Infertility and Marriage: We Went Through It Together, Just Not the Same Way

Infertility happened to both of us. It just didn't happen to us the same way.

By the time my doctor said it out loud, I already knew.

After our miscarriage came another failed cycle. I'd watched my egg count drop with every stim cycle and every blood test, until even an aggressive protocol was lucky to give us one. So when a doctor I deeply respect told me donor eggs were the logical next step, with better odds than my own body, it shouldn't have been news.

It still hit hard.

I didn't get time to digest it. We just moved on to the next plan, because that's what we always did. I started the donor search. I found a woman who looked like me and reserved her. Then I waited to feel excited.

I never did.

Eventually my mind and body, stuck in go-mode for years, just quit. We paused. We started looking into adoption. And after a short break, with almost no time to grieve the mini-me I was never going to have, donor eggs came back up.

Because a mini-me wasn't possible for me. It was still possible for him.

I didn't want to take that from him. I told myself that if our roles were reversed, he'd do whatever it took to give it to me. (Honestly? I don't know that. Nobody knows what they'd do in a body they've never lived in. But I believed it.) So I told him I wanted that for him, even if I couldn't have it myself.

And he said that if I really wanted it for him, I'd be putting in more effort to make it happen.

I know now it came from his own grief. But in that moment, it landed like a verdict.

Because it was never about not wanting it for him. It was that I was empty. That I'd already miscarried a perfect embryo and was terrified of doing it again: heartbroken, deeper in debt, and devastated, because of my body. Again. It was that scrolling donor profiles for a woman who looked like me but wasn't me felt like grieving my own eggs all over again. It was that a surrogate might give us a baby while I watched the pregnancy I'd dreamed of from the outside.

None of that was "not wanting it enough." It was everything else I was carrying. And he couldn't see most of it, because I was the one carrying it.

That's the part nobody warns you about. Infertility can make you lonely inside your own marriage. Not because your partner doesn't care, but because two people can live through the same loss, side by side, and come out speaking completely different languages.

So let's talk about that.

Same Loss. Different Weight.

My husband and I lost a pregnancy together. We grieved together. We had to rethink our whole future together.

But we didn't go through it the same way.

I was the one getting the injections, the surgeries, the retrievals, and the transfers. I was the one whose body miscarried. Because of my age and a low ovarian response, my protocol was aggressive: steroids, hormones on top of hormones, four or five timed shots a day, plus a small pharmacy of pills.

I quit smoking. I overhauled my diet. I adjusted the bipolar medications that had taken me years to get right. I paused school and stopped working, because there's no holding down a job when every blood draw rewrites your calendar. And since fertility clinics aren't exactly on every corner, we traveled out of state for treatment on a schedule nobody could predict more than a few days out. Planning ahead became a fantasy genre.

I had tunnel vision because I had to. My only job was making my body the best it could be, and I'd try anything that might tip the odds. Moon water. Reiki. Enough pomegranate juice to qualify for a sponsorship. Desperation is one hell of a wellness coach.

My body was both the problem and the science experiment.

Meanwhile, he went to work and sat in the chair when he could make it, while I had the dildo cam shoved in my vagina. Again.

I'd watch him chug a Monster, demolish a double cheeseburger, and chain-smoke a pack of cigarettes while my mouth watered. Then I'd look down at my bland boiled chicken, brown rice, and soggy Brussels sprouts. I logged every ounce of water, strutted through caffeine-withdrawal headaches, dreamed about ice cream sundaes, and rolled over at night onto the injection bruises on my ass.

His body didn't have to change a thing.

That doesn't mean he didn't suffer. It means there are parts of this he can't understand from the inside, and that gets lonely.

The part I'm not proud of

Here's what's harder to admit: sometimes what I was going through was so loud that I couldn't hear what he was going through.

I felt like I had it harder. In a lot of ways, I did. The sacrifices weren't equal, and I won't pretend they were. But somewhere along the way, I started minimizing his grief. Sure, he didn't get a baby either. But he didn't have to carry one and lose it. He didn't have to feel like the reason why.

And then there were the swimmers.

Every new round, he'd remind me his were perfect, while each round brought back fewer eggs than the last. I was on an extremely aggressive protocol, praying for even one. Every time I heard "perfect swimmers," I wanted to punch him. Lovingly. Mostly.

He wasn't wrong. That was exactly the problem.

The resentment crept into smaller moments, too. After every loss there was no real pause, just disappointment and then straight into the next attempt. So even an ordinary "I have to work late" could set me off. His life outside IVF kept going. Mine was IVF.

He got to leave the house, with somewhere to be, people to talk to, and problems that weren't this one. I stayed home with my thoughts. What's next. What went wrong. What I could have done better. What I don't have. That deep, constant ache, with nothing to distract me from it.

Infertility is isolating enough. Watching him walk out the door into a life that kept moving made it lonelier.

Both things are true: I carried more of the physical weight, and he still lost something real. Holding both is harder than picking one. But picking one is how you end up grieving next to each other instead of with each other.

Infertility and Marriage: We Didn't Even Grieve in the Same Language

One of the most useful things I've read on this comes from psychologist Dr. Erica Mindes. She describes a pattern she sees often: after a failed cycle, one partner needs to be heard, and the other tries to fix it by finding a silver lining or pushing toward the next treatment. The fixer means well. But the partner who's grieving ends up feeling unsupported, and the fixer ends up feeling useless.

She's clear that different doesn't mean better or worse. The trouble starts when partners misread each other's coping styles and get stuck in a negative cycle. That cycle sounded very familiar.

Take one sentence: "We still have options."

What one partner may mean: "I haven't given up on us."

What the one who went through treatment may hear: "Everything you've already been through wasn't enough."

One woman on a DailyStrength infertility forum described hearing "it'll happen" from her husband for four straight years. He meant hope. She heard a broken record.

When silence is supposed to be protection

In our house, my husband went quiet. He didn't want to pile his grief on top of mine or make me feel responsible for his, too. I genuinely appreciate that instinct.

But his silence didn't protect me. It made me feel even more alone. We've had that conversation more than once, and here's where we've landed: I'd rather know what he's carrying than have to guess.

Turns out we're not unusual. Not even a little.

In a study of more than 1,000 people referred for IVF, men leaned more on distancing, self-control, and problem-solving, while women reached for social support. A Swedish study of couples starting IVF found men were far more likely than women to have told no one at all about their infertility. And the UK's fertility regulator notes that more than half of menwouldn't be open to discussing fertility even with their own partner.

Men interviewed by Healthtalk described deciding their partners needed them to be the strong one, and hiding how upset they really were. Couples therapist Clay Brigance calls it "well-intended chivalry": pushing your own feelings down to hold up your partner's. As loving as it is, he's found it tends to drive couples apart.

And the partner on the other side of that silence feels it. One woman on a support forum worried that she and her husband had become "separate and isolated in our respective sorrow."

Same loss. Two people protecting each other. Both ending up alone.

For me, being on the same team never meant we carried the same weight. Saying that out loud isn't keeping score. It's admitting that we each might need something different to heal.

When One of You Is Ready and the Other Isn't

After unsuccessful treatment, a lot of couples hit a brand-new problem: one of you is ready to look at adoption, donor conception, or another path, and the other feels frozen.

The partner who's ready may feel rejected, or scared that the chance to become parents is slipping away. The partner who isn't may feel guilty, misunderstood, and more overwhelmed by the day. Both of you are terrified of disappointing the person you love. And the harder you try to fix it, the further apart you drift.

It's common enough that NPR's Life Kit answered a letter about it: three failed rounds in, one partner wanted to adopt while the other wanted to spend their last savings on a fourth try. Same goal. Completely different places to stand.

When I went looking for how other couples handle this, I found fertility psychologist Dr. Saira Jhutty, a member of ASRM's Mental Health Professional Group. She writes that it's common for one partner to move through a decision like donor eggs much faster than the other. The slower partner needs real time to process on their own terms, and you can't force someone on board just because you want it.

IVF specialist Dr. Malpani goes even further. He says donor eggs should never be chosen out of desperation or pressure, that grieving the loss of a genetic connection is a normal part of the process, and that if you're not ready, it's better to wait.

For me, "I can't do this right now" never meant "I never want this." It meant I hadn't caught up to the decision yet.

When You're the Only One in Therapy

I've gone to therapy to work through infertility, pregnancy loss, and everything that came with them. It's helped. But doing that work alone can feel isolating when my husband isn't doing the same kind of work.

That doesn't mean therapy is the only way to cope, or that he isn't grieving. But therapy has given me language and insight he hasn't had the chance to build, and that gap can make our conversations harder.

My therapy helps me understand my own reactions and figure out what I need. It can't do the emotional work for both of us, and I don't want to become the translator for everyone's grief. Dr. Jhutty recommends a therapist who specializes in fertility when partners aren't on the same page: someone who already understands the details and can make a safe space for both people to be heard.

What Can Help When You're Out of Sync

There's no script for this. But I didn't want to just tell you what has and hasn't worked for us. As part of my social work studies, I've spent a lot of time digging into the research on infertility and relationships, and a few suggestions kept coming up. Here are the ones I think are worth sharing.

Name the kind of support you need.

Psychologist Dr. Erica Mindes describes four kinds of support: emotional (listening, hugs), esteem (reminding someone what you admire about them), informational (advice, problem-solving), and tangible (making the appointment, handling dinner). A lot of fights happen because one partner needs to be held and the other offers a plan. So say it out loud: "I don't need you to fix this. I need you to just listen for a while."

Give the hard talks a time limit.

Not every talk about adoption, donor eggs, or stopping has to end in a decision, and it shouldn't take over every conversation either. Mindes suggests capping infertility talk at about 20 minutes a day. That way, the partner who needs to talk gets real support, and the partner who copes by stepping back doesn't feel buried. If you can't resolve something in that window, pick a time to come back to it, so nobody feels cornered or stuck in limbo.

Get curious instead of convincing.

In his work with couples, Clay Brigance has found that the number one predictor of couples doing well through infertility is humility: asking questions, staying curious, and not writing the other person's story for them. The fight might look like it's about money, timing, or donor eggs. Underneath, it's often grief, guilt, fear, or exhaustion. Try asking, "What feels hardest about this option for you?" or "What are you afraid will happen if we don't move forward?"

Don't let avoidance become the plan.

A study that followed Danish couples through five years of unsuccessful treatmentfound that avoidance coping, like dodging the subject or pretending you're fine, raised distress not just for the person doing it but for their partner too. Meaning-based coping, finding purpose or growth in what you've been through, lowered it. In other words, going quiet to protect each other can backfire on both of you.

Split the labor.

This one comes from my own experience, not a study. Researching family-building options is a part-time job nobody applied for, and one partner shouldn't automatically become the project manager. Dividing it up is one way to avoid recreating the imbalance from treatment.

Get support built for this.

Fertility psychologists like Dr. Jhutty recommend a therapist who specializes in infertility, so you're not spending sessions explaining what a beta is. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine's Mental Health Professional Group explains when specialized counseling can help, and RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association offers peer support groups.

If either of you ever feels hopeless or unsafe, call or text 988 in the U.S. to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Where That Leaves Us

I'd love to tell you we've figured it all out. We haven't.

What's helped is my own counseling, and a lot of conversations about our options where the goal isn't to win. It's to land on a decision we can both live with: one where we're both still okay in our marriage, not one where one person gets their way and the other quietly pays for it.

Some days we're on the same page. Some days we're not even in the same book.

But I've stopped believing that being on the same team means feeling the same thing at the same time. It means making room for both.

If you've ever lain awake wondering whether this will break you, you're not alone in that fear. Research shows that couples who end treatment without a child are more likely to separate, but also that treatment itself doesn't raise the risk of divorce. And in one Danish study, about a third of people said years of unsuccessful treatment brought something good to their marriage.

Strain isn't a verdict.

What I'm learning is that you don't have to grieve the same way to grieve together. And you don't have to agree on what's next to keep choosing each other while you figure it out.

If you're the partner reading this

Your grief counts, too. You lost things in this, and you don't have to pretend you didn't. Researchers who studied a men-only infertility forum found men describing the pressure to be the rock: keeping their feelings to themselves and feeling sidelined from treatment. One husband told the HFEA he bottled everything up until he broke down at work, and admitted he hadn't realized how invasive treatment was for his wife.

Both can be true for you, too.

I'm not a therapist (yet), so I can't tell you what to do. But I can tell you what it was like on my side.

When my husband stayed quiet to protect me, I didn't feel protected. I felt alone. I didn't need him to have it all together. I needed to know I wasn't the only one hurting.

If you've been staying quiet out of love, it might be worth asking your partner what that silence feels like on their end.

And when I said "I can't right now," I needed him to hear "not yet," not "not ever."

Let's Talk About It

Where have you and your partner felt the most out of sync? The timeline? The way you each grieved? A comment that landed harder than it was meant to? The quiet in between?

And if something has helped you find your way back to each other, I'd love to hear it. Tell me in the comments. Partners are welcome here, too.

Coming next on The Petri Dish: what happens when IVF ends and you're not ready for what's next, and how guilt can quietly steer decisions about donor eggs and adoption.

IVF*THIS. Because infertility doesn't end just because treatment does.

Sources

• Kjaer et al. (2014), "Divorce or end of cohabitation among Danish women evaluated for fertility problems," Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. Abstract

• ESHRE 2017 press release, "Fertility treatment does not increase the risk of divorce" (Martins et al.). Link

• Peterson et al., "Marital benefit and coping strategies in men and women undergoing unsuccessful fertility treatments over a 5-year period," Fertility and Sterility. Abstract

• Peterson, Newton et al. (2006), gender differences in how people referred for IVF cope with infertility stress (1,026 participants). Chapman Digital Commons

• Gender differences in psychological reactions to infertility among couples seeking IVF and ICSI (Swedish couples). Cardiff ORCA

• Healthtalk.org, "Men and coping with infertility" (patient interviews). Link

• WLRN/NPR interview with Clay Brigance, May 2026. Link

• Inspire forum post, "Relationship struggles while navigating the grief of infertility." Link

• Hanna & Gough, men-only online infertility forum study (Leeds Beckett). Link

• Forum ethics: I paraphrased forum voices and kept the one direct quote short and anonymous. If you add Reddit posts, do the same. Skip usernames and long verbatim quotes, since a quick search can trace them back to the person.

• HFEA, "Getting emotional support" (men and fertility conversations). Link

• HFEA, "Richard's story." Link

• DailyStrength infertility forum, "No one understands." Link

• NPR Life Kit, "My wife wants to use the last of our savings for a 4th round of IVF" (Sept 2024). Link

• Mindes, "Keeping Your Relationship Strong During Your Infertility Journey," Seleni Institute (2022). Covers the four types of support and the 20-minute rule. Link

• Peterson et al. (2009), "The longitudinal impact of partner coping in couples following 5 years of unsuccessful fertility treatments," Human Reproduction 24(7). Link

• Brigance on humility as the top predictor: same WLRN/NPR interview listed above.

• Jhutty, "My Husband Doesn't Want to Use Donor Eggs – What Do I Do?," Cofertility (updated Jan 2026). Dr. Saira Jhutty is a licensed clinical psychologist and an ASRM Mental Health Professional Group member. Link

• Malpani, "The donor egg decision," Malpani Infertility Clinic (updated Jul 2026). Link