It’s been close to decade now that this 34-year-old woman has been with her 30-year-old husband Jeff. Even after all that time, she’s still head over heels in love with him.
She says that as a whole, they’re both not into taking risks and are extremely rational, which lends to their compatibility. Now, Jeff has an older sister named Lisa, and they’re so close they’re more like identical twins than siblings.
Jeff and Lisa can nearly read the other person’s mind; that’s the level of closeness we’re talking about, and she admits their bond borders on creepy in that regard.
Just before Jeff proposed to her four years ago, Lisa and her wife Sara were trying to have kids. They looked into the traditional donor route, which they deemed far too pricey.
Lisa and Sara also didn’t like the extreme anonymity that came with trying to pick out the potential biological father of their baby.
They then learned about that infamous doctor who got his patients pregnant thought secretly using his own seed, and that didn’t help inspire more confidence in the process as a whole.
“Bad stuff all around,” she noted. “So they ended up using a donor they found on a Facebook group. Jeff and I were fully along for the fertility journey, all the ups and downs, and Lisa and Sara ended up finding a great guy – kind of weird, but it worked for them, and now they have an incredible little goblin starting kindergarten next year.”
“Fast forward to now. I just found out my husband has been donating…on these Facebook groups for the past two years. I was so devastated (and furious) when he finally came clean — I basically felt like he’d been cheating on me, and it was obviously a huge trust violation.”
“Even worse, We’ve been trying to have kids ourselves and so far, nothing has worked. Our own fertility struggles are a huge stress but I felt like we were going through it together.”
As soon as Jeff came clean about his deep, dark secret, she wasted no time packing up her personal belongings and going to stay with her mom.
She never would have imagined Jeff doing something to make her think of wanting out of their marriage, but here she is; considering this exact position.
She has since learned that Jeff only donated to couples who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and he never initiated physical contact.
When done donating, he does not stay in touch with the people, and he has no involvement with his biological children at all. He even specifically requested not to be a part of their lives.
Jeff maintains it’s only his “genetic material” and not that big of a deal. He felt inspired by Lisa’s child, as he adores her and can’t pictured his life without the little girl in it.
This is the only portion of Jeff’s narrative that she can sort of sympathize with, as she also loves their niece dearly, and she acknowledges that she only is alive because some man on Facebook met Lisa and Sara and gave them his swimmers in a cup.
“I sympathize with LGBTQ+ people who can’t have kids without donors, but I absolutely can’t see myself being involved with someone who might have kids I don’t know about, even if that means there might be families who don’t conceive,” she explained.
“He’s begged me every day to come back but I obviously can’t face him or work through it so soon. I can accept that it’s not cheating exactly, but I don’t know if I see a way to get through this. The thought of leaving is unfathomable to me, but so is staying after what he did.”
“He says the only reason he didn’t tell me is because of my own struggle getting pregnant and he didn’t want to add to the stress, but that the important thing is he came clean (I obviously don’t see that as justification for lying). I built my life with him and I want to find some way through this. He says he’ll do anything, but what can he possibly do to build back my trust? I’m so lost.”
Do you think she can find a way to stay married to Jeff after learning the secret he’s been keeping for years?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
