Beating a Dead Horse with Fiber of My Being

[anonymous CO USA]

Hello all ... just looking for advice ... I'll make it short as possible.

 

My wife and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary of a common law marriage.

10 years ago I proposed, she accepted (we've really known eachother for more than 14 years), but since then we've just been putting off the wedding mostly due to her failing health. She seems to have had just about everything wrong with her, along with some nasty medical mistakes that happened along the way. Over the course of the last 10 years, she has had 10 surgeries ... finally culminating in a radical hysterectomy - we have no children.

 

It seems like she is finally starting to get better, but her conditions have had their toll on me. I've just seen my manhood whither away as I've seen her through these times. We have no children, and this makes me angry at myself. We are still eachother's best friends and love eachother deeply - if she could shed some of the 60lbs she gained since we first met, I could actually be in love again if this makes sense. Right now with her gallstones and menapause at the age of 37 ... we are luck to have sex once a month ... and I'm feeling like my best years have passed me by.

 

We love eachother very much but for obvious reasons, we are not "in love" like honeymooners. Her conditions have pretty much consumed any passion we ever had. She has been dependent on me for health insurance and living expenses since she quit her fulltime job 7 years ago. Since then she's held one part time job after another - in between illnesses - otherwise I think she would have to apply for welfare and disability.

 

If these weren't problems enough - here is the core of our problem right now:

 

She is asking when I will finally marry her. I told her that I didn't know that not being able to have kids would hurt so bad. I want to have a child through surrogacy and share that child with her. She says that she could not bring herself to raise someone elses child, and wonders why I cannot just enjoy being an uncle to her nephews and nieces who we watch from time to time. I tell her that since I am an only child, and the son of European emmigrants ... I feel obligated to have at least one child here in America.

 

I know she would make such a wonderful mother judging by how she interacts with her nephews and nieces. That's one of the reasons I've been in there all this time. She is a great person with a heart of gold. I told her that I would be extremely honored if she would be the mother to my child, but she just started to cry and asked me how I would feel if the tables were turned, and I was asked to raise someone elses child when I couldn't have one of my own. I told her that if I had brothers and sisters who had kids, I probably would not care as my family would be continuing through them, but as I am the only child - not having any kids just hurts. She cried and said I should find somebody who could give that to me.

 

As a last chance, I want to ask her sisters, in confidence, if either would be willing to donate the egg for the surrogacy and suggest it to her as an alternative. She looks up to them as she is the youngest. This way my wife could get a child who is of her bloodline, but I'm not sure how any of the involved parties are going to react to that request .... I know that at one point one sister offered to be a surrogate for her, until we found that my wifes eggs were too deteriorated to be fertilized.

 

I have a total of 14 years of emmotion tied up in this relationship, and if I could have a real family with her - I would be content. But otherwise I cannot picture myself uttering the words "for better or WORSE" - I've already had 10 years of the latter.

 

Am I beating the perverbial dead horse? :-(

[Tony T]

Get this resolved immediately. I mean NOW! If your common law wife can't agree on some sort of terms of having a child, get a common law divorce. The anger and resentment that would build up inside of you because you were denied a most basic human desire, that of having children, would not only destroy your marriage but take a great deal away from your life.

 

This is a very difficult issue and I understand your lady's side as well. She's entitled to her feelings. But you have a major difference here that must be resolved in some way.