Child-Free Woman At A Loss After Infertile Sister-in-Law Calls Her Marriage 'A Waste' Because They Won't Have Kids
She's obviously heartbroken that she can't conceive. But she's making her infertility everyone's problem.
Nicoleta Ionescu / Shutterstock A woman who is child-free by choice is at a loss after an argument erupted with her sister-in-law, who struggles with infertility.
Her story puts the stigma against both situations into stark relief, and the response online has sparked quite a bit of debate over how we approach both of these issues.
The child-free woman's infertile sister-in-law constantly lashes out at her for her choice to not have kids.
As it continues to grow, the "child-free by choice" trend, in which women decide they never want children, seems to become more and more controversial. Women who make the choice to be child-free are often criticized as selfish and told they'll regret their decision down the line.
For a woman who wrote to Slate's Dear Prudence column, her choice to be child-free resulted in a bitter conflict with her brother's wife, who is infertile.
When she recently announced her engagement, the child-free woman's infertile sister-in-law said her marriage would be 'a waste.'
"My sister-in-law is infertile and makes it everyone’s problem," the woman wrote in her letter to Dear Prudence. "Every conversation is a minefield."
She described how any mention of kids seemed to set her sister-in-law off, and how she once locked herself in the bathroom when another family member announced she was pregnant.
But the child-free woman's life choices are particularly problematic to the infertile sister-in-law. "She has screamed at me over my child-free stance and struggle to get sterilized," she wrote, "because 'how dare I waste my womb when there are other women in the world that want but can’t have babies.'"
Things came to a head over Thanksgiving when she announced her engagement. "My sister-in-law decided to step in and lecture us that… the wedding would be a waste since we weren’t planning to be a 'real' family because we didn’t want kids."
Deeply and understandably offended, the woman snapped back, "What did that make her and my brother then? They sure didn’t have any kids." The sister-in-law burst into tears and locked herself in a bedroom, and her parents and brother are furious with her.
But even her sister said she's had it with "walking on eggshells" around her sister-in-law, and she and her husband are at their limit too. "We have been sympathetic but after seven years of her drama, we are sick to death about it," she wrote.
The shame and trauma that come with infertility are very real.
Though it may seem like this woman's sister-in-law's response to her infertility is a bit overwrought, being infertile is incredibly taxing emotionally and mentally. Research has shown that people struggling with fertility have levels of depression and anxiety similar to those of HIV and cancer patients, in fact.
It's also a genuinely traumatic experience that therapists liken to a death. Psychologist Dr. Martha Diamond, founder of the Center for Reproductive Psychology in San Diego, called infertility "a complicated grief process because it's often an invisible loss."
She told the American Psychological Association that our lack of active ways to grieve this "invisible loss" only compounds it. Since "there are not rituals or public ways to honor these losses," Diamond said many women turn this grief in on themselves.
Perhaps, because of this, Dear Prudence had little sympathy for the child-free woman, whom she called "unfriendly" and pointedly urged to "muster up the barest sympathy" toward her sister-in-law.
"This person is miserable on an existential level and isn’t doing a perfect job at smothering that misery for your greater comfort," she tersely wrote. And while she agreed that the sister-in-law's "waste" comment was way out of line, she felt the woman's response was far, far worse.
Still, lashing out at others over your own struggles is not fair or appropriate.
It's easy to understand why Dear Prudence took such issue with this woman's anger towards her sister-in-law. She doesn't seem to quite grasp how difficult infertility is for those who struggle with it, and her clap back at her sister-in-law was definitely below the belt.
But, well… can you really blame her? Many online felt empathy for the sister-in-law, but couldn't get past the way she has essentially used her fertility struggles as a weapon for years.
As one Twitter user put it, "I absolutely have sympathy for the sister-in-law but you don't get to run around yelling at people for wasting their womb. Or tell them that their marriage is a waste because they won't have children. For seven years."
Another user agreed, saying the trauma of infertility is the "reason for her outbursts, not an excuse." There is, of course, a vast difference between the two.
Given how often child-free women say they end up on the receiving end of other women's ire, it's tempting to wonder if Dear Prudence shares a similar bias against them that colored her advice.
Either way, what the sister-in-law actually needs, aside from empathy, is professional help. We often seek professional help when dealing with an actual death, after all. The compound grief of infertility is no different.
Hopefully, we as a society and culture can become more open about discussing how this issue impacts not just the women suffering from it, but their loved ones as well, so that families can avoid these sorts of conflicts.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.