Certainly. Trust is essential to a successful marriage.
But this couple’s stated goal was to prevent the wife’s pregnancy. As long as the wife remains fertile she can become pregnant. Trust has nothing to do with that. It is a biological fact.
Rather than trust, we should be considering another essential element of successful marriage, commitment. That’s commitment to each other and to their stated goal.
In this case, commitment would have required mutual sacrifice. That sacrifice was mutual sterilization. Without mutual sterilization the wife could still become pregnant.
The husband sacrificed by undergoing a vasectomy. He demonstrated commitment to his wife and their mutual goal.
Conversely, the wife took measures to restore herself to full fertility and desirability. She demonstrated no commitment to her husband or their mutual goal, only to herself.
Neutering the husband only reduced the chances of the wife’s pregnancy. And the wife’s refusal to even mention sterilization indicates she was not committed to her husband or their mutual goal of no pregnancy.
This wife wanted to remain fully fertile while ensuring her husband could neither impregnate her nor anyone else. That is not commitment. And there is no trust in this arrangement, only manipulation.
Not to be harsh, but I disagree. A vasectomy is much simpler and more safe than sterilizing a woman. Now there are risks, but a vasectomy has less chances of complications. Additionally, having a husband have a vasectomy means he can fool around and not worry about a pregnant girlfriend.
My wife had breast cancer, so she wanted to remove as many variables for future medical issues. We did not want anymore children, so I got a vasectomy. It was on an outpatient matter and within two weeks it was just a memory.
When one of my wife's friends found out I had a vasectomy, she told my wife that she would not let her husband have one, because she wanted to increase "the risk" to her husband to mess around. My wife told her friend that I slept every night and there were plenty of knives and guns to increase "the risk."
Both surgical sterilizations can have radical side effects. Especially the Fallopian tube blocking. But even men can have negative sequalae from sterilization. Yes, people are free to choose them, but they are not 100% without side effects, some serious.