Be Fruitful by Victoria Maizes MD

Author:Victoria Maizes, MD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

Often, men and women deal with the challenges of infertility and miscarriage in widely varying manners. Adrienne says, “For both men and women, infertility is a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual crisis. But the sexes tend to experience infertility and miscarriage very differently.” Men may want to fix things; women often need to feel them. Many men aren’t brought up with the emotional experience to be involved in this challenge, and they may not know how to react to someone so distraught. Some men are taught not to honor their own feelings; it’s a death for men as well, but some need to learn to feel and express it in order to be fully present to their partners. Every once in a while a couple reverses these typical roles, but Adrienne says that no matter who is in what role, the challenge is an opportunity to build greater intimacy.

In contrast, some couples found that struggling with fertility actually strengthened their marriages. In one large study, two-thirds of the couples reported benefits. These couples related that they were forced to discuss the emotional aspects of infertility as well as existential aspects of life. They learned to manage new, stressful situations together, thereby improving their mutual connection. The researchers found that couples typically used one of four strategies to cope with childlessness: (1) active-avoidance strategies (e.g., avoiding being with pregnant women or children); (2) active-confronting strategies (e.g., showing feelings, asking others for advice, and talking with other people about emotional aspects of infertility); (3) passive-avoidance strategies (e.g., hoping for a miracle); and (4) meaning-based coping (e.g., thinking about the fertility problem in a positive light, and finding other goals in life). Active-confronting coping was a significant predictor of high marital benefit for men, while an active-avoidance strategy predicted the opposite. In women, those who used meaning-based coping strategies experienced reduced distress. Knowing that one strategy tends to be more effective than another can help shape our behavior when faced with infertility.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.