Agony Aunt

Turns out maybe not.

Dear Prudence,

My wife and I both had kids rather young so when we met, they were well into middle school. I got the snip right after my daughter was born and was upfront about not wanting more children. My wife was OK with this until around our second year of marriage. Then she became obsessed with having a baby that was “ours.”

It nearly broke our marriage. I thought we had hit the lottery because our kids all got along and we had a successful blended family. I basically told my wife she had to choose what kind of life she wanted: what we had versus what she dreamed up. We went to therapy and we worked through it—or so I thought.

We recently went through a crisis where one of our kids had an unplanned pregnancy and they chose to end it. We are lucky to live in a blue state but the situation was fraught. My wife’s reaction blindsided me. She was so angry and felt she had been “cheated again” because we would’ve raised the baby if they kept it. Luckily, she didn’t say this around our kids, but her reaction makes me think our marriage is not salvageable. She told me she regrets not pushing for another child and that I forced her to give up her dream. She didn’t want to be a single mom again. She later apologized but is the damage done? We are both pushing 50 and I thought we were happy. Is counseling even possible at this point? I feel like I am living with a stranger ever since she confessed.

—No Baby

Dear No Baby,

Sure, your wife may have been dishonest with you about her enduring desire to have kids—despite working through this years ago—but it’s also possible that the ordeal with the abortion triggered her former desires in a way that surprised everyone, including herself. Just because she’s made peace with your shared decision to not have a baby doesn’t mean that she can’t still mourn a version of a life that she once wanted.

I don’t think there’s an easy way to tell at this point which scenario applies here. I think it would be a good idea to revisit counseling, since that seemed helpful in giving you both some additional support when you were making the decision to not have a child the first time around. Your wife might simply need a space where her feelings of regret and grief feel validated, and you both might find it helpful to “review,” so to speak, the original decision and how its impacted your lives. I’m not suggesting you both revisit the decision itself, but just because it was made years ago doesn’t mean you can’t still talk about how it’s affected both of you. In fact, it’s probably healthier to look back at something so big with the perspective you’ve gained since.

DEAR ABBY: I'm an older woman. My husband and I have been married eight years but were together 15 years prior to our marriage. He is a wonderful, caring man in most ways. But from time to time, he snaps extremely unflattering photos of me, sends them to everyone we know and even orders enlargements made for me.

I have a mouth condition that makes smiling painful, so unless I know a picture is being taken, I look really old and grumpy. I have asked him PLEASE not to do this because it's humiliating when he sends them out to friends and family members. I think it's unkind and disrespectful and have told him so, yet he persists.

I'm to the point that this has become a deal-breaker in our marriage, and he knows it. He claims he loves me and is proud of me. And yes, we have been to counseling about our relationship in general because of the many times he has humiliated me in public. But he won't stop. How can I handle this going forward? -- HUMILIATED AND HURTING

DEAR HUMILIATED: It appears your "wonderful, caring" husband has a mean streak. He's getting his kicks by embarrassing you. One way to handle it going forward would be to ignore him when he does it. It won't be easy, but when he realizes he can't get the desired reaction from you, he may do it less often. Another way to deal with it would be to discuss privately with a licensed therapist whether his behavior really has become a deal-breaker. The choice is yours.

Adapted from a reader chat.

Dear Carolyn: Before the pandemic, my wife and I — early 30s, both lawyers — had long working hours and frequent business travel, with weekends spent largely on family events and cultural activities. Once our respective firms sent us to work at home, we calculated we would gain 30-plus hours a week, even while still working full-time, due to not commuting, traveling or socializing in person. We promised each other we would use that time to be productive in ways our prior schedules did not permit.

I kept up my end of the bargain: In six months I read 25 biographies, developed decent conversational skills in two foreign languages, upped my running program to the point that I am marathon-ready, and started volunteering for voter registration advocacy, all while continuing to work full-time. My wife has done … not so much. She has been reading fantasy novels, occasionally watching a History Channel documentary, and has generally used the time to “unwind.”

I have confronted her several times, and she tells me she is “rejecting productivity culture” and doesn't feel like improving herself right now. We share housework, cooking, and other practical matters, and she does exercise, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated — disgusted, even — that she would waste this gift of free time just to watch TV and read books better suited for children.

I have asked her to get counseling and a depression evaluation, but she has refused and thinks she is conducting herself “fine.” Do you have any suggestions, other than divorce?

— Productive

Productive: Divorce might be her best option, so do I have to leave it out?

Wow.

People are different. People can be different and still be good. People can be different and still be worthy. They can have different needs, want different things, set different goals, have different levels of energy and ambition, evolve in different ways. If you can't love and respect someone who made the perfectly valid decision to enjoy life, then maybe the most generous thing you can do is admit your heart isn't in the marriage anymore, and free you both to discuss what comes next.

Is anyone so awesome a catch that it would be worth not being loved or respected — worth arousing “disgust” — just to stay married?

Plus, if your definition of “improving” oneself didn’t include rest and juicy novels, then our differences would be irreconcilable.

But I digress. She's not taking advantage of you, leaving an illness or bad habit unaddressed, or betraying you. She's working, doing her share of chores, taking care of herself. “Fine” sounds fine.

You, within your rigid ideas of a life worth living, just don't like her — that's what you're saying, to my ear. So what else am I supposed to suggest? Language tapes over your home's speakers, like heavy metal outside an embassy in Panama, to break her?

Readers' thoughts:

· “Just to read books better suited for children"? Holy cats!! Reading anything different from what she reads all day will be good for recharging and growth. Your way to “improve yourself” isn’t the same for your wife — nor should you be the one to decide how she uses this time.

· Something tells me that, pre-covid, Productivity Guy was super busy because he wanted to be, and his wife was super busy because she was forced to be.

· The contempt in that question is so palpable it’s tough to see them coming back from it.

· I suspect Productive doesn’t particularly like himself, either. That’s the toxicity of the cult of productivity. It convinces us we’re worthless if we’re not constantly checking items off a to-do list.

There was an update: divorce. Read here.

There was another update: reconciliation. Read here.

Dear Carolyn: My husband and I are trying for a baby. We've had many talks about parenthood and are mostly on the same page.

One part leaves me cold: He says he needs paternity tests for all our kids. Every aspect of our relationship is solid and wonderful except for this. We've never cheated on each other, but when he tells me he wants the test I feel like he doesn't trust me. He says that's not the case.

He says it's not "fair" that a mother always knows the baby is hers while the father can never be 100 percent sure.

I'm completely in love with my husband and want to have a child with him, but this is ruining the entire experience for us. I'm pregnant and I haven't even told him yet. I know he would be ecstatic and would love to know, but I feel none of this really matters until the paternity test — and then he can finally love our child, with proof it's his.

Am I overreacting? Should I just let him have the paternity test?

— Pregnant

Pregnant: OMG.

No.

This is hideous on so many levels that I fear for you and the coming child.

“We’ve never cheated” is just a flat-out nonstarter. You can love and trust each other and feel sure, but you can’t KNOW what the other has (not) done. Not firsthand. Not provably. You just can’t.

I’m starting here because in making this unmakeable declaration, you’re carrying his water for him. Someone as dead certain as he is that the whole world is out to cheat him — do you know what that often means? That he himself is cheating. That’s his certainty. It’s called projection.

I obviously can’t say he is for sure but, wow, the pieces are in place. He’s got you declaring his innocence for him. Perfect cover for bad acts.

That’s before we get to the slack-jawed horror show of his treating you like a cheater from within a “solid” marriage, like cheating’s a given, no matter what you’ve actually done. This is call-an-attorney behavior. I am so sorry you’ll be doing this now while pregnant instead of before.

I don’t know, by the way, how you can be “completely” in love with someone who is “ruining the entire experience for us” — not accidentally, but by dark emotional design. That alone is call-a-therapist cognitive dissonance, but the whole package belongs in a therapist’s office, SOLO, not with him and his monstrous paranoia and control. ASAP.

And finally, though extraneously, after all the “Get out!” advice prior:

Do you think the world is fair? Do you believe you are owed fairness by higher powers, biology or humankind?

Someone who has such an emotional need to get what he thinks he should get, who is ticked off at nature for not guaranteeing him fairness, is not well. Seriously not well.

Yes, we all want fairness and go to some lengths to ask it of employers, friends, government, institutions. But this guy has a beef with nature. And he thinks he’s entitled to defame you just to get the upper hand on biology. It’s appalling, and I’m worried about you. Therapist, domestic abuse hotline (1-800-799-SAFE), online threat assessment (mosaicmethod.com). No way his control efforts stop here.

The column, originally published in 2021, was republished for the 25th anniversary of Carolyn Hax’s column. You can read the original comments here.