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Old Jan 20, 2015, 12:52 PM
SeemsLost SeemsLost is offline
New Member
 
Member Since: Jan 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 3
Hi all, I am new to this forum and need some suggestions on what are the options I have in handling a situation I am going through. It is a bit long post, so please bear with me.

I am in early 30s, married for past 2 years, no kids yet and till few months back was leading a happy married life. My wife is one of my best friend and we go well together. Few months back, we came to know that one of us has a genetic disorder - Retinitis Pigmentosa, a progressive vision loss disorder that has no treatments yet - that has a 50% chance of passing it to our offspring. Here I am not saying who has this disorder because it is irrelevant and we both are not concerned that one of us will have a defective vision at some stage in his/her life. We are well matured to face its consequences on us. Also has support from both of our relatives.

But we are not in the same boat when it comes to what to do with our offspring. We don't have kids yet. One of us is of the opinion that we take that other 50% chance and hope that God will be with us, so that this disorder will not be passed to our offspring. But the counterpart is not ready to take that 50% chance and wants to opt any medical options available to avoid this being passed to our offspring. The difficult part is the medical options available, such as PGD with IVF, is not simple and possess high health risks to my wife and more than that the success rate of these treatments are not 100%. One other option is surrogacy with a donor sperm/egg which will have too much of emotional stress and concerns on how we will deal with later in our life knowing that only half of our baby belongs to both of us and the other half belongs to someone we don't know.
To make things worse both our parents too are not in the same boat with each side supporting their own son/daughter’s thoughts. We have not yet reached on an amicable solution and now our marriage is heading towards a divorce.

When I said it is heading towards divorce, you can imagine all acquisitions we might have made each other in that heat of the moment conversations, such as saying either one of us is selfish, Or the other person cheated by not revealing this disorder before marriage (this disorder is known in that person's family and there are few affected members as well), Or that one of us is having another affair, Or one of us is lying and is indeed concerned on himself/herself instead of offspring etc etc.. To top it up, we both have family pressure, questions from friends, relatives, co-workers and even some strangers, who just happen to enquire "How is/where is your spouse Or do you have kids" !!! And all these are breaking the trust we have on each other day by day.

Now what are the options any of you can think of to avoid this divorce? Or put it in other words, what you might have done in such a scenario? Conceded to the other person's thoughts and avoid the divorce?
Hugs from:
kaliope