Infertility is a rough road — not only physically and emotionally, but financially. Even basic treatments can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, and more advanced reproductive assistance such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) can be absolutely cost-prohibitive. So when you’re saving for such a thing, every dollar counts.
And that, friends, is where today’s Reddit comes in.
“My husband and I struggled with fertility issues for years,” writes one Redditor in the popular “Am I the A**hole” subreddit. Recently, she said, they had finally saved enough for IVF — the Redditor saving for the majority, while her husband contributed only a couple thousand bucks. Unfortunately, not even IVF is a fail-proof method of conception, and their first round was unsuccessful.
“We saved up for another round after the huge disappointment and heartbreak from failing the first time,” the Redditor continues. Only there was one major difference: this time, her husband didn’t pay a cent. The savings were all her doing, including an inheritance from her father — a total of $11K to put toward the second round of IVF.
So you can imagine her surprise when she realized that there was money missing from their savings account … like, a lot of money. “Last week I found out that [my husband] secretly pulled out $7K,” she says. “I was completely and utterly shocked I confronted him and he casually reminded me of how many times his best friend complained about his ‘old junk’ car and he decided to ‘lend’ him 7K to buy a decent car.”
The “best friend” in question is a guy her husband has known since high school; “[T]hey’re inseperable (sic) and spend the entire week together. Like they’re really really close,” she writes.
When the Redditor found out about the loan, she was — quite understandably — livid. “I lost it on him and immediately demanded his friend to send the money back and threatened police involvement in case he refused,” she says. “His friend immediately returned the money, but told my husband about the police thing and my husband came home and yelled at me calling me unhinged and selfish.”
But wait, it gets better. And by “gets better,” we mean “OH, THE AUDACITY.”
“I told him I saved up some of this money/used my inheritance for this treatment while he contributed nothing even though we’re in this together,” the Redditor writes. And then came the kicker: “He ‘corrected’ me saying I’m the one with the problem and he thought it’s only fair that I ‘make up’ for it by paying for the IVF myself.”
Um, Sir? Infertility is a couples problem. It is something you go through together in order to have a child … together.
She ended her post by saying that her husband had gone to stay with his friend while constantly shaming her for “how she treated them both.” True to form, Reddit had its pitchforks at the ready — and wasted no time in absolutely skewering this garbage husband.
“‘He went to stay with his friend…’ Good, he should stay there,” says one comment. “OP. I’m sorry but I think it’s really clear who’s the most important person in your husband’s life and it’s not you.”
“Full stop, that’s a huge marinara covered tablecloth waving in the wind. What a terrible thing to say to a partner. Especially one who is having fertility issues,” says another.
Commenters were quick to point out that regardless of who saved the money, a spouse should always consult with the other spouse before taking that big of a financial chunk out of the bank account. Also, that the husband has waaay too much allegiance to this friend, prioritizing that relationship over the one with his wife.
“Hell, dump the husband and get a sperm donor!” advised one wise comment. “If you’re going to end up parenting your child alone while your partner prioritizes his buddy [over] you and your child then you’re better off with him having zero rights over the child at all and going it alone!”
This Redditor summed it up perhaps most succinctly with her comment: “She’s already been through this bullsh*t IVF merry go round once before with no baby to show for the hundreds of pills she’s swallowed and the hundreds of injections she’s had to administer herself. Yet she pulled herself together piece by jagged, self hating piece, to face the uncertain fate of yet another round of this hell that is IVF, only to have her husband shoot her down like that … honestly I think what he said is much more hurtful than stealing the money which was already a pretty ginormous a-hole move.”
We wholeheartedly agree. She indeed does have a problem — but it isn’t her fertility. It’s her husband, who is most definitely the a-hole.
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