Hi. Ok, it’s a long story but I’ll try to make it as brief as I can.

When I was at school I was very small, only around 5’4”, and I got mercilessly picked on for years for it, which completely destroyed my self-esteem and made me extremely self-conscious about my size.

When I eventually left school and went to uni in 2001, I was looking forward to putting all that behind me. I moved into a house with a guy (let’s call him bob) and 3 girls. The girls were all pretty tall and Bob was a bit taller than them. They all started making the same remarks from school, about me being shorter then them. I told them I didn’t like it but Bob kept getting angry about me reacting badly to the remarks and telling me I should laugh at it and that no-one thought anything of it, even though he had admitted that he used to be 5’8” and wanted more, and he always retorted that he was the tallest if someone commented on him being the fattest person in the house. I joined several sports clubs but the people there were just the same. Eventually I became so sick of the remarks that I would scream at the top of my lungs at anyone who said anything about my height at all, but Bob still refused to stop and kept getting frustrated that I wouldn’t let them all make fun of me. I came close to moving out of the house several times but ended up staying. Bob was also a social butterfly and very popular with women, while I had no luck at all and was constantly left out. The fact that I was shorter than everyone drove me absolutely mad.

I gradually grew more and by my mid-20’s I had reached around 5’7”, which still
isn’t great but better than I was.

Because Bob and I had shared some fun times as well, I stayed in contact with him after uni, but I was so self-conscious about my height after all of the bad experiences that I had trouble socialising with people for years.

Then, in 2009 I met the love of my life. She is an absolutely stunning Chinese woman. We went to Bob’s wedding together and all of the girls from the uni house were utterly stunned to see me with such a gorgeous female partner. I also got numerous compliments on how gorgeous she was from Bob’s parents. I started to feel that I could finally put all of those feelings of inferiority and self-consciousness behind me and for years I cherished the memories of having my love with me at that event.

My wife and I married in 2013, but we had trouble starting a family and eventually had to go down the IVF route. In 2020 I hadn’t been in contact with Bob for several years and was happy to put him behind me as the resentment about all of the height remarks was still there, but then something happened that made me realise that he had put up with a lot of crap from me as well, so I decided to give him another chance. I contacted him and arranged a zoom call.. When we began the zoom call I asked my wife to join us for it, since she was the only thing that made me feel equal to Bob. Unfortunately, during the call she told Bob that our son was IVF, which I really, really, really didn’t want him to know. I hadn’t told her this beforehand because I thought it went without saying that she wouldn’t tell something so personal and embarrassing to someone she barely knew. I was borderline hysterical after this and cried myself to sleep for 3 nights in a row. By the time I contacted Bob to ask him not to tell anyone, he had already told his wife, who I barely knew.

Bob and his wife have 3 naturally conceived children, so it feels like this has put me right back to the beginning, just when I thought I didn’t have to feel inferior to him anymore. This was the one time I had the comfort of not having to feel different or inferior, because Bob didn’t know the thing he had over me, but my wife wouldn’t even let me have that.

He has told me several times that us needing IVF isn’t in anyway embarrassing or shameful to them, but I don’t believe him after all of the height stuff. It feels like I’m now having to go through all of that again and it drives me absolutely nuts that there’s nothing I can ever do to change the fact that they know. I don’t think I can bare to ever see them again and it feels like all of those feelings of being equal to Bob with my gorgeous wife beside me are now in the toilet because of this.

I love my wife more than anything but I’m still struggling to forgive her for telling him and every time I think about the fact that him and his wife know I start to get worked up again.

What can I do?