Fertility treatment asks a great deal of a marriage, even a strong one. If you and your loved one are trying to start a family but encountering challenges, you are not alone. Infertility affects about 17.5 percent of adults worldwide, roughly 1 in 6, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States alone, infertility or difficulty carrying a pregnancy to birth occurred in 13.4% of women and 11.4% of men. These figures vary depending on how infertility is defined. Those seeking a warm, neutral space to be heard may find couples therapy and infertility counseling a safe place for everyone involved. You do not have to endure this period of your life alone.
Grief That Arrives on Different Days
During infertility discussions and subsequent treatments, partners often land on opposite ends of the same emotional cycle, so the moment one of you needs hope, the other may be having a wave of doubt. After a failed cycle of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process that fertilizes eggs in a lab, one of you may feel the loss that night and the other weeks later. A counselor can help each of you hear the other’s timing as grief. The two-week wait, the stretch between a procedure and a pregnancy test, adds anxiety that each of you carries differently. Neither of you is right or wrong; you are experiencing the same events in your own ways.
When Intimacy Follows a Calendar
Treatment can change how couples spend time together and how they relate sexually. When you and your partner schedule closeness around ovulation and clinic appointments, it can start to feel like a task on a checklist. A counselor can give you both room to talk about touch and desire, and the pressure the calendar adds, at your own pace.
Sharing the Research and the Cost
Money questions sit right beside the medical ones, since fertility treatment in most countries is largely paid for out of pocket, according to the WHO. Research can also pile up on one person. The partner who reads every study and tracks every protocol may feel worn out, while the other feels a step behind. A counselor can help you talk through who carries what and how many attempts feel possible, financially and emotionally.
Quiet Partners Feel It Too
Cultural pressure not to talk about infertility lands harder on men, and they may settle into the role of cheering the other person up, which leaves little room for their own disappointment. A partner who has gone quiet may be coping in the only way that feels possible, and from the outside, the other partner may interpret those behaviors as distance.
Male-factor infertility, where the cause is found in the male partner, can add stigma, and unexplained infertility leaves a couple with no cause to point to and nothing to fix. A counselor can talk with each of you without assigning blame. Your situation is not your fault.
Secondary Infertility Deserves Its Own Space
Trouble having another child after a birth is called secondary infertility, and CDC data show that 5.39 million of the 9.7 million women with impaired fecundity had already given birth at least once. If you are hoping for another child, that grief can be hard for others to recognize, especially when someone says “at least you have one.” A counselor can provide a safe, non-judgmental space without comparing your situation to anyone else’s experience.
Deciding When to Stop Fertility Treatment
If you are uncertain about how to proceed after months or even years of fertility treatments, you may be feeling guilt. People often decide to stop from the inside out, after weighing time, money, emotional energy, and physical energy, and there is no single right way to do it. Some find that taking a break when you feel overwhelmed and talking with a trained counselor or support group member when you are unsure how you feel may help.
Partners can arrive at different answers, with one ready to consider donor options or adoption while the other wants another cycle. Each of you deserves to be fully heard without being steered toward an outcome, and a therapist provides a safe space for those conversations.
Infertility support groups may also bring comfort from people in the same situation, though volunteer-led groups are not a replacement for private counseling. A counselor adds someone who sees the two of you together and works with the patterns between you.
A Steady Room for Your Marriage at Village Counseling
Therapy is one tool in your toolkit to work through fertility challenges and the emotional turmoil they can bring. You do not have to accept the fatigue and confusion that may come with treatment. You deserve hope and happiness during this time, and Village Counseling would be happy to learn about where you currently are in your treatment journey and discuss whether this might be the right time to get started. Our compassionate team offers couples therapy in Ellicott City, Md., and by telehealth. Our couples therapists use culturally sensitive, scientifically supported methods. Call (410) 657-2141 or contact us online to schedule a first session.