Marriage

I had someone ask me today if all of this has hurt my marriage. That's a hard question to answer - I would say Yes and No. I'm sure my husband will not be thrilled about this post, but it's a good question, so here it goes!

Yes, I believe that in some ways it has hurt our marriage. Not the situation that we are in exactly, but the problems that it causes.

It hurt our communication. We don't talk about anything anymore because it always brings tears to my eyes. It's not that we don't want to talk about it with each other, its just that it doesn't seem to help. We just talk in circles if that makes sense. If I start to cry he gets upset and basically tells me not to. So I tend to hold it in sometimes.

It hurt our faith. It feels like this can't possibly be God's plan for us. It can't be his plan for us to suffer. Can it? Could it be God's plan for everyone else in the family to get pregnant? Could it really be God's plan for us to spend thousands of dollars to get this? Thousands of dollars that we don't have? I asked Ryle the other day if he believed that it was God's plan. He just looked at me for a minute, and then he finally said "Kristen I don't know. I don't know if God has anything to do with it. The problem is that we don't have the money to fix your problem." So yes, it has hurt our faith. I know that his family is going to flip when they read this, but it's the truth. This infertility struggle has hurt our faith.

It hurt our relationship with family. As you've read in previous posts, we have alienated ourselves from his family. We'll he would love to be around them, but I can't emotionally handle it. So he doesn't go for me.

But I also think that it made our relationship stronger. Don't get me wrong, it hurt me when he did not understand what I was feeling and going through, but it also made us as a couple stronger. Now that he understands a little more, he can help me get through a breakdown - most of the time. He can pick me up when I'm down. Although we don't really talk about it when I break down, he just holds me and lets me get it all out. I love him more than anything and don't know what I would do without him in my life.

I'm sure that didn't really answer the question. But it's a hard question. I think that it has hurt and helped our relationship in different ways.