She PLANNED A PREGNANCY then aborted the baby. Ain’t your “right to choose” grand?
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is online weekly to chat live with readers. An edited transcript of the chat is below.
Slate: Q. Hubby Doesn’t Know: I’ve been married to a great guy for almost three years now. The only problem is that he really wants kids, and I have no desire to put my body through that. A few months ago he wanted to start trying for kids. I agreed, thinking that I could do it for him, but when I realized I was pregnant, I panicked and got an abortion. My husband is starting to worry that we haven’t had any luck and wants to start doing fertility tests. I’m worried that seeing doctors will cause my secret to come out and my husband will leave me. What do I do?
A: The two people in your marriage need to seriously consider what you’re doing there if you are so utterly at odds about adding another person to your family. You now realize you have no intention of fulfilling your husband’s desire for a child. But instead of telling him, you secretly aborted a fetus you had agreed to conceive. That speaks to a level of deceit that sounds lethal to a marriage. It would be one thing if your letter was about how you tell your husband you have no intention of having children. But you want some way to pretend to engage in fertility treatment without his finding out you two are perfectly capable of having a child. I don’t know if you discussed the having children issue before you got married, but an urgent life goal for him is to become a father. Your urgent life goal is to not become a mother. You need to face this forthrightly, and if it ends your marriage, that will give you each the opportunity to find more compatible partners.
DCG
