He Always Wanted To Be A Father

By the time he entered high school he stood six feet four inches tall. People looked up to him for his quiet, polite manner as well as his height. He always had an easy way with children and they responded to his gentle teasing and encouraging ways. His part time job through high school was working with children at after school programs through the Parks and Recreation Department.

He was twenty five years old when he married his sweetheart of three years. They talked about starting a family as soon as she finished college. Everyone who knew him thought he would be a wonderful father and family man. When his wife graduated college, she told him she was re-thinking starting the family right away and wanted to postpone getting pregnant for a few years. He was disappointed but he loved his wife and believed she wanted children and had the same goals he did. Each year after his thirtieth birthday he approached his wife about starting their family and was rebuffed and sometimes ridiculed about his desire to be a father. He decided to wait and trust that his wife was adjusting to a busy career and she would want to be a mother when she saw her friends having children.

They both were athletic and in good shape. She ran 10 miles every day and 20 miles every weekend morning. He worked out at the gym. He introduced her to a personal trainer at their gym because she wanted some personal workout time to concentrate on results to help with the running. At the time he introduced them, he told his wife as an aside that the personal trainer was good at his job, but he had a reputation for being a swinger and had been known to be involved with some of the clients.

They were about to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary and they were going to move very far away. They talked about how the change would be good for them and she told him she wanted to start their family in the new place. He went ahead to the new place to find a house to buy and get started in his job.

After two months he traveled back home to see his wife and see how things were going toward the move. All the pictures of him and her together or of him alone were not displayed where they had been. There was no evidence of an impending move. Instead of greeting her husband with a kiss, she told him she did not want to have children. Not ever. She knew this before she met him. She was not going to move with him. She wanted a divorce. She had been having an affair with the personal trainer for a year and he had moved in with her.

There were many stages of grief for him to get through and along the way he begged and then became angry and then begged again. He was thrown into a horrible depression. To his family and friends he said it wasn't just her fault, that he wasn't the best husband he could have been. The last thing he said to his family and friends was that he was willing not to be a father if they could start couples counseling and save their marriage. That was not to be. He moved to the new place so very far away, is working and is 42 years old and still not a father.

Note: This is a true story. We sometimes hear about women who ache to become mothers but seldom do we hear about a man who loves children and wants to be a father. The man in this story is my son. My heart hurts for his disappointment and pain. He still has hope that one day he will have children. Hope springs eternal, my son.

Photo found on google.