The Unfulfilled Desire for Parenthood

[The Unfulfilled Desire for Parenthood]

This case concerns a young couple who, despite their strong desire for children, have been unable to conceive for many years. In the past two years, they have experienced three miscarriages, each occurring between the seventh and tenth week of pregnancy.

As I talked to the couple, I tried to imagine what it would be like to be their child, and a shiver ran down my spine. This feeling led me to ask the husband to choose a representative for himself, then one for his wife, and finally one for the child. The representative of the child was visibly distressed, extremely anxious and almost to the point where he could not stand to see his father or be near him. He stayed away from him parents and stood outside the field.

When I inquired about the husband's events in his original family, he mentioned being the only child born in Romania to German parents, moving to Germany at the age of seven. When I asked him if he could explain the fear conveyed by the child's representative, he shook his head. However, his wife had a very strong reaction, with tears in her eyes, as she explained that her husband was the only surviving child in his family. Before he was born, his mother had aborted six children.

Upon hearing this, the child representative began to tremble and moved further away until he was leaning against the room’s wall. I invited another participant from the workshop to join the constellation, representing one of the aborted children. Standing behind the husband's representative, he carefully placed a hand on the husband's shoulder, and the man leaned back. This gesture touched the child's representative, allowing him to see his father for the first time. At the same time, the husband's representative changed drastically; the sadness on his face disappeared! Clearly, having a brother seemed to be helpful for the husband's representative. 

I then invited another man from the group to join, standing behind the husband's and his brother's representatives. Initially cautious, the husband's representative gradually warmed up, while the first brother welcomed the new addition warmly. The child representative became increasingly interested and took a step toward his father. At this point, I asked the person involved if he would like to personally participate in the constellation. After some hesitation, he decided to step in himself, replacing the representative. When the aborted child representative carefully placed a hand on his shoulder, his face turned pale, and he closed his eyes, almost fainting.

When I encouraged him to keep his eyes open, he was able to regain his strength and continue to stand in his place. I then invited four other people to stand one by one behind the man's aborted siblings. It became clear that the participant needed to muster all his strength, as he was struggling to catch his breath. After a while, he managed to stand steadily and look at his own child, even with six aborted siblings behind him. The participant faced a significant challenge: breaking his loyalty to those deceased siblings.

Through close contact with them, he had to reach out with all his strength to fight for his own life and look towards life, towards his wife and his children. I advised this couple not to discuss what happened in the constellation immediately. I asked them to go home directly and hinted to them: "Where there's a will, there's a way."

Ten months after the constellation workshop ended, I received a birth certificate along with a note: "This is the impressive outcome of systemic constellation."

Extracted from “Even if it Costs me my Life: Systemic Constellations and Serious Illness” by Stephen Hausner