The Case of the Unwanted Pregnancy

One thing is certain: this man needs some serious help. He’s Canadian, but he has become drunk on political correctness and wants to make his life fulfill a feminist fantasy. As I said, he needs some serious help. Being a male feminist, he also turns out to be a bully. He has succeeded in bullying his wife into silence. So much for respecting women.

You see, she is pregnant with their second child. He does not want a second child. It will undermine their mutually satisfying careers. He has explained this all to his pregnant wife. He believes, pathetic sod that he is, that he is just being honest with her.

So he writes to therapist Lori Gottlieb for advice. She is considerably more charitable than you or I would be, but she has to try to get through to someone who has been brainwashed on political correctness and who cannot think straight. Better yet, who cannot think at all.

Without further ado, here is the letter:

My wife and I recently discovered she's about six weeks pregnant. This is devastating news for both of us. We have a 17-month-old daughter and we planned on having only one child. The birth control we had been using failed. I tried to have a vasectomy nine months ago and my wife objected at the doctor's office without citing reasons. She said she would get an IUD instead, but she was unable to get the IUD, because doctors had to remove a fibroid first. She learned about the pregnancy at the doctor's office during a consult on removing the fibroid.

Since hearing the news, I have been honest with her about my feelings. I reminded her that we simply cannot afford a second child and we can kiss our joint career aspirations goodbye if we have another baby. She agrees with me. More important, I said our marriage will be over in the sense that we will just be co-parents rather than lovers because I will resent her, and the baby will always be a reminder of my career sacrifice and our indebtedness.

Although I’ve been clear that I don't want another baby, I’ve told her that this is ultimately her decision and I will support her in whatever she decides—even though I was denied the right and choice to do with my body as I pleased when I wanted a vasectomy. We're both Christians, and I know she will struggle with making the decision I prefer and might regret it afterward. I don't think I will share those regrets, but if she keeps the pregnancy I will likely enter into a state of lifelong depression and feel stuck in an unhappy marriage. I feel like there are only bad outcomes with either choice. What do we do?

One does not quite understand why he will be making the career sacrifice. Is he trying to say that if his wife decides to have their baby she will be spending more time at home and less time on the job? Does he mean that he fears that he cannot support his family and will feel like a failure as a man? Is his anguish merely a covering for his own inadequacy… inadequacy that he seems ready to pawn off on his wife?

Gottlieb does not mention this point, perhaps because it is so harsh that he would likely recoil in horror. But she does understand that if the wife did not want her husband to have a vasectomy, she was saying, in a very unsubtle way, that she did not want to foreclose on the chance of having another child. When he writes that they both do not want another child, he is not speaking for her. He is imposing his views on her.

The man is too obtuse to have received the message. Largely, this means that he is a bully and refuses to engage in a conversation with his wife.

So, Gottlieb opens by explaining that his appalling attitude has made it very difficult for his wife to express her feelings. After all, and not to be overly obvious, she is pregnant. He is not. The decision is rightly hers, but he has created a situation where she is being forced to choose between the baby or the marriage. This is what politically correct brainwashing has wrought.

She continues:

You’ve expressed quite clearly why you don’t want to have a second child, but I’m not sure that your wife has shared her feelings with you in the same detail. For instance, after learning that she was pregnant, you “reminded” her of the reasons you both don’t want this baby—but most people don’t need reminders about how they feel. Similarly, intellectually she “agrees” with you about the constraints a second child might put on your finances and freedom (career or otherwise), but a person can think one thing (A baby will be expensive and require sacrifice) and feel another (Yet I still want one).

As for the bullying, Gottlieb raises it gently, but still the problem is flagrant:

she might be devastated not because she feels exactly the way you do about having a second baby, but because you’ve made it clear to her that having a second baby would launch you into a “lifelong depression” and make you resent her for the rest of your lives. It’s very hard to share your true feelings when you know that your partner will resent you for having them, and that is why some of your assumptions here may not be accurate. In fact, your resentment goes back to the vasectomy. No matter what you two decide, it’s this resentment that will wreak havoc on your lives more than having or not having this baby will.

The problem is the husband’s bad attitude. It is appallingly bad, and he is an appalling human being.

You know what will be the end of your marriage, more than the baby? The double bind you’ve put your wife in. It’s your decision, honey, but either I’ll resent you for the rest of our lives, or you’ll resent me for the rest of our lives.

A little shaming, which is what Gottlieb is offering, is just what he needs.