Question:
If you feel you may have sinned against your spouse years ago, but they don’t know about it, do you have to tell them now? I should give the backstory because no, it’s not adultery.
We were going for our second baby, and he wanted a boy, and I wanted a girl. I had read about this possible method that could “supposedly” sway the sex of your baby based on the timing of intercourse. The closer to ovulation you had intercourse, the more likely it was to be a boy. Slightly further away from ovulation, more likely to be a girl. My husband also knew about this method, as we tried it with our first baby (we both wanted a boy first), but it didn’t work. With our second, he still wanted a boy, but I wanted to give our daughter a sister. I decided I wanted to try out that method again for some reason, but since I was the only one keeping up with my ovulation, I didn’t tell him, and he didn’t know what the timing was. And we ended up having a girl. I feel silly because it likely didn’t have anything to do with that “method” since it didn’t even work the first time we tried, but maybe it did, and I still feel guilty because I didn’t let him know.
I’m still unsure if that was a sin, but part of me feels like it was, and I have prayed for forgiveness. But do I also have to tell him what I did? We’re trying for our third now, and we both want a boy this time, so it has been on my mind more.
Answer:
If your husband wanted to know where you were in your cycle, he could simply ask. Besides, most husbands have a rough idea of where their wives are in their cycles since mood swings and menstruation are noticeable.
As you noted, while the theory is that timing can influence the odds of gender, there is no guarantee. There will always be a chance that the child will be a boy or a girl. While you might have pushed the odds in the direction you wanted, there was no guarantee, as your first child proved.
You didn’t do anything wrong.