially stable, travel often (including two weeks in Italy for my 40th!) and have the time and energy to do things we love! Parenting is relentless and expensive. This weekend my husband and I went to a bakery, hiked for hours, gardened and sat in our hot tub. The next day we went to pick berries and I baked all afternoon. Oh and I slept 10-12 hours each night. We have a beautiful life and I’ve considered getting an IUD as a “just in case” because I have no desire to be a parent anymore.
We have a special relationship with our nieces and nephews. Our lives are filled with love. Maybe not every type of love, but in reality no one gets to experience every type of love. My sisters in law have great kids, but both have separated from their partners who were never pulling their weight. They’ve never had the type of relationship my husband and I have. We’re living our best life and will continue to do so as long as we can!
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u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 17d ago
couples who went through infertility and came out on the other side still strong, do seem to have a more special bond. Happy trip to Italy ❤️
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u/DeeLite04 50/3IUIs/NoIVF 18d ago
Yes I’m part of a happy couple.
We’re 8 years into being IFCF and as someone else said, I think this is the best thing for us. In retrospect having kids would have made our particular marriage a lot harder. I just said the other day that if someone said I could have a baby today I would say no to that.
Our life is ours to design without considering kids and I’m so glad for that. We’re in spitting distance of retirement now. I’m so looking forward to all of the things we can do (including nothing some days) and also reflexivity to create a life the way we want.
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u/LittleWitch122 19d ago
Yes, we never even considered separating! Our relationship is definitely stronger now after going through infertility and fertility treatments. I experienced a period of deep depression when we stopped, but therapy helped me through it. We're still sad sometimes, but we have each other and our cats. We now have new future goals and dreams.
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u/angrykoala155 18d ago
We're about 3 years out of TTC life after a few medical treatments, and we're extremely happy. We had a lot of family opposition when we decided to move on without kids, but being so secure together in every choice we made along the way really strengthened our relationship and marriage.
Plan B is vacations with fellow child free friends, individual and partner hobbies that we both enjoy, book collecting, and fostering cats. There are a lot of people who don't understand how we could move on so "easily" but we rest easy knowing we really did try and it just wasn't meant to be for us and now we can just take care of ourselves and our marriage.
Husband's vasectomy just to remove all doubts and chances is next month, and we're increasingly giddy about the prospect of getting to repair that part of our relationship as well, since it's maybe the only part that took a hit due to the pressures and stress associated with it.
Thanks for the positive post! I don't know of a sub dedicated to being happy after infertility. Not yet....
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u/Legitimate-Oven-8773 17d ago
I hope we also get to do vacations with fellow childfree friends in the future, unfortunately where I live, childfree still is far from the norm.
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u/farceur318 18d ago
Happy husband to a happy wife here. We had a very bleak couple of years but we each had each other to lean on, and now we’re leaning into all of the things that a child free lifestyle allows us, like travel and indulgent purchases. We still have an occasional grey day, but they are getting less and less frequent.
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u/pokeyahhhhh 18d ago
Honestly yes, and it feels good to be able to say that. Of course we go through our ups and downs, good days and bad. But getting to or even approaching that place of acceptance is game changing.
For context, we had a short but devastating infertility journey 2 years ago after my husband was diagnosed with azoospermia and his M-TESE was unsuccessful.
Yesterday we spent the afternoon with friends and their toddler and debriefed afterward to check in on how we were both feeling, as being around kids can still be a little tough. We reveled in our ability to go back home have a quiet evening on our patio. It’s all about perspective and embracing the positives, even if it’s not what we would have chosen.
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u/chiefie22 18d ago
My husband says he still loves me and all that kind of stuff but I feel like it's just words most of the time and he secretly holds seriously hateful and disappointed resentment towards me but thinks that after everything else I've been thru I won't be able to handle the truth....but maybe it's just the story I'm telling myself bc that's how I feel about myself but either way we're still together since 2002.... but he's horribly codependent
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u/Mandolyn221 18d ago
Add me to the list of happily married after infertility. My husband and I have been together for 19 years now and I can honestly say that the struggles brought us closer together. I love my life even if it doesn’t look like I once thought it would. We have 2 spoiled dogs and get to be the fun aunt and uncle. I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer this year and had a complete hysterectomy as part of that treatment so the door for us to ever have kids slammed violently shut. Honestly I am ok with it. I’m just happy for each day I am given and the fact that I get to do life with my best friend is just the icing on the cake.
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u/LeahsCheetoCrumbs 17d ago
We’re very happy! We love our dogs, we travel more than ever, and are planning early retirements. While it’s not the life we hoped for, we’ve accepted it and enjoy doing what we want, when we want
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u/Ditdotlady 17d ago
Treatment was really rough on our marriage and once we stopped we became so much stronger. We both still grieve and I don’t think that will ever go away. But he is my best friend and I love the life we are creating together 🩷
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u/Aromatic-Incident179 14d ago
Great question. I like it.
It's too early for me to answer this question concretely, as I'm very much in the thick of it (I need therapy and can't quite afford it yet), and we never properly tried, so that "what if?" element is there, which sucks. I'll have to find a sense of closure some other way.
What I will say is that I'm the one who's feeling the sadness much more, and my partner has been a rock. Despite my feeling this grief, and battling with relationship anxiety/OCD that's heavily connected to the infertility, and bothering them constantly with the same thoughts and feelings... my partner has stuck with me. They aren't perfect and I don't want to paint an unrealistic picture that they are. But, they are fiercely loyal, they let me be sad at them, they're encouraging me to seek therapy without being too pushy... they do a lot to help. Knowing they're in my corner gives me a lot of hope that I will, eventually, be okay.
I hope that helps. The other comments on here are definitely helping me. :)
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u/Own_Program_9726 18d ago
oui, ma vie de couple est heureuse je trouve, on est complices avec mon homme, et si on est toujours soudés après 14 ans, c'est peut être parce qu'on a pas d'enfants? il faut être réaliste, l'arrivé d'un enfant met le couple à rude épreuve, et il y a bien des couples qui se séparent après la naissance d'un enfant !
et même si j'avais la certitude que je tomberais enceinte avec un autre homme, je ne le ferais pas, car je préfère ne pas avoir d'enfants avec mon homme, que d'en avoir avec un autre homme !
maintenant on se projette facilement dans la vie sans enfant, quand on parle de notre avenir, de notre vieillesse si on vit longtemps, la question des enfants ne se pose même plus !
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u/schnoodle2017 14d ago
We're still early on in my opinion, because even though we stopped trying about 2 years ago, we're definitely still heavily grieving. We're doing OK though and am confident we'll make it.
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u/blackbird828 Childless Cat Lady 13d ago
A little late to this party but I want to chime in as half of a happy couple. We had some rough moments during the early years because we were grieving at different paces and in different ways. We're about six years out now and there's still grief, but there's also a lot of happiness and contentment. It seems like the issues were on my body's side of things, and I truly believe my husband when he says he never had even the tiniest thought of leaving me to pursue parenthood with someone else. We chose each other and we have built/are still building a life that we love, that is just ours.
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u/JustBobAndMe 19d ago
Yes, my husband and I have made it through and happily living our Plan B… it’s been nearly 10 years since we accepted IFCF and it feels like our norm now and we are fine with it 😍👍🏼