I (35M) caused my wife’s (31F) miscarriage. She’s forgiven me but I can’t get past it. How do we move on from this?
3KI've always browsed anonymously so excuse the throwaway that I've made for posting here.
We have always wanted to start a family but both needed time to settle into our careers first, and so after being married for 4 years, we decided to start trying. It took us around two years, so when we finally found out we were expecting our first in February 2023 (about a year ago), we were elated. For some background to the story, I am an airline pilot and my wife is a surgeon. Our schedules are incredibly busy, mismatched and unpredictable so this was not a help when we were battling fertility.
When she was 16 weeks pregnant, I had received an offer from an old boss (and close friend) who needed a co-pilot to go along on a 1-week cross country trip. A week long trip like this has been one of my dreams, but if you're in aviation, you'll know that GA is incredibly expensive. So when the opportunity came to play around in a smaller plane, I couldn't say no and took a week off work to go along. At this time, my wife was particularly stressed out about this trip because she kept having bad dreams and was generally just so worried that she might lose her husband when we're months away from having a baby. She doesn't usually have anxiety about my job, so I didn't listen to her. And I know that was on me.
Fast forward to the cross country, it was a series of very unfortunate events. We made a pre-planned pitstop at a very small airfield in a relatively rural region where good signal is non-existent. I called her to let her know we're okay and that we'll be taking off again the next morning. The following morning, our plane required unexpected maintenance which meant our wheels up was a bit delayed – in the mean time, another plane took off (the same time we were meant to). This plane ended up getting in a fatal crash a couple of hours later. A friend of ours, who was a safety officer at an airfield near the crash, had thought that I was on that plane and called my wife to let her know what happened. She had gone into such a panicked state, that she miscarried. By the time I'd gotten hold of her to let her know we were safely parked at our next destination, she was already in hospital. I have not been able to forgive the friend who called her before making sure who was on that plane first.
To not make this story any longer, she doesn't feel like it was ever my fault, but I can't forgive myself for taking on this cross country when I knew she didn't feel okay with it, and then the worst happened and we lost the baby we'd so desperately wanted to bring into the world. I'm not depressed, I've been to a therapist, and I'm cleared to fly (so no worries there, please). My wife has been wanting to start trying again since January this year, and I just can't bring myself to that point. Has anyone ever gone through something similar? How did you move past the guilt?
Edit: I’ve edited to say that I don’t know why anyone thinks this is fake and I’m not sure what kind of proof I’m supposed to provide to prove that this is what I’m going through and need advice on?
submitted by /u/ThrowRAfrequentflyer
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