Who is more selfish, my husband or me?

Question

My husband and I are always fighting about who has better reasons in why we shouldn't or should start a family. I am 26 and infertile. I would like to start treatments while I am still young because it might give me better chances in getting pregnant. My 28 year old husband on the other hand says we should wait because we're not ready to have children and to wait until he's done w/ school. He says I'm selfish for not trying to understand that. He already has 2 bachelor degrees and working on his third one. I say he's the selfish one because he doesn't consider the fact that I only have a couple of good years to have children but he on the other hand would always be able to get some other woman pregnant no matter how old he was. What should I do? Should I just wait until he's ready or what?

Thanks for all your responses people! But to those who asked, my husband is getting his 3rd bachelors degree because first he wanted to be a pharmacist, so he got a chemistry degree. Then he found out it was a degree in biology that he needed so he got that. After that, he was having a hard time getting into pharmacy school so he decided to be an engineer instead. No, we are not well off. We're just both cheap asses. To be fair, unlike my husband, I never finished school. And I also have another question, if he doesn't want kids or not even ready for it why is it whenever we see his nieces and nephews he gets all excited and just loves to take them out and buy them things?

Answer 1

I honestly think he is being selfish. No one is ever completely ready for a child no matter how many degrees you have. With you being infertile it may take years to finally conceive or i am sorry to say it could never happen. To start now would mean you may be able to find a surrogate or have more time to adopt.
I want to have 2 kids before I am 25. I just finished my nursing degree. We have been trying to conceive for about 2 years now. Only to find out I am not even ovulation. We are hoping clomid works otherwise we will have to go to the next step.
Plus either way you don't want to be so old that you can't enjoy doing stuff with your children.
If all else falls you could us a sprem donor. But I would try sitting down and having a long discussion. He has a lifetime to spend on getting educated you only have so long before you can't have children

Answer 2

Your husband is. I may be biased but I think that having a baby is more important than obtaining a 3rd bachelors degree. Having a baby will take time maybe years if you are infertile. Even couples that do not have any issues sometimes take months to become pregnant. It was always my assumption that when I was ready for a baby *bam* it would happen with no problems. Little did I know how much is actually involved. If I had know what I know now I would have never waited until I felt everything was perfect. I would have started much younger 26 or 27. I am now 32 and I can feel nothing but my clock ticking. I spent so much time and energy trying NOT to get pregnant that I never thought it would be hard to GET pregnant. Good luck to you. I hope you and DH get it all worked out.

Answer 3

I think your husband is the selfish one. If he has 2 bachelor degrees he should already have a good job and financially able to support a child. It sounds like he's trying to put off having a baby for some reason. I've heard that it does take an infertile woman awhile to conceive. I was fertile but it took me a year to get pregnant. Good luck and hopefully he will come around.

Answer 4

Seems like there is more of an issue here. Why is he going for his 3rd Bachelors degree? If he were any smarter, he would be working on his Ph.D.
Does he work? Maybe he is right in telling you that you both are not ready since he just goes to school. If he does not work, he might be avoiding responsibilities, in which case you are better off finding a mature and intelligent person who knows what he wants out of life.
On the other hand, if you’re not doing that well in the financial aspect, he might be right since these fertility clinics are quite expensive. You should have talked about this before marriage but what really concerns me is why he’s getting a 3rd degree. Does he have a full time professional job? Not to be mean, but this reminds of the man that told his wife he was going to medical school and killed his wife when she found out he was all a story.

Answer 5

I think he is the one being selfish. You need to start treatment because it can take a very long time for a treatment to actually work.
It can take a really long time for you to get pregnant.
Your young and your ready. You need to go for it now.
He needs to be more understanding of how you feel and what you want.
Talk to your doctor about it and your infertility problem. Maybe if you have your doctor on your side advising you to Begin treatments now, then maybe your husband will start to understand the importance of it all.

Answer 6

I can't say whether he is being selfish or not, but I do agree that you should not put this off and start asap.
DO NOT leave it too late to have kids, you will kick yourself later and regret it so.
I am 35 and have one, and am having loads of trouble having a second one and lets face it, time and nature are not on my side. Why oh why didn't we think to start having kids a couple of years earlier??
Not only that, IVF does not guarantee a pregnancy!
Having said that though, you need a real serious chat with your hubby because if you talk him into something he isn't ready for he will only begrudge and regret it later when you don't have money or he can't study because the baby is crying etc etc.
Good luck with everything!

Answer 7

First of all, talk. Find out if he really wants children. It can be a really hard thing to know that you want children and not know if he really does. He needs to know how you feel, and I mean, he needs to actually listen. I'm not much for counselors, but it may not hurt to get one to sit down with and make sure that an understanding is reached on how selfish he seems to you since all of his desires are coming true and yours are constantly being put off. If you find out eventually that he never wanted children in the first place, you'll have to figure out what to do next.

Answer 8

You both have good points. You are still young, but I do understand it takes infertile women possibly years to become fertile once they start treatment. He on the other hand just wants to become finacially stable with a career before he goes and has babys. You both need to sit down and figure out a timeline for your first child. Good luck

Answer 9

I agree with the first person who answered. You two should have discussed this stuff BEFORE you said "I do." Now you are kind of stuck. You cannot bring children into this world fairly unless BOTH partners want it. Sorry--but that is the sad fact of reality. If your husband isn't ready, then there isn't any way you can convince him otherwise. Once again--things that should have been discussed before you got married. Then you at least knew where each other stood and could make some decisions.

Answer 10

I'm not trying to start an argument here, but I have to ask. If he has two bachelor's degrees and doesn't have a good-paying job, what the **** has he been doing all this time??