The Impact of Infertility on Relationships: How Couples Counseling Can Help
Infertility, defined as the inability to conceive after one year of trying (or six months for individuals over 35, impacts an estimated one out of every six couple’s world wild. While the physical impacts of fertility treatment are well documented, the strain on relationships is not as widely discussed. The truth is navigating infertility can touch every part of a relationship: from communication and intimacy to trust and emotional connection.
The Strain on Communication and Intimacy
While couples may go through infertility treatment together, each member of a couple may have a different emotional experience and coping style. This can have a huge impact on communication and connection. Furthermore, scheduled sex and medical restrictions can impact intimacy and sexual connection. In our practice, some of the couples we work with describe feeling as though their relationship becomes transactional or singularly focused on fertility treatment. Additionally, each partner may process infertility differently. One might want to talk openly and often; the other may prefer to process on their own or avoid processing all together. These differences can lead to misunderstandings and emotional distance, even in the most loving relationships.
Guilt, Blame, and Unequal Burdens
Often, if the diagnosis reveals fertility challenges with one partner, guilt and shame can crop up. Additionally, fertility treatments may be more involved for one partner or may take a larger physical or emotional toll. When those emotions go unspoken and are not communicated in a partnership, this can sometimes create a wedge between partners, which can lead to resentment, misunderstanding, distance, and conflict.
How Couples Counseling for Infertility Can Help
Couples therapy can be a powerful resource for navigating the emotional complexities of infertility. It offers a safe, neutral space to explore grief, process decisions, and repair or strengthen connection.
Here’s how counseling can help you:
1. Communication
A trained therapist helps couples’ express thoughts and feelings in a constructive way and provides a space where both partners can feel heard and understood. A couples therapist can teach you to communicate with your partner in a more effective manner.
Whether it's the loss of a pregnancy, a treatment cycle, or the idea of a specific family path, navigating infertility often involves navigating grief. Counseling helps couples learn to grieve together and make loving space for grieving in differently.
3. Making Informed Decisions
Should we keep trying? Consider IVF? Explore adoption? Accept a child-free life? These are difficult questions. Counseling provides a supportive environment to explore these choices with clarity and compassion.
4. Reconnecting Emotionally and Physically
Therapists can help couples move beyond goal-oriented sex and rebuild a sense of physical connection and intimacy
Final Thoughts
Infertility is not just a medical diagnosis; it’s an emotional and relational experience. It can shake the foundation of a relationship—but it can also be an opportunity for growth, resilience, and deeper understanding. With the support of a couple’s counselor, couples can navigate the heartbreak and uncertainty of infertility and emerge with a stronger sense of connection.
Couples Therapy in DC, Maryland, and Virginia
Our dedicated team of specialized couple’s therapists are here to help. We offer in-person couples therapy in Washington, DC and teletherapy for couples in Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, and over 40 other states. Our therapists are trained in a variety of treatment modalities and are experts in infertility counseling.
Contact us to learn more and get support now.
Author
Dr. Emma Basch is a licensed clinical psychologist in DC and NY, with PsyPact privileges to offer teletherapy in over 40 states—including MD and VA. She specializes in women’s mental health, with a warm, integrative approach to perinatal care, trauma, fertility challenges, and life transitions.
Now accepting new clients for teletherapy and in-person sessions.
5506 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 28A
(202) 630-5066 | emma.basch@dremmabasch.com