Adam Rickitt has opened up about how nervous he felt about telling his wife that he is infertile.
The Hollyoaks star, 43, has an autoimmune disorder called Ankylosing Spondylitis, which he was diagnosed with aged 22 and affects him in many ways, but can also harm male fertility.
He appeared on Loose Women with his wife of seven-years Katy on Wednesday and admitted he was worried about telling her that he is infertile because she has a "very family orientated background".
Adam said on the ITV show: "I was worried I was going to be denying her something."
"You're not," Katy insisted as she sat beside him during the interview.
Adam also confessed that he felt like he was going to be judged when he told people about it.
"It was that whole thing where you are worried about being mocked, being less manly," he said.
He told it "is a lot bigger problem than people realise" and it had been "nerve-wracking" to first open up about his infertility.
The couple decided not to go through IVF and have accepted that they aren't going to have children.
Adam said on Loose Women: "Even if I was fertile [I was thinking], do I want children?"
"I have the utmost respect for people who have children," he continued. "We're in a position where we can't but it won't make an impact on our lives.
"We thought, let's experience things that other people might not be able to."
The couple said they think of their three pet dogs as their children.
"We have the dogs, we never feel like we're missing out," Adam went on.
Katy added: "We had the opportunity to try out IVF... we sort of said, do we really want to go through this?
"We both love our careers and we can do things that we couldn't usually."
Last month Adam spoke to OK! magazine about his diagnosis of Ankylosing spondylitis, which is a long-term condition in which the spine and other parts of the body become inflamed, causing back pain and stiffness.
Talking about how he learned that this has made him infertile, Adam said: "This lovely doctor was like, 'Mr Rickitt, you're supposed to have a sperm count of three million, you have two'. I said, 'Two million?' He said, 'No, you have two!'"
"I didn't really bat an eyelid," his wife Katy said. "I was like, 'Oh, that's a shame, but we've got each other.'
"I know having kids is very important for a lot of people, so it's almost a good thing it happened to us."
