Starting to lose the battle - HELP!

[forevermommy]

I thought that I had the issue of circumcision in hand, or at least that my dh had given up and everything was going to be okay. It's becoming apparent though that this is not the case.

My husband is circ'd. He can't imagine it any other way. He wouldn't want to be any more sensative than he already is. He does not see circumcision as a mutilation or something that was unfairly done to him. He is completely convinced that circ is a good thing - he just doesn't know why and he can't find anything to back him up. He's tried - and I've been able to point out the weakness of everything he's come up with. And what really kills me is my dh is not dumb, he is very far from it.

He feels that if we leave our son (due in July) intact that he will have to apologize (sp?) repeatedly to him, especially when something goes wrong. He is convinced something will go wrong. I'm wondering if there is some deep seated fear within my husband that if he leaves our boy alone, and everything is as great as it should be, that his world will shatter and he'll start to question things in his own life.

I know that most of you have very stong emotional opinions on this subject. I respect that but please don't flame my dh. Who knows why some people are so convinced there are benefits to circ. For my husband it's more than "it's the norm, we've been doing it for a long time so there's something to it; it is so deeply and emotionally ingrained into his being. As the thought of circumcision brings most of us to our knees in grief, the thought of not circumcising our son is doing the same to my husband.

I know that I am the mother of this helpless little boy. That my job is to be the mother bear and protect him to the bitter end. But I am a wife too. My marriage is as important too. Not only for myself but for my dd and my ds to be. I'd like to say that I'm a mommy first and foremost and in most ways I am but nothing has threatened my marriage like this. Without my marriage, without my husband - I would not be able to be the mom I am and I would not be able to provide for my children. I don't have the skills and I'm not emotionally stable enough to deal with corporate america.

You might really be scratching your heads but I really feel that my marriage is on thin ice. Things are so strained between my husband and I, not in it's so bad we are seeing lawyers, but so uncomfortable. We can't live like this for very long. And yes, it's all over circumcision. When the ultrasound tech told us we were having a boy, I felt my heart drop into my stomach because I knew - We have a REALLY really big problem.

So right now I have no clue as to what is going to happen. I'm happy that I'm having the baby in a birthing center as I don't have to worry about a circ happening behind my back while I'm in the shower. My baby will be 3 days old when he sees our pediatrician (sp?.) It will take 2-3 weeks before we'd have a consultation with the pediatric surgeon and then another month before a circ could be scheduled. All this time given to show my husband that an intact penis is normal, is easy and simple to "take care of, and for my husband to hopefully fall so in love with his son that he'll get over it."

I don't know what I'm looking for in posting this. I'm really hurting. My husband is really hurting too. Please don't blast me about how much our son will be hurting if I relent. I know that all too well already. I live in PA and this is a really big issue to a lot of moms, most of whom are exactly where I am. We have a 95% circ rate in this area. Almost 100% of alll caucasion boys. Moms hate it but the dads insist upon it.

Has anyone else been where I'm at now? Any ideas on what to do.

[dynamohumm6]

It will take 2-3 weeks before we'd have a consultation with the pediatric surgeon and then another month before a circ could be scheduled. All this time given to show my husband that an intact penis is normal, is easy and simple to "take care of, and for my husband to hopefully fall so in love with his son that he'll get over it."

I think this is key. I think that you have a good chance that your husband will change his mind after having a month of "living with an intact penis".

Have you made him read details about the procedure, or had him watch videos of an actual circumcision? With my first, I was on the fence. I was going let my then-partner make the decision, as he had a penis and I didn't (yeah, I realize the fault in that now, but this was 6 years ago and I was vastly uneducated on circumcision). He is circed, and was going to have it done if we had a son. Then, we were told the details of the procedure by the staff of the hospital we were going to deliver at, and after that, we both knew there was no way we could do it. We ended up having a girl, but hearing how they did it literally made us both sick.

As for this one, I know the sinking feeling you had--I had it, too. I knew it would be a fight with my fiance (he is not the father of my first), and I knew it would be a battle because I simply would not negotiate on it. He is circed, and the topic had come up early on in the pregnancy, because we had gotten into a discussion about circumcision with a bunch of friends of ours. His reasoning for it was totally juvenile--"he'll get picked on", "it's harder to clean & he'll smell", blah blah. Typical untrue rhetoric.
I just inundated him with information. I counteracted every single reason he had with articles and hard & fast information until he realized that he had no solid base for his reasoning.

At one point, I did tell him that it was a point I was unwilling to compromise on, and that if he was that insistant on having his newborn son have a piece of skin hacked off him, I would allow it only on the condition that *he* have a piece of, oh, his ear, or finger hacked off. I think he realized I was serious. I felt slightly bad about being so completely unwilling to negotiate the issue, but it is one thing I was not going to bend on.
I never brought this up to him, but if necessary, I was willing to pull rank--we are not married yet (baby is due in June, we are getting married Oct 1) and the way this state works, they would ONLY be able to do the circ with MY permission, since he & I are not married. I would not ever give consent for that, so essentially, the ball is in my court no matter what. If it had come down to that, I would've used it.
I will not let someone chop off any normal part of my newborn's body, male or female, and if that had meant a rift between my fiance and I, well....I was willing to deal with that. I'd rather heal emotional scars that watch my newborn son's red, raw, hacked-up penis heal.

I did not ever have to whip out the videos of the actual procedures, but I think that would've done it by itself. The details of the "procedure" are just so freaking barbaric and tortuous, I can't imagine anyone voluntarily letting their newborn go through it after seeing how it's done.

Incidentally, the hospital that we are delivering at has less than a 30% circ rate, and has three OB's on staff that refuse to perform them (only OBs do circs at the hospital)

I wish you luck--I hate that this issue can be such an emotional divider between couples. When looked at objectively, it seems like such a no-brainer--why would anyone cut off a piece of penis? On a NEWBORN no less?? Yet, it STILL causes so much strain. Instead of celebrating the fact that I was having a little boy, I had to hold back tears during the ultrasound because I knew I would have to fight with the man I adore, the man I'm going to marry, over our son's foreskin.

Hugs to you.

[Mami_to_1]

to you, it sounds like your really having a tough time with this. I can't say that I understand where it is that your dh is comming from, or why he is placing so much importance on selective cosmetic surgery that could be done later on if your child wants/needs to. Since you've been researching, I'm sure that you know that circ's are rarely preformed because they "need" to be.

"He feels that if we leave our son (due in July) intact that he will have to apologize (sp?) repeatedly to him, especially when something goes wrong." If your son "had" to be circe'd in the future then there really would be no need to apologize, as it would be a medical condition that you have no control over, not like you would be intentionaly hurting your son (which is what you would be doing if you circ'd him as an infant). At least you would then be doing it for a valid reason, instead of doing it becuase of all the things that "could" happen.

" My marriage is as important too. Not only for myself but for my dd and my ds to be. I'd like to say that I'm a mommy first and foremost and in most ways I am but nothing has threatened my marriage like this. " Keeping your marriage is ofcourse important, and I am in no way trying to minimize that. But it sounds to me as though your taking the "blame" for the problems in the marriage (not wanting to circ). The reality is that keeping your marraige together is not a responsability that should lie on your shoulders alone, it is also upto your dh as well.

As it is you should not be having to convince your dh why you should not be hurting your son, he should be the one working to convince you why it should be done. We all get to a point in our lives when we need to question the norms of our society, and what we are willing to do, even if its harming our own children to conform.

[paquerette]

You already have a daughter? Maybe ask him how its fair to go ahead with doing this to your son when you haven't done it to your daughter yet.

This was never an issue for us, but maybe he can't even get it done without your consent. Maybe ask your midwife, they might know the laws.

[Galatea]

I hear you saying that if you insist on leaving the baby intact, you are afraid it will destroy your marriage. Actually, the opposite is true. If you let him be circ'ed to appease your dh, it will destroy your marriage. Every time you see your baby's cut penis, you will resent your dh more and more for forcing this pain and deformity on his baby to assuage his own ego. Your marriage will be in more trouble than before. I know there are moms here who can testify to this.

In the end, the baby is more impt. than even your marriage. You would be more able to live as a single mom who protected her child (if it came to that, which I doubt it would) than a married mom who hates her husband.

My dh and I argued lots about circ, and in the end, I told him I would leave him before I let my boy be cut. I was deadly serious and he knew it, and he finally agreed to read the info with an open mind. He came through with his ego intact. It is possible to come to understand as a circ'ed man that circ is wrong, yet still like oneself.

As for people in your area circing all the time - I live in PA too, and know plenty of boys who are intact! Plus, it is highly unlikely that your child will never move. What if he moves to the west coast, or overseas? He will then be among intact men.

Finally, imagine when your circ'ed son sees another boy's intact penis. It will happen, as the circ rate is below 55%. What possible explanation for why he has less of a penis makes sense to a 5 year old? If circumcision is so beneficial, why doesn't everyone do it? Do you think a little boy will care about daddy's ego problems? There was a teacher who posted here recently about what happens when circ'ed boys meet intact boys in the bathroom - the circ'ed boys end up in tears.

Also, I believe that unless you circ at birth, they will make you wait until 6 months old. That is a long time to change his mind.

ETA: I just saw you live in Mechanicsburg - sorry, but it is really unlikely he will want to stay in central PA for his whole life!

[Kirsten]

Try buying the book "40 Reasons Not to Circumcise". I got it paperback for $10 from No Circ (they had a table at a pregnancy fair I went to in '96). GREAT book - very easy read, think I finished it in one day. It goes over each of 40 reasons that are commonly given to circ (to keep cleaner, to look like other boys, to look like dad, etc.) and then debunks each one. It doesn't come across judgmental or too out there - just basic info in a non-threatening way. That helped a bit when my dh and I were on different sides of the fence on circ.

But what really clinced the deal for me (got my dh to feel very strongly that NONE of our sons would ever be circed - when he had originally demanded that they be) was when he accidentally saw the circ of a friend's son. Was being done in the hospital at one day old and he saw when a nurse opened the door to walk in/out. He came back to the room with his face white as a ghost and told me we would NEVER do that! He was horrified and changed his mind immediately and for good.
However, we had three daughters....

[Frankly Speaking]

mommyofzsanna:

Your husband is suffering from fear of the unknown. It is an irrational fear but it is very real to him. You see, he has heard all of the things that can go wrong and about how intact boys are teased and he doesn't want that to happen to his son. You see, he really does care about his son but he is basing his fears on the realities of his generation, not your son's and there is a very big difference. The reality of his generation is that almost all caucasian and black boys were circumcised. Today's reality is that only half are circumcised and there will be no teasing because one of the star highschool football team players will also be intact. Any boy that says anything about another boy's penis will quickly be labeled as a homosexual and that's like the kiss of death. As a matter of fact, lots and lots of your son's classmates will be intact. I know that it seems that the circumcision rate in Mechanicsburg is very high but Pensylvannia is actually a very progressive state in this issue and there is a lot of activism and controversy in PA. Even if the circumcision rate is very high at the hospital where most of the boys in the area are born, there will be boys moving in from other areas that will be intact by the time he gets to highschool.

I understand that you think your marriage is in jeopardy but I really doubt that unless it is in jeopardy about other issues. I suspect this is just a threat. Even if it's not, if it is that shakey, do you really want to offer up your son's body to prop up an already shakey marriage? If your husband is already ready to leave you about something like this, why would you think he would stay if he did win this battle? Do you think it is appropriate and the best parenting decision to use your son's body as currency in a trade? That is, that you will give your son's body parts in exchange for him staying on premises? What assurance will you have if you do offer up your son's body that he will hold up his end of the bargain?

Think about this bargain like it was a business deal. In a business deal, each party gives up something and each party receives something in exchange. for it to be a good deal, what each party gives and what each party receives is nearly equal. That's not the case with this deal. First, your husband gives nothing more than a promise with nothing to back it up and you get nothing more than a promise with nothing to back it up. In reality, neither of you have given or received anything of value. However, on the other hand, your son will be giving a valuable part of his body but will receive nothing in return except pain and suffering and the permanent loss of a desirable part of his body and the right to the integrity of his body. That's not a square deal! It's like going to a car dealer and paying for a stolen car. The dealer gets the money, (your husbands way) and you get the car (the promise he will stay with you) but somebody no longer has a car. (your son and his body part) We clearly see that is not a good deal but our culture has muddied the waters about the appropriateness of the real situation we are talking about and we just don't tend to view it as getting a stolen car. That is what it is.

I'm not going to tell you that there won't be a stretch of rocky road if you refuse to let your son be circumcised. However, I can tell you that the further you get down that road, the smoother it will become. That is, the older your son gets, the less this will be an issue for your husband. The unknown will become the known and there is no fear of the known especially when the known is not a problem . . . and it won't be. You will have a perfectly happy and healthy son with a foreskin. He will be happy and healthy with a foreskin, not despite it and your husband will eventually recognize this and will become comfortable with your decision. He may even be happy with the decision and glad you stuck to your guns.

Now, at some point far into the future, your son may want to be circumcised and the good thing is that he can. The opposite is not true.




Frank

[gethane]

I know how incredibly vulnerable a pregnant woman in this situation feels. I too felt that and questioned whether or not this was worth a marriage. I'd just like to throw out some thoughts and experiences here.

1) Almost fourteen years ago, and uneducated on the topic, I let my exhusband make this decision for my son. We are now divorced, and my son is still without his foreskin

2) Second son, first child with current husband. He too wanted to have it done. He just did. He couldn't really say why. I just kept trying, gently, and without confrontation, to keep at it. What changed it for him was a story about a poor poor baby boy who had a circ, then got infected, and gangrene and had to have most of his penis amputated. The thought of his son going through life penisless was WAY worse than the thought of his son going through life with a foreskin.

3) I felt so vulnerable in the months over which this conversation took place. Pregnancy hormones don't help either. I know that I wanted my husband to feel a part of decisions made. So much of the pregnancy and birth is only about the woman, I worried he felt left out.

4) I honestly don't know what I would've done had we not come to agreement just a few days before the babe's birth. He was 3 weeks early, due to my blood pressure problems, so they took him right at 37 weeks. He had terrible jaundice and problems eating. Maybe we wouldn't have been able to have it done. Maybe I would've refused. I'd like to think I would've refused especially knowing the trouble I had bfing my first after his circ. But I have to tell you.. i honestly DO NOT KNOW what would've happened.

5) Now I would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS ALLOW ANY FUTURE CHILD TO BE CUT. Once your husband gets used to an intact baby, unless he's got mental health issues, I can't imagine he'd truly want to get this done 2 months, 3 months, down the road.

6) This is exactly how female genital mutilation keeps occuring. Women themselves want to have it done to their daughters! Women feel pressured!

I really know what place you are in now. But now, looking at it from a non-pregnant state, I think if circumcision ruins your marriage, it might not survive the trials of having children anyway. My dh and I get along great. We even worked together for 2 years. We honestly could be together 24/7 and not get on each other's nerves. And still, this first year of raising a child has caused us to get testy with each other and bicker in ways we NEVER had the previous 5 years we were together.

I hope you come to a place withing you where you can accept what you know is the right decision. Good luck to you. I'll be thinking of you.

[e&r]

I'm the teacher Galatea referred to, here is my post from another thread:

Perhaps your dh needs a perspective of a teacher currently working with small children.

In this day and age, when only 40 - 60% of children are circ'd, the chances are greater that a circ'd child is the one to feel bad in a locker room.

I have several true stories, some of which I have posted, about children devastated when they realized that they had been circ'd and not born "that way."

The intact children, generally from homes (not always, but usually) where the father is circ'd, know all about what makes them "different" from the circ'd boys. What makes them different is that the intact boys are just the way they are born and the circ'd boys had the skin on the tip of their penis cut off.

The intact boys usually feel bad for the circ'd boys, as they were taught to be by their circ'd fathers who didn't want them to experience what they went through.

The circ'd boys are the ones who are feeling bad. The intact boys are not "making fun" of them in any way. It usually goes down like this: two four or five year old boys are in the bathroom peeing. The circ'd boy looks at the intact boy and says something like, "What is wrong with your penis?" or "Why does your penis look like that?"

The intact boy either asks for clarification because they don't know what the circ'd boy is talking about or they have experienced this before or been prepped by their parents. They say something like, "This is the way all penises look when boys are born. Yours looks different because you had an operation to remove the foreskin." or something equivalent to that.

I have overheard these conversations. I have probably missed many of them, but have also "caught" many of them. At this point if I realize what is going on I can step in before the circ'd child gets totally upset, though they are usually at least somewhat upset. They usually ask, "Why did that happen to me?" All I can say to the child is that, "Some families think that is best. You should talk to your parents about it."

My point is, even at the highschool level, by the time your ds is there at least half, if not more, of the boys will be intact. Believe me, it is not the intact boys who will feel weird. I have read comments by circ'd men traveling to places where most men aren't circ'd in a situation (sauna, etc.) where men were nude and mostly intact and the circ'd men felt "exposed."

Also, I don't think that it is legal for your son to be circ'd if you don't sign the consent form. I think that both parents have to sign, so don't sign.

Only you can judge what is most important to you, but to me my son's life is more important than my dh's feelings.

Someone here posted a picture of a child after a circ gone "bad." Perhaps someone remembers the poster and can make a link. Show it to your dh - it is truly horrible.

Good luck on what can truly be an emotional issue.

Ellen

[Stevie]

mama... I think the key in your situation is in asking him to at least wait till DS is old enough to have "real" anesthesia; say 6-9 months. I feel it would be much harder for DH to justify "fixing" something that is obviously not broken.
The abuse (yes, I feel he's emotionally abusing you) he is subjecting you to during your pregnancy may be a sign of things to come. Please just be aware... I am saying this from a BTDT viewpoint.

[boingo82]

1st, to understand why your husband is acting the way he is.
http://www.stopcirc.com/vincent/vuln...ty_of_men.html

He is a victim here. When he was a baby part of his body was STOLEN from him, stolen without pain relief. His whole life, the way he has dealt with this is to believe that it was necessary, that it HAD to be so.

Now he is finding out that it was robbed of him for no reason at all. His mind cannot handle that. It is easier for him to go on pretending that it was necessary, easier for him to do it to a child, than to admit that he is a victim of what amounts to sexual assault.

The approach I would (and did) take is as follows:

DON'T mention sexual damage. It will do more harm than good to "kick him while he's down". His self esteem is already taking a hit, knowing that part of his penis was cut off for no good reason.

DO mention that when he was a baby medical science thought all these medical things were true. His parents chose what everyone said they had to, they chose what they thought would protect him. They did only what was, in that day, "necessary".
HOWEVER, now that we know medical science was wrong, we would be wrong to have unnecessary surgery on a baby.

I wouldn't make circ out to be a horrible terrible thing. I think with his current mindset that won't help. I would make circ and intact out to be basically equal - saying, the end result is not that big a deal, they're all penises, no biggie, nothing wrong with you honey, but no sense causing pain to baby for something that's no big deal in the end.


If, (and it's a big IF) anything were to happen to your son requiring a circ, you will deal with it then. In the mean time it is NO BIG DEAL to leave him intact. Cleaning is no big deal. It is the same as circ. Wipe the outside for babies, play with in the bath for toddlers, rinse in the shower while pulling back for teens/adults. Looking like dad - NO BIG DEAL. He will be too busy looking at size and hair differences and probably won't notice.


As has been pointed out, circing will probably be worse for you marriage than not. In all the cases I know where the family didn't circ, the DH eventually came around. I have never ever heard of a DH divorcing because the wife didn't circ.
However I've heard a lot of cases where the mom did circ to save the marriage, and it caused a huge rift. Every time she looks at her son she hates her DH for "making" her hurt her baby. Sometimes this rift leads to the end of the relationship. You KNOW circing would be wrong. You know that it is wrong to barter part of your SON'S body without his consent, to appease your husband. What if he wants to be intact later, what if he asks you WHY, why mom did you have me cut? What will you say? "Well...I knew it was wrong, I knew it wasn't mine to take, but I did it anyway..."


ALSO, if you can, ask your MIL / FIL why your DH was circ'd.
Please read this post, you will understand why:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ow#post1066999
It deals with another midwest town, with an almost 100% rate.

[Heavenly]

I will try hard not to be rude, really I will.

Your son is NOT your possession! He is not YOURS. He is his own person. Why in the world do you think you have the right to sacrifice him for the sake of your marriage? Yes sacrifice him! You are going to lay your precious baby boy on the chopping block, you are going to change him FOREVER so your marriage will be better. That is just wrong. Circumcision is abuse, it is genital mutilation. How could you even think of allowing your son to sacrifice for your marriage? You are the adults - YOU figure it out! How will you feel seeing that maimed little penis every day? What if your son has complications? What if he dies? Will it STILL be worth it then? I honestly can not understand in the slightest how you can honestly feel that another HUMAN BEING should sacrifice to save YOUR marriage.

[kxsiven]

Nothing new really to add , previous posters have covered it pretty well. Sending you good thoughts.

Have you ever asked your DH why rest of the world manage to do OK with foreskins. Try to make him think that. Circumcision is only practised in USA(outside religion)and it started to stop children masturbating. If foreskin was problematic, whole world would be cutting foreskins.

Have you shown him video of the actual circumcision?

[forevermommy]

ouch and then ouch

Thanks Heavenly, I really needed to be kicked while I was already down.

Frankly Speaking and all the others (esp. others who remember being in similiar situations,) I appreciate your level tackling of my concerns for my marriage.

Yesterday, I watched one of the free circumcision videos on the net. I only downloaded the quick short one and that was absolutely enought to settle it in my heart & mind. I never want to see it again.

I plan to protect my son at all costs. Everyone was right;this is not going to be a marriage breaker, just a strain that will heal in time. I've decided just to let the issue drop for now, I can't allow myself this stress and heartache for the remainder of my pregnancy. It's not good for me; therefore, it is not good for my baby.

If and when the subject is brought up, after our son is born, I'm just going to say no. I'm not going to discuss it. I may have to change every diaper this child ever has and give him every bath but so be it. Anything to protect him from this injustice.

Again, I'm glad we are planning on the birthing center. If for some horrible reason I get transferred I will make sure EVERYONE is aware that my son is not to be circumcised; even if my husband says otherwise. If that happens, I can only pray. I don't know the laws. I don't know if it takes the consent of both parents or only one. I can only hope that by making my wishes/ demands perfectly clear nothing would be done. Hospitals make it just too damn easy.

[homebirthing]

If you don't sign, they can't do it.

I am so very proud of you mama. Your son will be too...(and his wife)!!!

[Galatea]

Mistakes can be made at hospitals; we considered writing "no circ" on our baby's tummy. Just an idea.

[TigerTail]

i will keep you in my prayers, to send you peace & joy during your pregancy & that your dh comes to a place of acceptance also. you will never regret keeping your baby whole, i promise.

suse

[gethane]

Originally Posted by suseyblue

i will keep you in my prayers, to send you peace & joy during your pregancy & that your dh comes to a place of acceptance also. you will never regret keeping your baby whole, i promise.

suse

So true, suse. I had two baby boys. The only circ I regret is the one I agreed to, not the one I refused.

[Mommiska]

Originally Posted by mommyofzsanna

I plan to protect my son at all costs. Everyone was right;this is not going to be a marriage breaker, just a strain that will heal in time. I've decided just to let the issue drop for now, I can't allow myself this stress and heartache for the remainder of my pregnancy. It's not good for me; therefore, it is not good for my baby.

to you and your dh both. My heart just breaks for you that you both have to go through this strain now, at what should be one of the most joyful times in your life - preparing for the birth of your son.

This is another thing about circumcision that infuriates me - the way it can put strain on a good relationship, simply because the mom wants to protect her child, and the dad is trying so very hard to protect himself.

So, so unfair on everyone involved. Good for you, Mama, for breaking the cycle of violence.

[Past_VNE]

I am in Oxford, PA, about 45 minutes southeast of Lancaster, so I'm not too far from you at all! My husband's whole family (local) is intact. My DH is the only circed one, and, as I've said on this forum a billion times, it was done against his parents' wishes. My wonderful, awesome husband and lover is without his foreskin because some jackass doctor decided that that little baby's penis was HIS to decide. He knew the parents had said no. He did it anyway. I'm not in your shoes, as my DH is anti-circ...but I do have the same basic situation of a circed father and intact boy. We're around. I don't know where your stats came from or if they are accurate, but we, the mamas of the intact boys, are in your area. He won't be alone!! Remember, please, circ rates are only for hospital births. The circ rate would go down if they counted stand alone birthing centers and home births.

Best of luck to you, Mama. You deserve many hugs and congratulations for standing strong for your little man. He's not only a baby...he's a man-to-be. Just remember that, it will help you. Whenever you think of what little difference it may make to a child, just remember the lifelong difference you'll be making for a MAN.