“We didn’t become parents, but we still manage to be happy”

«Waiting is a hope, but if it is not fulfilled it becomes suffering». So he writes Olivier Mathonat, in the recently translated essay See under wait (St. Paul). Olivier tells a story that resembles a thousand others: two boys get married, pray to God to become parents and the children don’t arrive. Years of unhappiness, anger, despair follow.

This time, however, the ending is different: indeed, even here there are two sons happy ending. The first is that since 2019, in which he published his book in France, without any hope of realizing his dream, Olivier has become a father twice: “Sometimes life is more creative than us,” he comments with a smile. The second is that, even when he ruled out ever having a child, Olivier realized that he could still be happy. And so he started organizing weekends for other infertile couples, where they could argue and cry, but also play sports and try to feel good. He called them Esperanza because “esperar” in Spanish means both to wait and to hope. And if now, due to his unexpected paternity, Olivier has entrusted the guide to someone else, the weekends continue and gather adhesions: «They are not substitutes for psychotherapy», he argues, «They simply want to demonstrate that even a life without children can be full of joy. Which I think today as I thought it then».

What stages did you go through to go from the suffering of a child who doesn’t get to the ability to be happy?
«The phases are those that apply to anyone who is faced with a bereavement, or a painful separation, and it is perhaps a little sad to think that, even when we feel heartbroken, our pain is not really original and different from that of all the others. The phases are those that the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross codified. The first is the denial: “it can’t happen to me, it can’t”. Then anger takes over: “Why not me? It’s not right!” This is followed by the so-called bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. We fought against reality for years before giving up. Every month we thought it was the right time. Everything, even the little things, gave us the impression of having reached the end of our via crucis. So the disappointment is even more burning. Stop hoping that a child will arrive is an inner journey that takes a long time, just like mourning ».

If we don’t know why a couple has no children, how can we address the issue with them?
“It’s something they ask me all the time because everyone knows someone with no kids. In reality, each couple is a case in itself. There are many types of infertility and the medical reasons are as diverse as the experience of couples, their way of relating to the absence of a child. But, as I write, the first indication is to have delicacy, which is generally lacking because everyone’s temptation is to look for solutions. “I know someone who has done this special diet and it worked,” or “Why not see this doctor?” Or “you might think about adopting.” It is as if I had a tumor and someone said to me: “I know someone who has recovered in this way” without taking into account that there are many types of cancer and it is different to have it in the head or in the hand. Instead of giving ourselves solutions, or thinking for ourselves, what we need is to be listened to, to feel that what we do still affects others, even though our lives are very different. The most precious thing for me was an email saying: “How are you? Thinking of you and hope you are well.” Nothing else is needed: just knowing that someone understands my pain and won’t leave me alone.

Don’t you get the impression that a childless couple is seen by those who have them as if they have nothing else to talk about all together? As if two non-parents had no other dreams, interests, passions…
«That’s right, but I could also turn the omelette upside down: those who define their life starting from their children have a limited vision of the meaning of life, and of the couple. What is left of it when the children leave home? I am not defending i childfree, although I respect their reasons, but I invite parents to broaden their vision. Even though children take up a lot of place in life, they don’t take up all of it. Here, infertility forces you to ask yourself what is the heart of your couple and what your life is for. But it is a question that anyone who is faced with an all-encompassing experience should ask themselves, whether it is work or a passion which, like children, absorbs all your energies and leaves no room for anything else».

You glimpsed the first glimmer when you retraced your history as a couple, remembering that “We didn’t get married to have children, but to love each other, and that’s what we’re doing”. How did you shift your focus from what you didn’t have to what you did have, which is your love?
“We have thought a lot and thought a lot about what it means to be married. When we decided on our marriage, we knew what we were doing, but we didn’t know everything it would entail. We prepared with seriousness and determination, but what if they asked me then: “What does it mean to marry someone?” I would have replied that it also meant becoming parents. Today, however, I think that a child can be a happy consequence of marriage, but it is not part of the minimum definition of marriage. How did we use the cards at our disposal? Again, there is also no immediate solution: it took us some time and one day we realized that we could manage to focus on what was best for us. One day, leafing through the colored notebook in which we keep the diary of the important things that have happened to us, we found all the beautiful things we had before our eyes without seeing them anymore. We agreed that our suffering means nothing, has no explanation, but has strengthened our love. We took off from there. So, instead of living on standby, with an exclusive object from our projects, we wanted to be happy in the present».

In this way you have made an opportunity out of a tragedy, and, as you write, “you have made infertile couples into fruitful couples”, that is, couples who practice a form of community brotherhood. How did Esperanza weekends start?
«We had already spent some holidays with single friends because they are a delicate moment for those who do not have children and perhaps imagined making sand castles and swimming with them. However, these weekends were born at the end of a process of acceptance of things. An important stimulus came from an 80-year-old couple from Angier that we met. We went to see them to ask them how one lives without children for so many years. The answer was: “It is a suffering that never goes away. And yet we had an extraordinarily happy life.” In their large house they hosted young people in difficulty, seminarians, foreigners, and thus gave us the idea of ​​going out of ourselves and of our couple. Suffering pushes us to close ourselves off, but it can also open us up to others. So it came naturally to us to share our infertility acceptance journey and wondered what we had been missing until then. The answer was: people to talk to simply, people who understood our feelings because they were theirs too, people with whom to have moments of discussion, but also exchanges of friendship and fun. We had space in our lives, and if not with a child, we could fill it with other expressions of non-filial love. We sent an email to some friends asking them to spread the word about the first weekend and voilà, the first 6 couples arrived. Before leaving Esperanza we met 25 couples. With some we are still in contact and we exchange news: some have children, others don’t. But Esperanza’s mailing list now has 70 couples registered. If you think that we have never advertised, but they have arrived by word of mouth, it can be deduced that there would be room for many more».

What did you do together?
“I don’t know, sometimes they went kayaking, or drove sailboats, or went to an escape room. Then there were empty hours when we happened to discuss, or pray or take a walk… it depended».

Whose houses were you going to?
“A few friends and a few strangers. This surprised us, but for some it was an opportunity to show closeness to the suffering of those without children. “I knew a sterile copy and I didn’t know how to help them” they explained to us, showing understanding and tenderness».

She says you didn’t want to be a self help group for the infertile. What were you looking for then? «We wanted to breathe freely, not feel constrained by suffering, defined and crushed by that ordeal. We felt understood, because others had gone through the same disappointments as us. We could cry together, if it happened, but also laugh and have good times together and remind each other, if we had ever forgotten, that life could once again be pleasant and intense. Being together was an encouragement, and the demonstration that life doesn’t end in unfulfilled plans».

For to be happy even if you haven’t been able to become parents do you need others?
“You can be happy when you’re infertile, just as you can be happy when you’re sick or when you lose someone. In short, when you experience a drama. It is difficult and takes a lot of time and effort. As for others, we can find joy with them, but not thanks to them. The decision to look at things in order to grasp their fullness, and not the emptiness in life, necessarily starts from each of us. We don’t always manage to walk the path of distancing ourselves from our expectations and disappointments. But not feeling alone with our suffering helps us to look beyond. On the other hand, if all of us are far from having chosen everything in our lives, we can sometimes recognize that, with the cards we find ourselves in hand, there are many more ways to play than we thought».