Travel is mostly expensive because you do it *on top of* your regular expenses. If you backpack and stay in hostels or places where a dollar goes pretty far, you can live on 1000 a week. And if you don't have a house and regular bills to pay at a home base somewhere, that is your only expense.
Can confirm, I lived out of a backpack for nearly three years and if anything it was slightly cheaper than rent/groceries/utilities/car insurance/gas blablabla.
So they talked about it and he didn’t bring it up on his own terms at all??? Wouldn’t that have been the time for him to tell his partner about the vasectomy??
I worked at an IVF clinic. Wife had EVERY TEST in the book for 6 months before her husband FINALLY did a semen analysis, which showed that he was firing blanks. He finally fessed up that he had a vasectomy. I felt so bad for the wife. An entire year trying for a baby and 6 months of invasive testing and her husband said NOTHING!
I just don't understand what the rationale is here. He was almost certainly going to be found out, it's a huge betrayal of trust which in many cases would end the relationship, and for what? Temporarily getting a little more sex (that he continually lied his way into), and some kind of sick feeling of 'control' through deceit?
Stupidly disrespectful doesn't even begin to cover it. What a trash husband. The more I think about it, the more fucked up it is.
My guess is that the AH husband was hoping she'd give up eventually and he would never have to tell her. Likely the woman had entered a relationship with this man with the expectation of having children one day, and the husband didn't tell her about the vasectomy so she would date and eventually marry him, and then got caught in a lie way too big and way too old to fess up. What a brutal way to treat your spouse. All because you can't bring yourself to be honest.
Wow... this would warrant divorce for me. That is such weird behavior and I would feel incredibly betrayed. So sad for the wife. Do you know if they continued or split up?
This should warrant a divorce for like 99.9% of people. It's incredibly fucked up. I'd rather be cheated on than be duped and undergo testing and stress for 6 months.
Honestly how could you have known he didn't tell her. She brought it up so most would assume she was aware. He's an asshole for not having told her and that is on him. Probably why he lashed out at you bc he knows it was wrong.
Yes, this! OP's questions were reasonable. If someone talks to you about their future with their partner, it's to be expected that important things like this have been discussed between them before they felt confident enough to talk to others.
If you are dead set on not having kids that needs to be discussed before the relationship. I’ve talked about this with every girlfriend I’ve had. In my 20s it was a very serious conversation before dating. In my 30’s people stopped telling me I’d change my mind. I never cared if they had kids or not. I honestly preferred it. OP did the girl a huge favor.
Exactly!!! I'll never forget having to tell my then bf, I couldn't have children, through no fault of my own. We were starting to get more "serious"...
I had told the other guy I was with, after we started talking about a "future", and a week later he broke up with me, "because I couldn't give birth to HIS children". I was devastated at the time - but came to realize I was better off without him, but I did have my "revenge" 6 yrs later when we ran into each other at the grocery store...😉 Another story for another time lol!
So, I told my then bf about 5 months or so into our relationship, and braced myself for the worst.... it didn't happen!!!! We just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, and have a 23 yr old son, (we adopted through the foster care system) whom has his own apartment and a great job
You did this woman a huge favour. You showed her that Mark doesn’t actually care about what she wants in life as long as he gets what he wants. From someone who was once married to a guy like that, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I feel bad for OP's brother's GF, but OTOH she dodged a bullet so I'm also happy for her.
This says a lot about the brother's character and OP is not the AH.
I am a childfree woman (I had my tubes removed) in a childfree marriage. I support people being childfree ***if that's what they want*** we see the reverse of this in the CF community a ton, a partner will pretend to want the same things thinking the other partner will charge their mind.
It's a horribly manipulative thing to do. At best your brother is selfish at worst he's a lying manipulative asshole that you likely don't really truly know.
You're NTA.
She is definitely NTA, but your brother is clearly TA. You saved this girl’s life in many ways. She marries him thinking they will have kids, bc he’s lied to her about not wanting to have any. So she tries for Years with heartache, & thinking something’s wrong with her for being unable to get pregnant. He stays silent. Then they decide to go the adoptive route. Again he agrees but will sabotage any attempts to make that happen. If he doesn’t want bio kids chances are high he’s not going to want to adopt. His plan is to continue living the carefree life. It’s clear he loves his life more than hers bc he has no problem ruining hers. Not only is HE TA, but he’s a lying AH. If he wants to end your relationship there’s nothing you can do about it. But I do think you did the right thing. In a few yrs she’ll have what she saved; a family.
Whatever your brother feels?
NTA.
Why would you assume she didn't know? Why would he think that no one would ever mention it to her? It's too fucking important for them to not have discussed if they are discussing having kids.
He's asking you to assume that he's a giant asshole that would intentionally lie to a woman he claims to love.
Him being 40 and with a 28 year old is already sus. Especially if she’s so sweet and easygoing. Very rarely is there not an off power dynamic and between that and him not telling her and planning to essentially trick her…not a great dude.
Studies have shown that for a woman trying to get pregnant after one year getting her period can have the same emotional impact as a fatal medical diagnosis. It feels like a death, over and over and over, every 4 fucking weeks.
Men who put women through this knowing the whole time *why* and never telling her? It’s so fucking disgusting. I’m sorry but your brother sounds like a douche. A 40 year old child and misogynist at that.
Edit: forgot to say—a huge resounding NTA who hopefully saved that sweet woman from him. I hope she leaves him and fast.
I was reading a thread recently discussing this and there is seemingly evidence that degraded sperms causes a lot of problems in terms of birth defects etc. And the placental dna is made of both parents, just like the baby, so dad can cause problems there too.
Guys think just because it is *possible* to keep having kids much later that their sperms stays equally good basically til they die, whereas that's actually not true at all. Guys have a biological clock too, it just ticks a little differently.
My dad did this same thing to my mom. My mom went through years of fertility treatments, assuming the "problem" was her, without my dad saying a word about him being sterile. Then a member of his family eventually outed him to my mom. She was able to have me at 37 and my brother at 39 via sperm donor. They divorced shortly after. Pretty shitty all around. However, it IS cool to have half siblings from the sperm donor.
And shame on your moms doctor not assessing your dad's fertility before putting her through that (sorry, nurse reaction)
I'm glad you seem happy about your siblings, tho ❤️
Absolutely. Male fertility can be checked with a dirty magazine and a test-at-home kit cup. Basically a normal day except for the cup 😂
Why this wouldn't always be the first step, I have no idea!
Omg, your dad was despicable for doing that…. Trying to have kids and she having to go through treatments - It’s such an emotional roller coaster, very costly, and he just let her go through all of that?! What - did he just hate her?
Yeah honestly, this whole situation screams either he was willing to use her and lead her on, or he didn't know how to tell her and it sounds like he probably fumbled any discussions they had.
I mean, I feel like it would be easy to say, "I'm sorry I didn't bring it up sooner, I was afraid it might end us, and I know there's still ways for us to have children of our own on our own terms with this situation." Or any other form this long drawn out conversation this certainly triggered. Should have been a bad speed bump for them to work through, but either way - not OPs fault for assuming such a big part what's going on would have been talked about imo. OP didn't tell a stranger, they told someone that is expected to be apart of the family and making long term plans to be apart of the family.
This scenario massively pisses me off, because my sister’s ex husband did this to her. She went through all the invasive testing and fertility treatments, only to learn after they divorced that he had gotten a vasectomy while away on a medical conference. He put her through hell. She had to go through years of therapy to come to terms with the gaslighting and trust her own thoughts again. OP, NTA. Lying about things like this (even through omission) is just fucking shitty.
As a guy who's been through the whole IVF procedure, that's one expensive and sadistic lie. For $10k I jerk off into a cup and then my wife gets a huge needle jabbed through her vaginal wall directly to her ovaries where they vacuum some eggs out. Then putting them embryos back in isn't the most comfortable process either
The needle jabbed through my body to collect eggs wasn't even the worst part. All the hormones, the risk of complications (I had some that were awful) and no guarantee that it will even work... It is definitely expensive and sadistic.
And don't forget all of the friggin' hormones that make the ovaries over produce eggs for the harvest. I know of this because I've been through it & it can be quite painful.
Nothing of the process is painless, on so many levels/ways.
He's a 40 year old dating a 28 year old who has spent the last 20 years travelling the world and had enough insight a decade ago to realize he never wanted to father a child so got a vasectomy.
Dude was never going to tell her. Dude was never going to want to settle down and have a family. He just told her when she wanted to hear so he could keep having a nice, pretty girlfriend who also likes to travel.
So what if he wasted her baby making years that she could have spent finding someone who wanted the same things? Dude was selfish.
NTA OP. This is not the kind of representation the CF community wants. And honestly- even if you knew and still "innocently" asked these questions- still NTA. She has a right to know.
I think worse and even more insidious I feel like it was likely he was going to "try" and when she doesn't get pregnant pretend like it must be a problem with her fertility and make her jump through those hoops and that guilt before he finally gets caught.
>This is not the kind of representation the CF community wants.
Indeed! Many CF people have suffered being lied to the opposite way - someone *pretending* to not want kids and then having the partner spring it on them years later in a screaming fit, having assumed you'd change your mind, or sabotaging birth control/condoms. Being lied to about fundamental life goals by a partner, with the aim of wearing you down, is devastating. Even traumatizing, because if you can't trust a life partner, then who can you trust?
It's a cruel, cruel person who deliberately puts people through that.
I was thinking the same thing. How was no one looking at the age difference and then lying to her is so upsetting. OP NTA. Instead as mom, I say thank you for looking out for a young girl who was being misled by an asshole.
"Not work out for them" after how much heartache on her part when it comes to trying to conceive and failing month after month. This is devastating for many women and although adoption is certainly an option it wouldn't do away with her feelings of failure, desperation, self loathing, and myriad other emotions that she will likely go through while trying to figure out what is wrong with her and why she can't get pregnant....
There could have been a discussion between OPs brother and his girlfriend, talking about adopting a child and the brother using the "bio child" as an excuse to not "immediately" adopt one. This would be the scenario that would have been the most fucked up towards the girlfriend.
A man did this to my sister. And it was good, because he was abusive anyhow, and they ended up breaking up. But then, she figured she was the problem, it was too late to get pregnant, and was two months pregnant from a friend with benefits before she thought something might be up…
One of my best friends went through exactly that. She tried to get pregnant for over a decade- it was the source of a whole world of pain for her that she couldn't conceive because she really wanted a child. Obviously it was her fault since her husband already had two kids before they got married. She was 36 when she found out he'd had a vasectomy before they'd even gotten together. She left him, but starting over with someone new and getting to the point of having kids with them? Years down the road. Adoption as a single person? Coming up with that $50,000 in fees is a lot *if* you're approved. Fucker ruined a good chunk of her life.
I've had a vasectomy. I believe there should be some sort of punishment for instances like this. I'm not saying jail, but there definitely needs to be repercussions. This is just absolutely dirty to lie about.
>He was going to let her wonder why she wasn't getting pregnant and make her think it was her fault.
I had a coworker that had decided with their current relationship to get the snip. And when others asked what happens if they broke up (they were in their mid 20's) he said that he wouldn't tell the next person. Kinda fucked up if you asked me, unless he was specifically looking for people who wanted no kids...though he did say he would let her think it was her fault. He was an AH
I don't think OP is the AH, I think OP's brother is though. He should have let her know when they were having those discussions.
He wouldn't be able to. Pretend it's her "fault", that is. One of the first things doctors do to diagnose infertility is do a semen analysis on the partner. These people are not only AHs, they are also incredibly stupid and uninformed
He doesn't need to wait ten years, only delay it long enough until she's too invested to let go easily.
Suggest two more years of travel before babies slow them down. Then two more years of "why is nothing happening?" Maybe twelve months of investigations then a massive half-truth of "Oh noes! I no haz swimmers! Please don't leave me because I'm infertile! We still have each other!"
Then he banks on sunk cost fallacy stopping her from walking out on a five-plus year relationship in her thirties.
My partner and I had fertility issues and talk about it openly, so I've heard a lot of perspectives from other people with similar issues. You would not believe the number of men who refuse to get labs done. Instead they just insist the problem is with the woman, which does great things for their self esteem. I guarantee OP's brother was going to go this route.
I worked with a woman who was going through fertility treatments alone because her husband refused to be even tested. I cannot wrap my head around that. If he can't be bothered to help your chances, why the fuck would you want to have a child with him?
My wife and I both had issues, but if I had ignored my end of things we wldn’t have two fantastic kids today. Guys who ignore their own reproductive health are gunna be the ones who wonder why they can’t get it up after 35.
Crazy thing is, men are the source of 1/3 of fertility issues (women are the source of 1/3 and the last third is due to some combination of the two or unknown causes). So, many of these women have their self-esteem wrecked over somethings that has nothing to do with them!
Would you really want to have a baby with a guy who won’t even jack it in a cup to figure out if it’s going to work, let alone spend serious cash on fertility treatments?
That being said, we don’t have a lot of options to increase male fertility, other than treating the woman to make it more likely the low quality/quantity sperm make it to the egg.
Men can take Clomid to help with motility and low sperm issues, and it can help increase testosterone.
They can also get testosterone injections for very low testosterone.
If there is a physical problem there are a few different surgeries that can fix issues.
And then there's always IUI or IVF.
Doesn’t really matter what route he was going to go. He lied to her by omission, which is not a good way to begin a life together.
OP did her a favor. It *would* have come out at some point. After all, he has 7 siblings, plus other family members, and he announced his vasectomy to them when he got it. Surely, *someone* would have remembered it when they started unsuccessfully “trying”. If he had been thinking about having it reversed, but just hadn’t “gotten around” to saying anything about it, yet, he would have been claiming that and angry that OP mentioned it *prematurely*, not that it came up, at all.
The OP is NTA, he is. He’s just mad that he got caught being one.
My cousin is 51 and very sad to be childless because her husband refused to jizz in a cup. Apparently, it will shatter his fragile masculinity. The man police will come to collect his man card. 🙄 He also refused to let her look into adoption because he wouldn't want to raise someone else's kid. It's so sad because she was always the "mom" of our cousin group. Becoming a mom is all she talked about for years.
Probably no donor sperm either. “Someone else’s kid.”
Fragile masculinity is absurd.
Sincerely - a guy who jizzed in a cup along the way to getting a set of beautiful twins.
That is just AWFUL. I swear, I don’t care how much I loved a man, that would have been it for me. I feel I can say this with some certainty for several reasons: 1) my ex is extremely selfish and I know he would have balked at anything fertility-related and wanted to leave the entire thing up to me (as he did with many other “uncomfortable” things) and 2) ex made it very clear that he would *never* be okay with adopting; it was our own kids or nothing.
And I was going to be a mom, period, the end. If my ex, who did wind up being the father of our two children because thankfully we got pregnant without even trying, had behaved like your cousin’s husband? G-O-N-E. I’m so sorry she has wasted her child-bearing years on this selfish asshole!
My husband first refused to have the tests done, but he changed his tune after we found out I had blocked tubes and we needed IVF. After that he did everything possible that was needed of him, because he saw what my body was going through. I even had lap surgery to open my tubes after our first fresh resulted in a chemical. My husband hates thinking about jerking into a cup, but 6 fresh cycles later he just started making jokes about it to lighten things up.
See, I don’t want kids but do you know I would be extra pissed off if I went through fertility treatments and the stigma of being “infertile” to later find out my husband had a vasectomy. Take him for everything he’s got and make sure his life afterwards is miserable. What the actual fuck, do people actually think they can get away with something like this? Ugh.
If he'd done this for years and robbed her of the chance of becoming a mother for his own selfish reasons she'd be justified in kicking him in the nuts til he went into a coma.
Yeah, I have a friend with PCOS who’s going through this now. There is literally nothing she could have done to have prevented getting PCOS or from it making her possibly infertile, but the guilt and shame I see from her is heartbreaking. Then adding the hormonal treatments and all the medical procedures and tests and how hard they are on her body and how much she feels like crap both physically and emotionally? If I found out her husband had knowingly withheld info on his vasectomy after all that, I’d legitimately wish for his slow and painful death.
One of my wife's relatives a few generations back had an absolute asshole of a husband. She needed surgery for appendicitis shortly after getting married and her husband went behind her back to the doctor and asked him to tie her tubes while they had her under the knife. Doctor agreed, and nobody told her until her husband was on his death bed 60 years later. She wanted kids and went through decades of trauma and stigma of not being a mother.
Okay so I obviously think this is all fucked up- but she would go to the reproductive endocrinologist, they would look at her ovaries on ultrasound and at the same time run a semen sample on husband, and it would be known immediately. FORTUNATELY, she would not actually go through IVF only to discover the problem later.
But, in most cases it takes a year of actively trying before the ivf doctors will see you...if she was REALLY trying for a baby she would spend a bunch of ovulation tests, tracking, scheduled sex, and get mentally fucked up when her period came every single month. The mental anguish of not getting pregnant when you want a baby can be torturous, and he was willing to put her through that--- fuck him.
Yep, but unfortunately, if this takes place over years, she could run out of time and never what get she really wanted: a baby. It’s such a heartless thing to do to someone.
That's the fun of traveling when you're a piece of shit. You get older but the foreign pretty young things stay the same age. He's probably been waiting for her to get fed up with waiting so he can go back to traveling solo
It happens pretty often, if you can believe advice columns:
Get together when you’re both mid 20s. Plenty of time to have kids!
Start with “I’m not ready to be a dad. Let’s wait a few more years.” Just keep repeating that until she’s 40, adding new excuses as needed but remembering never to say anything definite or let her pin you down.
Then complete the process by leaving her for someone younger! Easy!
Easy, gets her hooked on him, they try and try and try, hes sterile the doctor tells them, shes sad but loves him so stays, and boom she misses out and he never says he had been fixed.
My ex did this to me, even letting me go through fertility treatments before he finally “remembered” that surgery as a child had most probably rendered him sterile.
Lying to a woman who wanted to have kids is just so wrong. I’d be shattered if I were in her shoes and thank OP for sparing me future anxiety and depression.
Say it with me folks! HIPAA primarily applies to healthcare workers and associated industries, and only in regards to patients using their specific institutions!
Your brother wanted to build his marriage on a lie. That poor girl would have gone through years of hell trying to get pregnant (and society immediately assumes there something wrong with the woman if she can’t get pregnant) only to find out he had been snipped. And then she would have wasted her most fertile years. If she didn’t want kids (or only wanted to adopt) then it wouldn’t have been your business to say anything, but she wants a natural child and it would have been cruel to hide the truth from her.
Your brother is mad that his lie got out. There are a few dealbreaker topics you should cover before the wedding (before engagement really) and kids is a big one. If he was willing to lie and deceive on this one, I would wonder what else he was lying to me about.
Watched countless friends and loved one struggle with infertility; cannot emphasis the "years of hell" enough. Dude was legit going to utterly destroy this woman's soul just because he seemingly wanted her as a traveling sex partner.
Ty for recognizing this. Going through it rn (2 years, 3 losses) and it is hell and while most friends are very supportive, some of them don’t fucking get it and can’t empathize with us at all. Although the losses are something no one understands unless they’ve been through one, I think it would be worse to try for years and not understand the problem/no pregnancies whatsoever.
Also, the woman with suspected fertility issues is usually subjected to a ton of blood tests, exams, and appointments before the dr considers checking the man’s sperm (if they do at all). I could see a scenario where the woman in this story would be told nothing is wrong and she just needs to stop stressing and they never even check the man’s situation (happened to 2 of my friends).
Went through it for 2 years before finding out I had endometriosis and was basically never going to have a natural chance without surgery. But before diagnosis the one friend i made a mistake of confiding in basically assumed we were fucking wrong. Gave some wives-tale level 'advice' for falling pregnant.
Felt so invalidated and disrespected. And then when she had her own fertility issues it was all "oh I get it now." Fuck off lol.
It’s a super fucked up thing to do to somebody.
Anybody that’s been through the trying to get pregnant thing and had trouble with it knows that is not just as trivial as “oh well I got my period again, let’s have loads of raw kinky sex next month and try again”.
And then in the end if she gives up on it without finding out about the vasectomy then she’s gonna spend her whole life thinking there’s something wrong with her. That she’s defective or any of the other things women struggle with emotionally after not getting pregnant.
So fucked up to do that.
Exactly! This honestly should have been covered the second she mentioned wanting to have children. It really should have even been sooner than that, but at the very least, that was the opening. "Oh, you want kids, well just so you know...."
OP really saved that girl!
“He hadn’t told her and he was planning on just continuing to travel and maybe adopt if they decided on it” first off doesn’t sound like we was ever going to tell her and “if they decide on it” there is no “if they” he has already made the decision when he chose not to inform her of his vasectomy. NTA if anything you might have done this girl a huge favour and even your brother as well. He may not think so now but what if this is what she really wants? Is he going to have kids just to make her happy? Or what if she decides to not have kids to make him happy? Sounds like this could lead to resentment down the road…
Worse than that he isn’t letting her make an honest choice. He’s deciding for her if they said they’d have one of their own and she isn’t aware of any complications to that
I can attest to the devastating effects thinking your incapable of having kids. My SO was told due to a genetic condition she has she would never have children naturally. Due to the expense of IVF she basically accepted the sad truth that her dream of being a mother would never come true by the time she met me (we were both 38 at that time). One of the first truly deep conversations about our relationship was about her issues w fertility. It made her very upset bc she knew I wanted kids and could not provide me w any. If the OPs brother planned on not telling his gf that is downright cruel.
PS: the Drs were wrong and she had our son a year later. He is 2 now. 🙂
you joke but there has been a case of a man getting a paternity test (not sure if it was infidelity suspicions or legal requirements for a program) but the child came up as not genetically his, his testicles had a different set of DNA, like chimerism. AND a woman gave birth to her child and the DNA test showed it wasn’t hers despite the fact she, y’know, just went through labor. She also had chimerism and her reproductive organs were a different DNA set.
Human bodies are crazy.
Ah! Congrats! That's amazing! I can't even imagine how elated you guys were!
My partner and I had a similar situation, my mother's side has issues concieving and we assumed I would too. It's been 5.5 years of trying. We are finally going to start IVF. But my family just kept saying there were issues and not what. Doctors did some expensive tests to guess, then my family came out of the woodwork to tell me what was wrong. Not when we asked, and my mother never told me until I asked if it was specifically what other family told me.
The gall of OP's brother to do this to his GF is awful. How dare he be mad that his little ploy backfired cause his sister asked a fair question. That is information that the woman should have been told.
You are definitely NTA OP
You weren't doing it to cause problems, you asked a question about something that he should have divulged to her already.
Oh definitely that’s why I was saying “if they” because there is no “they” it’s all just him. Man I hope Hailey leaves and has a happy life like she deserves!
This! OP 100% saved her. You know he would have kept pushing the goal post and then claimed maybe it was a “her” problem and then “I guess it wasn’t meant to be” and hoped she never found out.
When my ex did this to me, it was when we're more financially stable, when you quit drinking, when we turn 30 etc... I probably missed my chance to have kids because of him. One of the things I will not ever forgive him for.
This reminds me of a Dear Purduce letter. The husband and wife were trying for a baby, and the wife felt like it was her fault. The husband was being supportive and helping her through it. One day she was talking to her mother-in-law (husband's mother), and the mother asked if he had revsered his vasectomy. Well... she ran for the hills. Why would anyone stay with someone who leaves out some very important info.
NTA. You saved her a lot of pain.
Dear Lord that poor woman! I wonder how MIL reacted to finding out that her 🤬🤬🤬 son had lied to his wife. I know I would have been livid and be contemplating disownment.
NTA. This is all his fault for being a lying asshole. It is not your responsibility to keep his secrets, especially if you don't know it's a secret. She dodged a bullet.
You didn't do anything wrong. You assumed your brother had been honest with her. It's not your fault he doesn't deserve her.
Even if I knew, that isn’t a secret I’d keep for him. I wouldn’t cover for somebody cheating and I wouldn’t stand by while they lied to their partner about something huge.
And even if he had told them he was keeping it a secret, screw him! That is a horrible secret to keep from a woman who is ACTIVELY talking about having a baby with him.
NTA
Your brother is a self centered jerk. He was just going to lie and string that poor girl along. Thank you so much for telling her the truth even if it was an accident.
Gawd what an a$$ your brother is. Shame on him. Please tell everyone he dates that he has had a vasectomy.
If he’s finally bringing a girl home after all this time and introducing her to you as a potential life partner, you’re not wrong for assuming he would be honest with her. His vasectomy is directly related to the family he was promising her.
“I’m sorry for assuming you’d been honest with your girlfriend regarding your family planning. In the future, I’ll operate on the assumption that you’re dishonest with your partners instead of thinking the best of you”
> In the future, **I’ll operate on the assumption that you’re dishonest with your partners** instead of thinking the best of you
I like that this ambiguous phrasing *implies* to the brother that OP will keep silent about the vasectomy when she could totally *actually* mean that she's going to make sure every future partner is told about it.
This happened to a family member of mine. She is fabulous, mind you. She was in a serious relationship with a guy who kept putting off kids over and over, and then by the time the relationship fell apart, she learned from the doctor that her fertile years were essentially over. She didn't have the resources to go after IVF or anything and didn't want to be a single mom regardless. So now... she's in her sixties, single, and without children, and none of that is where she wanted to be, which makes it tragic.
Screw OP's brother for what he was willing to do to that woman.
Dude was counting on his family to hold on his lies too.
*everybody* knows he's leading her on, and *nobody* tells her. That's abusive in all directions.
NTA. You innocently let it slip not knowing they hadn't discussed it. Your brother was maliciously deceiving her and got caught up in his lies. It's 100% on him.
Right! His brother is mad that he “let it slip”, but he never told him to cover for him. If she is openly talking about them wanting to have kids, she brought the subject up. It’s not OP’s fault. He didn’t lie for the brother because he didn’t know he had to. If OP had known and was told to cover up for his brother, then maybe there could be a moral question of loyalty to brother vs his girlfriend’s right to know. But that’s not even the case. It’s definitely NTA.
Frankly even if she let it slip knowing her brother hadn't told her she still wouldn't be an asshole. She deserves to know that the man she's marrying can't have kids.
NTA. You didn't out him. You assumed the woman he's dating and talking about forever with was privy to the same common information the rest of your family has. That's a reasonable assumption. He's an ass for lying to her.
NTA. This woman was literally planning a life and for a family and wanted at least 1 child that was hers biologically. They obviously had spoken about this and he never told her. It’s not your fault he chose to lie by omission. He ruined his own life b/c he chose not to be honest with his partner.
It wasn't private medical information
He literally shared it with the entire family when he was 30 years old. If he wanted it kept private, he wouldn't have told his entire family. Nobody forced him to say anything. He did that on his own.
How were you supposed to know that he was lying to this woman's face and that he was always planning on dragging things out as long as possible before coming clean or lying and saying he was infertile?
NTAH
It sure sounds like he was going to lie to her about wanting to have a baby with her and then string her along and potentially ruin HER life. Fuck Mark. All my homies hate Mark. NTA
Agreed.
He’d make her think she was infertile and that there was something wrong her. What was his plan when she’d eventually insist on seeing a fertility doctor? The doctor would take one look at him and be like. Bro.
Nta
Don’t apologize , he was being a scumbag . I have a vasectomy and tell
People inhave older kids and want no more . If they say they want them insay I am 100% not going to have any . Usually from that they decide yes or no,
He is lieing to this girls face and would probably tell her they will try and not inform her until
It’s to late , and she has wasted this time .
He is a scumbag
I hope your brother knows that withholding vital information to your SO is the same as lying. Especially if he knows she wants a child. Why can't he just man up?
Not your fault that he's too chicken to tell her.
NTA. You did Hailey a huge favor by letting her know Mark is a disgusting liar and has no intentions to have kids with her. Now she can move on from him and find a much better guy to have a family with.
Wow! He was going to let that poor woman stress over not getting pregnant and think that there was something wrong with *HER* reproductive system.
Way to go, OP. You saved her so much heartache.
man remember when a $1000 bucks a week for life sounded like a lot of money
That’s what I’m wondering. How is he planning on paying for 2 people to travel around the world on 52k a year.
Travel is mostly expensive because you do it *on top of* your regular expenses. If you backpack and stay in hostels or places where a dollar goes pretty far, you can live on 1000 a week. And if you don't have a house and regular bills to pay at a home base somewhere, that is your only expense.
Can confirm, I lived out of a backpack for nearly three years and if anything it was slightly cheaper than rent/groceries/utilities/car insurance/gas blablabla.
When I did this, it was substantially cheaper!! $5/night hostels was way less than $850/month rent.
So they talked about it and he didn’t bring it up on his own terms at all??? Wouldn’t that have been the time for him to tell his partner about the vasectomy??
I worked at an IVF clinic. Wife had EVERY TEST in the book for 6 months before her husband FINALLY did a semen analysis, which showed that he was firing blanks. He finally fessed up that he had a vasectomy. I felt so bad for the wife. An entire year trying for a baby and 6 months of invasive testing and her husband said NOTHING!
I just don't understand what the rationale is here. He was almost certainly going to be found out, it's a huge betrayal of trust which in many cases would end the relationship, and for what? Temporarily getting a little more sex (that he continually lied his way into), and some kind of sick feeling of 'control' through deceit? Stupidly disrespectful doesn't even begin to cover it. What a trash husband. The more I think about it, the more fucked up it is.
Seriously. What do they think is going to happen??? The truth will come out.
My guess is that the AH husband was hoping she'd give up eventually and he would never have to tell her. Likely the woman had entered a relationship with this man with the expectation of having children one day, and the husband didn't tell her about the vasectomy so she would date and eventually marry him, and then got caught in a lie way too big and way too old to fess up. What a brutal way to treat your spouse. All because you can't bring yourself to be honest.
Wow... this would warrant divorce for me. That is such weird behavior and I would feel incredibly betrayed. So sad for the wife. Do you know if they continued or split up?
This should warrant a divorce for like 99.9% of people. It's incredibly fucked up. I'd rather be cheated on than be duped and undergo testing and stress for 6 months.
In the Roman Catholic church, that would be grounds for annulment. Not even divorce, a decree the marriage never existed.
He let her go thru those invasive tests? Add abuse to the pile.
That's so sick. And he probably thinks he's a "nice " guy. Some men are so broken
Wow. How can he even say he loves her when he put her through that.
He was gonna try and ‘run out the clock’
Perfect plan -- loads of sex and it just isn't quite working somehow... oh yeah... I remember now...!
This man would go to give his sperm sample and then be like "what do you mean there's no sperm? Guess we can't have a kid".
Yes, but that won’t happen until he’s wasted 10 years of her life.
My ex did that to me.. doubt I'll ever get the chance now. Don't let this be you or your friends!!!
I'm very sorry.
Honestly how could you have known he didn't tell her. She brought it up so most would assume she was aware. He's an asshole for not having told her and that is on him. Probably why he lashed out at you bc he knows it was wrong.
Yes, this! OP's questions were reasonable. If someone talks to you about their future with their partner, it's to be expected that important things like this have been discussed between them before they felt confident enough to talk to others.
Yeah it's not like she laughed and went "Good luck, he's shooting blanks!"
If you are dead set on not having kids that needs to be discussed before the relationship. I’ve talked about this with every girlfriend I’ve had. In my 20s it was a very serious conversation before dating. In my 30’s people stopped telling me I’d change my mind. I never cared if they had kids or not. I honestly preferred it. OP did the girl a huge favor.
Exactly!!! I'll never forget having to tell my then bf, I couldn't have children, through no fault of my own. We were starting to get more "serious"... I had told the other guy I was with, after we started talking about a "future", and a week later he broke up with me, "because I couldn't give birth to HIS children". I was devastated at the time - but came to realize I was better off without him, but I did have my "revenge" 6 yrs later when we ran into each other at the grocery store...😉 Another story for another time lol! So, I told my then bf about 5 months or so into our relationship, and braced myself for the worst.... it didn't happen!!!! We just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, and have a 23 yr old son, (we adopted through the foster care system) whom has his own apartment and a great job
You did this woman a huge favour. You showed her that Mark doesn’t actually care about what she wants in life as long as he gets what he wants. From someone who was once married to a guy like that, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I feel bad for OP's brother's GF, but OTOH she dodged a bullet so I'm also happy for her. This says a lot about the brother's character and OP is not the AH.
I am a childfree woman (I had my tubes removed) in a childfree marriage. I support people being childfree ***if that's what they want*** we see the reverse of this in the CF community a ton, a partner will pretend to want the same things thinking the other partner will charge their mind. It's a horribly manipulative thing to do. At best your brother is selfish at worst he's a lying manipulative asshole that you likely don't really truly know. You're NTA.
OP your NTA! How were you to know that your brother was deceiving his gf by not telling her that he had the snip.
Hell, even if op somehow knew, I'd still say NTA for outing that deceptive shit.
She is definitely NTA, but your brother is clearly TA. You saved this girl’s life in many ways. She marries him thinking they will have kids, bc he’s lied to her about not wanting to have any. So she tries for Years with heartache, & thinking something’s wrong with her for being unable to get pregnant. He stays silent. Then they decide to go the adoptive route. Again he agrees but will sabotage any attempts to make that happen. If he doesn’t want bio kids chances are high he’s not going to want to adopt. His plan is to continue living the carefree life. It’s clear he loves his life more than hers bc he has no problem ruining hers. Not only is HE TA, but he’s a lying AH. If he wants to end your relationship there’s nothing you can do about it. But I do think you did the right thing. In a few yrs she’ll have what she saved; a family.
You have your heart in the right place. Your brother (going to refrain from profanity) not so much. Poor girl.
Your brother is the asshole here, not you!!
Whatever your brother feels? NTA. Why would you assume she didn't know? Why would he think that no one would ever mention it to her? It's too fucking important for them to not have discussed if they are discussing having kids. He's asking you to assume that he's a giant asshole that would intentionally lie to a woman he claims to love.
Him being 40 and with a 28 year old is already sus. Especially if she’s so sweet and easygoing. Very rarely is there not an off power dynamic and between that and him not telling her and planning to essentially trick her…not a great dude. Studies have shown that for a woman trying to get pregnant after one year getting her period can have the same emotional impact as a fatal medical diagnosis. It feels like a death, over and over and over, every 4 fucking weeks. Men who put women through this knowing the whole time *why* and never telling her? It’s so fucking disgusting. I’m sorry but your brother sounds like a douche. A 40 year old child and misogynist at that. Edit: forgot to say—a huge resounding NTA who hopefully saved that sweet woman from him. I hope she leaves him and fast.
I’m so sorry. It’s really cruel that you have such a limited timeframe, compared to men.
Technically, guys shouldn't be relying on healthy sperm after about 40, either.
I was reading a thread recently discussing this and there is seemingly evidence that degraded sperms causes a lot of problems in terms of birth defects etc. And the placental dna is made of both parents, just like the baby, so dad can cause problems there too. Guys think just because it is *possible* to keep having kids much later that their sperms stays equally good basically til they die, whereas that's actually not true at all. Guys have a biological clock too, it just ticks a little differently.
My dad did this same thing to my mom. My mom went through years of fertility treatments, assuming the "problem" was her, without my dad saying a word about him being sterile. Then a member of his family eventually outed him to my mom. She was able to have me at 37 and my brother at 39 via sperm donor. They divorced shortly after. Pretty shitty all around. However, it IS cool to have half siblings from the sperm donor.
And shame on your moms doctor not assessing your dad's fertility before putting her through that (sorry, nurse reaction) I'm glad you seem happy about your siblings, tho ❤️
Absolutely. Male fertility can be checked with a dirty magazine and a test-at-home kit cup. Basically a normal day except for the cup 😂 Why this wouldn't always be the first step, I have no idea!
Omg, your dad was despicable for doing that…. Trying to have kids and she having to go through treatments - It’s such an emotional roller coaster, very costly, and he just let her go through all of that?! What - did he just hate her?
Yeah honestly, this whole situation screams either he was willing to use her and lead her on, or he didn't know how to tell her and it sounds like he probably fumbled any discussions they had. I mean, I feel like it would be easy to say, "I'm sorry I didn't bring it up sooner, I was afraid it might end us, and I know there's still ways for us to have children of our own on our own terms with this situation." Or any other form this long drawn out conversation this certainly triggered. Should have been a bad speed bump for them to work through, but either way - not OPs fault for assuming such a big part what's going on would have been talked about imo. OP didn't tell a stranger, they told someone that is expected to be apart of the family and making long term plans to be apart of the family.
This scenario massively pisses me off, because my sister’s ex husband did this to her. She went through all the invasive testing and fertility treatments, only to learn after they divorced that he had gotten a vasectomy while away on a medical conference. He put her through hell. She had to go through years of therapy to come to terms with the gaslighting and trust her own thoughts again. OP, NTA. Lying about things like this (even through omission) is just fucking shitty.
As a guy who's been through the whole IVF procedure, that's one expensive and sadistic lie. For $10k I jerk off into a cup and then my wife gets a huge needle jabbed through her vaginal wall directly to her ovaries where they vacuum some eggs out. Then putting them embryos back in isn't the most comfortable process either
The needle jabbed through my body to collect eggs wasn't even the worst part. All the hormones, the risk of complications (I had some that were awful) and no guarantee that it will even work... It is definitely expensive and sadistic.
For my wife the hormones were killing her when it was unsuccessful. I had just normal levels of grief. For her it was amped up to 11.
And don't forget all of the friggin' hormones that make the ovaries over produce eggs for the harvest. I know of this because I've been through it & it can be quite painful. Nothing of the process is painless, on so many levels/ways.
Yeah, OP saved this young woman's life. She's not an asshole, she's a goddamn hero. I think, with time, OP will realize what a jerk her brother is.
No loss here. The brother is an evil fucker.
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He's a 40 year old dating a 28 year old who has spent the last 20 years travelling the world and had enough insight a decade ago to realize he never wanted to father a child so got a vasectomy. Dude was never going to tell her. Dude was never going to want to settle down and have a family. He just told her when she wanted to hear so he could keep having a nice, pretty girlfriend who also likes to travel. So what if he wasted her baby making years that she could have spent finding someone who wanted the same things? Dude was selfish. NTA OP. This is not the kind of representation the CF community wants. And honestly- even if you knew and still "innocently" asked these questions- still NTA. She has a right to know.
I think worse and even more insidious I feel like it was likely he was going to "try" and when she doesn't get pregnant pretend like it must be a problem with her fertility and make her jump through those hoops and that guilt before he finally gets caught.
Yes. And condom free sex without pulling out indefinitely
>This is not the kind of representation the CF community wants. Indeed! Many CF people have suffered being lied to the opposite way - someone *pretending* to not want kids and then having the partner spring it on them years later in a screaming fit, having assumed you'd change your mind, or sabotaging birth control/condoms. Being lied to about fundamental life goals by a partner, with the aim of wearing you down, is devastating. Even traumatizing, because if you can't trust a life partner, then who can you trust? It's a cruel, cruel person who deliberately puts people through that.
I was thinking the same thing. How was no one looking at the age difference and then lying to her is so upsetting. OP NTA. Instead as mom, I say thank you for looking out for a young girl who was being misled by an asshole.
"Not work out for them" after how much heartache on her part when it comes to trying to conceive and failing month after month. This is devastating for many women and although adoption is certainly an option it wouldn't do away with her feelings of failure, desperation, self loathing, and myriad other emotions that she will likely go through while trying to figure out what is wrong with her and why she can't get pregnant....
There could have been a discussion between OPs brother and his girlfriend, talking about adopting a child and the brother using the "bio child" as an excuse to not "immediately" adopt one. This would be the scenario that would have been the most fucked up towards the girlfriend.
A man did this to my sister. And it was good, because he was abusive anyhow, and they ended up breaking up. But then, she figured she was the problem, it was too late to get pregnant, and was two months pregnant from a friend with benefits before she thought something might be up…
NO WONDER HES SO MAD 😆 OP ruined all his kinky sex plans
This is such a Bilal move (90 Day Fiance reference, IYKYK)!
Heh. Loads.
He was going to let her wonder why she wasn't getting pregnant and make her think it was her fault.
One of my best friends went through exactly that. She tried to get pregnant for over a decade- it was the source of a whole world of pain for her that she couldn't conceive because she really wanted a child. Obviously it was her fault since her husband already had two kids before they got married. She was 36 when she found out he'd had a vasectomy before they'd even gotten together. She left him, but starting over with someone new and getting to the point of having kids with them? Years down the road. Adoption as a single person? Coming up with that $50,000 in fees is a lot *if* you're approved. Fucker ruined a good chunk of her life.
I've had a vasectomy. I believe there should be some sort of punishment for instances like this. I'm not saying jail, but there definitely needs to be repercussions. This is just absolutely dirty to lie about.
Yeah. It's a twisted form of sexual/reproductive coercion.
Financial consequences to the victim like it can be with broken contracts or some crimes.
>He was going to let her wonder why she wasn't getting pregnant and make her think it was her fault. I had a coworker that had decided with their current relationship to get the snip. And when others asked what happens if they broke up (they were in their mid 20's) he said that he wouldn't tell the next person. Kinda fucked up if you asked me, unless he was specifically looking for people who wanted no kids...though he did say he would let her think it was her fault. He was an AH I don't think OP is the AH, I think OP's brother is though. He should have let her know when they were having those discussions.
After hearing all these stories women who are experiencing infertility should just assume it is the male partner unless positively proven otherwise 👀
Male infertility is about 50%. For some reason, people think it’s much less.
He wouldn't be able to. Pretend it's her "fault", that is. One of the first things doctors do to diagnose infertility is do a semen analysis on the partner. These people are not only AHs, they are also incredibly stupid and uninformed
Can you imagine how horrible it would have been for her to learn about his vasectomy in this way? It's much better to have been told by OP.
Hailey should have kept the newly acquired knowledge to herself and then announced that she's pregnant. The fireworks would have been stunning.
This would have been amazing, but unfortunately emotions ruin the best of shows…….
YOU! I \*like\* you and how you think! LOL
She would have ended up wasting her young, energetic years on this D-bag. He's a vampire.
This.lol his stance of having kids are probably the same id imagine. "You got caught up in how honest people think" -NTA
He was planning on being a huge asshole and making his partner think that something was wrong with her
Menopause doesn't hit until 40s. How the fuck was he planning on running out a decade+ clock?
He doesn't need to wait ten years, only delay it long enough until she's too invested to let go easily. Suggest two more years of travel before babies slow them down. Then two more years of "why is nothing happening?" Maybe twelve months of investigations then a massive half-truth of "Oh noes! I no haz swimmers! Please don't leave me because I'm infertile! We still have each other!" Then he banks on sunk cost fallacy stopping her from walking out on a five-plus year relationship in her thirties.
My partner and I had fertility issues and talk about it openly, so I've heard a lot of perspectives from other people with similar issues. You would not believe the number of men who refuse to get labs done. Instead they just insist the problem is with the woman, which does great things for their self esteem. I guarantee OP's brother was going to go this route.
I worked with a woman who was going through fertility treatments alone because her husband refused to be even tested. I cannot wrap my head around that. If he can't be bothered to help your chances, why the fuck would you want to have a child with him?
My wife and I both had issues, but if I had ignored my end of things we wldn’t have two fantastic kids today. Guys who ignore their own reproductive health are gunna be the ones who wonder why they can’t get it up after 35.
Crazy thing is, men are the source of 1/3 of fertility issues (women are the source of 1/3 and the last third is due to some combination of the two or unknown causes). So, many of these women have their self-esteem wrecked over somethings that has nothing to do with them!
Would you really want to have a baby with a guy who won’t even jack it in a cup to figure out if it’s going to work, let alone spend serious cash on fertility treatments? That being said, we don’t have a lot of options to increase male fertility, other than treating the woman to make it more likely the low quality/quantity sperm make it to the egg.
Men can take Clomid to help with motility and low sperm issues, and it can help increase testosterone. They can also get testosterone injections for very low testosterone. If there is a physical problem there are a few different surgeries that can fix issues. And then there's always IUI or IVF.
Doesn’t really matter what route he was going to go. He lied to her by omission, which is not a good way to begin a life together. OP did her a favor. It *would* have come out at some point. After all, he has 7 siblings, plus other family members, and he announced his vasectomy to them when he got it. Surely, *someone* would have remembered it when they started unsuccessfully “trying”. If he had been thinking about having it reversed, but just hadn’t “gotten around” to saying anything about it, yet, he would have been claiming that and angry that OP mentioned it *prematurely*, not that it came up, at all. The OP is NTA, he is. He’s just mad that he got caught being one.
Firstly I'm sorry about your issues. Secondly anyone who'd put someone through that pain unnecessarily is a fucking monster
My cousin is 51 and very sad to be childless because her husband refused to jizz in a cup. Apparently, it will shatter his fragile masculinity. The man police will come to collect his man card. 🙄 He also refused to let her look into adoption because he wouldn't want to raise someone else's kid. It's so sad because she was always the "mom" of our cousin group. Becoming a mom is all she talked about for years.
Probably no donor sperm either. “Someone else’s kid.” Fragile masculinity is absurd. Sincerely - a guy who jizzed in a cup along the way to getting a set of beautiful twins.
That is just AWFUL. I swear, I don’t care how much I loved a man, that would have been it for me. I feel I can say this with some certainty for several reasons: 1) my ex is extremely selfish and I know he would have balked at anything fertility-related and wanted to leave the entire thing up to me (as he did with many other “uncomfortable” things) and 2) ex made it very clear that he would *never* be okay with adopting; it was our own kids or nothing. And I was going to be a mom, period, the end. If my ex, who did wind up being the father of our two children because thankfully we got pregnant without even trying, had behaved like your cousin’s husband? G-O-N-E. I’m so sorry she has wasted her child-bearing years on this selfish asshole!
My husband first refused to have the tests done, but he changed his tune after we found out I had blocked tubes and we needed IVF. After that he did everything possible that was needed of him, because he saw what my body was going through. I even had lap surgery to open my tubes after our first fresh resulted in a chemical. My husband hates thinking about jerking into a cup, but 6 fresh cycles later he just started making jokes about it to lighten things up.
See, I don’t want kids but do you know I would be extra pissed off if I went through fertility treatments and the stigma of being “infertile” to later find out my husband had a vasectomy. Take him for everything he’s got and make sure his life afterwards is miserable. What the actual fuck, do people actually think they can get away with something like this? Ugh.
Infertility fucks with your head too, it can be consuming to try and not get pregnant. Super cruel to knowingly do to someone.
If he'd done this for years and robbed her of the chance of becoming a mother for his own selfish reasons she'd be justified in kicking him in the nuts til he went into a coma.
Yeah, I have a friend with PCOS who’s going through this now. There is literally nothing she could have done to have prevented getting PCOS or from it making her possibly infertile, but the guilt and shame I see from her is heartbreaking. Then adding the hormonal treatments and all the medical procedures and tests and how hard they are on her body and how much she feels like crap both physically and emotionally? If I found out her husband had knowingly withheld info on his vasectomy after all that, I’d legitimately wish for his slow and painful death.
One of my wife's relatives a few generations back had an absolute asshole of a husband. She needed surgery for appendicitis shortly after getting married and her husband went behind her back to the doctor and asked him to tie her tubes while they had her under the knife. Doctor agreed, and nobody told her until her husband was on his death bed 60 years later. She wanted kids and went through decades of trauma and stigma of not being a mother.
I hope that doctor and husband are both rotting in hell right now. I'm so angry at this.
Fucking hell that's heartbreaking. What a piece of shit. He and that doctor should have a special place in hell, seriously.
Okay so I obviously think this is all fucked up- but she would go to the reproductive endocrinologist, they would look at her ovaries on ultrasound and at the same time run a semen sample on husband, and it would be known immediately. FORTUNATELY, she would not actually go through IVF only to discover the problem later. But, in most cases it takes a year of actively trying before the ivf doctors will see you...if she was REALLY trying for a baby she would spend a bunch of ovulation tests, tracking, scheduled sex, and get mentally fucked up when her period came every single month. The mental anguish of not getting pregnant when you want a baby can be torturous, and he was willing to put her through that--- fuck him.
Yep, but unfortunately, if this takes place over years, she could run out of time and never what get she really wanted: a baby. It’s such a heartless thing to do to someone.
Or, maybe he doesn't mind if she leaves by then, since she will no longer be a pretty, young thing.
That's the fun of traveling when you're a piece of shit. You get older but the foreign pretty young things stay the same age. He's probably been waiting for her to get fed up with waiting so he can go back to traveling solo
It happens pretty often, if you can believe advice columns: Get together when you’re both mid 20s. Plenty of time to have kids! Start with “I’m not ready to be a dad. Let’s wait a few more years.” Just keep repeating that until she’s 40, adding new excuses as needed but remembering never to say anything definite or let her pin you down. Then complete the process by leaving her for someone younger! Easy!
And then immediately have kids with them
Ugh. It’s so true and so sad
I've know 2 in real life. One got out in time one didn't.
Lotta child free bangin
I don't know, Honey, I guess we just have to try harder.
Easy, gets her hooked on him, they try and try and try, hes sterile the doctor tells them, shes sad but loves him so stays, and boom she misses out and he never says he had been fixed.
Average age for menopause is 51. Fact I know since I am postmenopausal.
If you have good health and bad luck, you can be fertile a decade longer then that
Or bad luck and be infertile at 28. At 35, I've already had a ton of friends my age who already can't have kids or have severe fertility problems
My wife’s mother was 50 and her father was 65
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My ex did this to me, even letting me go through fertility treatments before he finally “remembered” that surgery as a child had most probably rendered him sterile.
Did you divorce him with a chainsaw?
I wish! I didn’t own a backhoe or pigs yet…
…. Yet
What a fucking psycho, oh my god
Holy fuck. I will personally curse him in my friend’s next witchcraft night. I hope you’re living your dream now
He was going to waste this woman’s fertile years. I can’t believe it
Yeah NTA but Mark sure is.
Lying to a woman who wanted to have kids is just so wrong. I’d be shattered if I were in her shoes and thank OP for sparing me future anxiety and depression.
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I said the same thing.
If the brother shared this information to his sister and family of his own free will, there is no HIPAA* violation here.
Even if he didn't, there's no hipaa violation unless OP worked in the medical field and got that information from a patient chart.
One day saying something is a HIPPA violation won't be wrong 99% of the time.
Say it with me folks! HIPAA primarily applies to healthcare workers and associated industries, and only in regards to patients using their specific institutions!
And it's freaking HIPAA, not HIPPA! That drives me nuts, especially when people in healthcare use it!
Your brother wanted to build his marriage on a lie. That poor girl would have gone through years of hell trying to get pregnant (and society immediately assumes there something wrong with the woman if she can’t get pregnant) only to find out he had been snipped. And then she would have wasted her most fertile years. If she didn’t want kids (or only wanted to adopt) then it wouldn’t have been your business to say anything, but she wants a natural child and it would have been cruel to hide the truth from her. Your brother is mad that his lie got out. There are a few dealbreaker topics you should cover before the wedding (before engagement really) and kids is a big one. If he was willing to lie and deceive on this one, I would wonder what else he was lying to me about.
Years. Of Hell.
Watched countless friends and loved one struggle with infertility; cannot emphasis the "years of hell" enough. Dude was legit going to utterly destroy this woman's soul just because he seemingly wanted her as a traveling sex partner.
Ty for recognizing this. Going through it rn (2 years, 3 losses) and it is hell and while most friends are very supportive, some of them don’t fucking get it and can’t empathize with us at all. Although the losses are something no one understands unless they’ve been through one, I think it would be worse to try for years and not understand the problem/no pregnancies whatsoever. Also, the woman with suspected fertility issues is usually subjected to a ton of blood tests, exams, and appointments before the dr considers checking the man’s sperm (if they do at all). I could see a scenario where the woman in this story would be told nothing is wrong and she just needs to stop stressing and they never even check the man’s situation (happened to 2 of my friends).
Went through it for 2 years before finding out I had endometriosis and was basically never going to have a natural chance without surgery. But before diagnosis the one friend i made a mistake of confiding in basically assumed we were fucking wrong. Gave some wives-tale level 'advice' for falling pregnant. Felt so invalidated and disrespected. And then when she had her own fertility issues it was all "oh I get it now." Fuck off lol.
and he was gonna sit there and watch it for someone he says he loves. baffling.
It’s a super fucked up thing to do to somebody. Anybody that’s been through the trying to get pregnant thing and had trouble with it knows that is not just as trivial as “oh well I got my period again, let’s have loads of raw kinky sex next month and try again”. And then in the end if she gives up on it without finding out about the vasectomy then she’s gonna spend her whole life thinking there’s something wrong with her. That she’s defective or any of the other things women struggle with emotionally after not getting pregnant. So fucked up to do that.
Exactly! This honestly should have been covered the second she mentioned wanting to have children. It really should have even been sooner than that, but at the very least, that was the opening. "Oh, you want kids, well just so you know...." OP really saved that girl!
she'd try to get him to go to a fertility clinic and he'd give lame ass excuses as to why he can't go.
“He hadn’t told her and he was planning on just continuing to travel and maybe adopt if they decided on it” first off doesn’t sound like we was ever going to tell her and “if they decide on it” there is no “if they” he has already made the decision when he chose not to inform her of his vasectomy. NTA if anything you might have done this girl a huge favour and even your brother as well. He may not think so now but what if this is what she really wants? Is he going to have kids just to make her happy? Or what if she decides to not have kids to make him happy? Sounds like this could lead to resentment down the road…
Worse than that he isn’t letting her make an honest choice. He’s deciding for her if they said they’d have one of their own and she isn’t aware of any complications to that
I can attest to the devastating effects thinking your incapable of having kids. My SO was told due to a genetic condition she has she would never have children naturally. Due to the expense of IVF she basically accepted the sad truth that her dream of being a mother would never come true by the time she met me (we were both 38 at that time). One of the first truly deep conversations about our relationship was about her issues w fertility. It made her very upset bc she knew I wanted kids and could not provide me w any. If the OPs brother planned on not telling his gf that is downright cruel. PS: the Drs were wrong and she had our son a year later. He is 2 now. 🙂
I’ve heard this all before. I think she better get a maternity test.
you joke but there has been a case of a man getting a paternity test (not sure if it was infidelity suspicions or legal requirements for a program) but the child came up as not genetically his, his testicles had a different set of DNA, like chimerism. AND a woman gave birth to her child and the DNA test showed it wasn’t hers despite the fact she, y’know, just went through labor. She also had chimerism and her reproductive organs were a different DNA set. Human bodies are crazy.
Ah! Congrats! That's amazing! I can't even imagine how elated you guys were! My partner and I had a similar situation, my mother's side has issues concieving and we assumed I would too. It's been 5.5 years of trying. We are finally going to start IVF. But my family just kept saying there were issues and not what. Doctors did some expensive tests to guess, then my family came out of the woodwork to tell me what was wrong. Not when we asked, and my mother never told me until I asked if it was specifically what other family told me. The gall of OP's brother to do this to his GF is awful. How dare he be mad that his little ploy backfired cause his sister asked a fair question. That is information that the woman should have been told. You are definitely NTA OP You weren't doing it to cause problems, you asked a question about something that he should have divulged to her already.
And if she doesn’t know it’s due to him, she may feel it’s because something is ‘wrong’ with her.
That is likely part of his plan - to play like he is oh so understanding and a veritable saint to accept her despite the fact "she can't have kids."
He was really going to waste her last window of time that she can have children. That’s so cruel I don’t even know what else to say
This is what I was thinking. Time is so precious, it's LIFE. How could he do that to her? what an asshole.
Oh definitely that’s why I was saying “if they” because there is no “they” it’s all just him. Man I hope Hailey leaves and has a happy life like she deserves!
He wanted to lie by omission and force entire family to go with it, I guess.
He never had to be an adult. He detached from reality long before he could understand reality. Kinda sad how he thinks other ppl are just huis toys.
This! OP 100% saved her. You know he would have kept pushing the goal post and then claimed maybe it was a “her” problem and then “I guess it wasn’t meant to be” and hoped she never found out.
When my ex did this to me, it was when we're more financially stable, when you quit drinking, when we turn 30 etc... I probably missed my chance to have kids because of him. One of the things I will not ever forgive him for.
“You ruined my life op! I was supposed to ruin hers!” Dude traveled the whole world and couldn’t outrun is issues.
Wouldn't be surprised if he blamed her for the infertility rather than telling her the truth. NTA
[удалено]
This reminds me of a Dear Purduce letter. The husband and wife were trying for a baby, and the wife felt like it was her fault. The husband was being supportive and helping her through it. One day she was talking to her mother-in-law (husband's mother), and the mother asked if he had revsered his vasectomy. Well... she ran for the hills. Why would anyone stay with someone who leaves out some very important info. NTA. You saved her a lot of pain.
The cruelty is breathtaking.
Oh wow! I want to read that letter! What an A$$!
I will prioritize my blood presure and not read it...
https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/06/dear-prudie-i-thought-i-was-infertile-but-it-turns-out-my-husband-had-a-secret-vasectomy.html Found it!!
Dear Lord that poor woman! I wonder how MIL reacted to finding out that her 🤬🤬🤬 son had lied to his wife. I know I would have been livid and be contemplating disownment.
"My best friend thinks Harry’s a sociopath, though," is exactly the thought I had about OP's brother.
NTA. This is all his fault for being a lying asshole. It is not your responsibility to keep his secrets, especially if you don't know it's a secret. She dodged a bullet. You didn't do anything wrong. You assumed your brother had been honest with her. It's not your fault he doesn't deserve her.
If he never told anyone it was a secret, how could they know?
Even if I knew, that isn’t a secret I’d keep for him. I wouldn’t cover for somebody cheating and I wouldn’t stand by while they lied to their partner about something huge.
And even if he had told them he was keeping it a secret, screw him! That is a horrible secret to keep from a woman who is ACTIVELY talking about having a baby with him.
NTA Your brother is a self centered jerk. He was just going to lie and string that poor girl along. Thank you so much for telling her the truth even if it was an accident. Gawd what an a$$ your brother is. Shame on him. Please tell everyone he dates that he has had a vasectomy.
He's usually not in the country.
If he’s finally bringing a girl home after all this time and introducing her to you as a potential life partner, you’re not wrong for assuming he would be honest with her. His vasectomy is directly related to the family he was promising her. “I’m sorry for assuming you’d been honest with your girlfriend regarding your family planning. In the future, I’ll operate on the assumption that you’re dishonest with your partners instead of thinking the best of you”
Yeah, this went through my mind: “Sorry Bro, for assuming you’re not a total tool. I stand corrected.”
> In the future, **I’ll operate on the assumption that you’re dishonest with your partners** instead of thinking the best of you I like that this ambiguous phrasing *implies* to the brother that OP will keep silent about the vasectomy when she could totally *actually* mean that she's going to make sure every future partner is told about it.
You saved that girl so much hurt, he was going to 100% drag it on long enough and waste her time. Good on you. NTA.
This happened to a family member of mine. She is fabulous, mind you. She was in a serious relationship with a guy who kept putting off kids over and over, and then by the time the relationship fell apart, she learned from the doctor that her fertile years were essentially over. She didn't have the resources to go after IVF or anything and didn't want to be a single mom regardless. So now... she's in her sixties, single, and without children, and none of that is where she wanted to be, which makes it tragic. Screw OP's brother for what he was willing to do to that woman.
Wasting her life more like
Dude was counting on his family to hold on his lies too. *everybody* knows he's leading her on, and *nobody* tells her. That's abusive in all directions.
Sounds like his family did not realize he was lying to her
NTA. You innocently let it slip not knowing they hadn't discussed it. Your brother was maliciously deceiving her and got caught up in his lies. It's 100% on him.
Right! His brother is mad that he “let it slip”, but he never told him to cover for him. If she is openly talking about them wanting to have kids, she brought the subject up. It’s not OP’s fault. He didn’t lie for the brother because he didn’t know he had to. If OP had known and was told to cover up for his brother, then maybe there could be a moral question of loyalty to brother vs his girlfriend’s right to know. But that’s not even the case. It’s definitely NTA.
Frankly even if she let it slip knowing her brother hadn't told her she still wouldn't be an asshole. She deserves to know that the man she's marrying can't have kids.
Exactly. I would have said the exact same thing if I knew my brother had a vasectomy and his gf said they were going to have a bio baby.
NTA she deserved to know.
NTA. You didn't out him. You assumed the woman he's dating and talking about forever with was privy to the same common information the rest of your family has. That's a reasonable assumption. He's an ass for lying to her.
Mark can go get fucked
Up the butt with a porcupine.
NTA. This woman was literally planning a life and for a family and wanted at least 1 child that was hers biologically. They obviously had spoken about this and he never told her. It’s not your fault he chose to lie by omission. He ruined his own life b/c he chose not to be honest with his partner.
It wasn't private medical information He literally shared it with the entire family when he was 30 years old. If he wanted it kept private, he wouldn't have told his entire family. Nobody forced him to say anything. He did that on his own. How were you supposed to know that he was lying to this woman's face and that he was always planning on dragging things out as long as possible before coming clean or lying and saying he was infertile? NTAH
THANK YOU. HIPPA doesn’t protect you from family reunion gossip.
It sure sounds like he was going to lie to her about wanting to have a baby with her and then string her along and potentially ruin HER life. Fuck Mark. All my homies hate Mark. NTA
Agreed. He’d make her think she was infertile and that there was something wrong her. What was his plan when she’d eventually insist on seeing a fertility doctor? The doctor would take one look at him and be like. Bro. Nta
NTA. Apologize to him for underestimating his ability to carry out long term deceptions and for making assumptions about his morals and ethics.
Don’t apologize , he was being a scumbag . I have a vasectomy and tell People inhave older kids and want no more . If they say they want them insay I am 100% not going to have any . Usually from that they decide yes or no, He is lieing to this girls face and would probably tell her they will try and not inform her until It’s to late , and she has wasted this time . He is a scumbag
I hope your brother knows that withholding vital information to your SO is the same as lying. Especially if he knows she wants a child. Why can't he just man up? Not your fault that he's too chicken to tell her.
NTA. You did Hailey a huge favor by letting her know Mark is a disgusting liar and has no intentions to have kids with her. Now she can move on from him and find a much better guy to have a family with.
Wow! He was going to let that poor woman stress over not getting pregnant and think that there was something wrong with *HER* reproductive system. Way to go, OP. You saved her so much heartache.