Dear Bel,
I’m sure you’ve received letters about this, because it’s not uncommon. I ask: how can you live life positively when you long to have children and cannot have them?
I am 42 years old and my heart feels so empty and hurts so much that nothing can fill it. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to have children (two or three, I thought) and I always thought I would have them. I am not a career girl, but a family girl through and through.
Now I blame my entire body for letting me down with something that for a woman should be one of the most natural and special things her body can do: have a baby. I got pregnant once, a few years ago, and in my mind I became a mother. Six weeks later I started having a miscarriage and I have never felt more alone in my life.
Why had my body failed me? Why did I get pregnant and lose our baby? I still think about how old that child would be now and it makes me very sad. Some people ask me why I want to bring a child into the world when there are wars, climate change and all the bad things that are happening. But hasn’t it always been bad? We simply know more about it with 24-hour news. People still had children during the two world wars, when the world would have felt very dark indeed.
People often ask if we have children and then talk about theirs. One day they will ask me if I have grandchildren. I am envious of pregnant women. I will never get to know that unconditional love that people talk about when having their own child.
I fear my future and how the void in my heart seems to grow larger. What’s the point of my life when I can’t even do basic playback?
All I ever dreamed of was me, a husband and two children. Many people have this and take it for granted. Why couldn’t I have been one of them?
KATY
Bel Mooney responds: You’re absolutely right in assuming that I’ve received a lot of sad letters about infertility over the years, and they all say (essentially) the same thing. So I thought I’d print this abbreviated version of his just to remind people how cruel the situation can be.
Infertility is estimated to affect one in seven heterosexual couples in the UK and can be caused by many factors. A statistic like that can hide a world of sadness and should serve as a reminder that, for many women, pregnancy is far from “one of the most natural and special things” the female body can do.
And the ripples spread outward. I have a letter here from an older woman whose daughter’s last round of IVF failed. She writes: ‘I appreciate everything I have and know there are many who would love my lot in life, but right now I can’t sleep, eat or think clearly.
‘For a couple of precious months my mind has been filled with the joy of imagining a granddaughter or grandson worth waiting for. But now I’m back to where I was when my husband and I thought we’d never be lucky enough to be grandparents.’
This lady, C, ends her email: “I also know, of course, that there is no answer, because it is in the lap of the gods.”
When most people believed in “the gods” or God, it must have been easier to accept fate as divine will, even if one criticized it. I can still relive the mixture of grief and anger after my second child was stillborn, full-term, 49 years ago next month.
I also know what it’s like to watch a planned pregnancy turn into another miscarriage. And I remember the dread when my own daughter began IVF, although she happily (with great difficulty) gave birth to two wonderful children.
Yes, I know what it’s like to shake your fist at the dark sky and shout, ‘Why me?’ Like you.
Many of us write a ‘script’ for our lives: the dream partner, the happy family at the right time, the perfect children, the satisfying job…
When things go wrong, we look for a reason. When my baby was stillborn, I wrote in an article that I must have been “evil.” Your uncut letter also seeks to apportion blame, although you know it is useless.
Like everyone who has written about this sad and painful topic over the years, you have no choice but to try to achieve what seems impossible: write a new script for your life that finally accepts what happened and seeks to create a new one. destination’. Because there is no choice. Please believe how desperately I regret not being able to speak words of upliftment and easy comfort.
When I was 13, my father abused me.
Dear Bel,
First, let me tell you how much I love your column: a rare bit of sanity in a world that’s going a little crazy.
I am writing in response to Evelyn, whose letter you printed last week, very distressed that her husband had been arrested for viewing images of child abuse. I tell him that the fact that he himself was abused as a child is never an excuse.
I am 45 years old and when I was 13 I was sexually abused by my drunk father at his 40th birthday party.
I didn’t cry, even though I knew it was wrong, and I have lived with the guilt and shame to this day.
When I was pregnant with my first baby, I saw a TV show that said most abused people become abusers.
I never felt that way, but I think it seriously affected my ability to raise my children. I have a terrible history of self-harm, substance abuse, and a couple of suicide attempts.
After my crisis, the children went to live with their father. They were seven and five.
The only good thing I have ever done in my life was choose that man as the father of my wonderful children, who thrived with him.
Anyway, I have some sympathy for Evelyn, but maybe she would like to consider girls like me and how their lives are affected when she thinks about forgiveness.
Your husband may not have committed the abuse himself, but somewhere there is a scared, confused, emotionally ruined child whose life will never be “right.”
See?
TONI
His was not the only email that came in questioning Evelyn’s husband’s ‘excuse’ that he downloaded the disgusting material because he was abused as a child. But he is the only one who has such a heartbreaking story to tell.
I feel nothing but compassion for the terrible pain that has plagued your life since that terrible, drunken man (I can’t spell “father”) inflicted himself on you, betraying you and damaging you forever.
You describe a lifetime of consequences, for which I sincerely hope you have received help over the years.
I never suggest that counseling, therapy, or serious analysis is the ‘magic bullet’ that can erase pain, but they can help, and that’s why I hope you were able to talk about these things with someone trained to erase them. (The Samaritans – call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org – are also available for those experiencing suicidal thoughts.)
I’m glad you say you have “some sympathy” for Evelyn. His entire life has been questioned, with no obvious solutions. I’ve read comments to the effect that she shouldn’t be so gullible and should just kick her horrible husband out.
I wish those who offer quick and easy solutions to human pain would sit in my chair for a while. I wish they could begin to understand that people can feel two things at once, or even more.
The point of Evelyn’s letter was that she is torn between continuing to feel love for the man she has spent her life with and her true revulsion at what he has done. And until you, too, are old and faced with the choice of feeling very alone, please don’t pontificate about what a tormented soul like poor Evelyn should and shouldn’t do.
Toni, let me move on to the topic of “forgiveness.” Last week, Evelyn explained that her husband “has destroyed my confidence and I feel like we will never be the same.”
Nowhere in your printed letter or the one I first read does she mention forgiving her husband. It was clear to me that she could never forgive the man who, shockingly, became a stranger the moment the police knocked on her door.
To give another example: can a woman continue living with a man who has been unfaithful to her for a long time? I will never fail to point out to my readers that people are very complex creatures and can have multiple reasons for any course of action.
It’s not about forgiveness. It involves a sad, pragmatic, deeply hurt and ashamed admission of one’s own needs.
You can hate a sin and at the same time retain a desperate and ruinous love for the sinner. This is the worn and tattered mosaic of the human heart.
Toni, it was very brave and moving of you to write such a beautiful tribute to your ex-husband, who raised your children so well. I hope they are now part of your life and that you can continue reading this column with understanding, knowing how many people also suffer from the stress and pain that you have known.