He no longer wants kids

I had a baby at 39 ,so 41 isn't that much older .
But definitely don't waste any more time waiting for him to agree
You need to get on with getting pregnant as a single mum
I'm married with 4 children,and having children gives me so much more joy and purpose than being married does ,I know which is more important to me ,and it's not a man

Your 41 ,it's a gamble either way
Come of your contraception and tell him it's his responsibility now .
You have a home you own half of
You could look at a sperm donor
He can't stop you getting pregnant with someone else ,so look in to other ways to have baby that don't involve him .
Sounds like the relationship is over anyway
And you haven't got time to wait untill the house is sold and you have somewhere else to live

This is what I would do also in that situation- there is never a right time or situation imo so I would not worry about the romance of "finding the one" imo.

Oh it is for the baby, the ex is furious watching us play happy families with “her” child. It must be difficult for her.

Lots to bear in mind and consider.

I always wavered. Got pregnant very quickly then decided I didn’t want a child. Now have two and adore them. If I was you I would stop talking about it and, if you definitely want a child, I’d try to get pregnant. He will probably be very happy to be a dad. I wouldn’t normally suggest this to anyone but he does sound like he wants a child but is scared of being a dad.

5 years ago, during the pandemic, they’d been together 4 years. Plenty of time to have started trying for a baby before then. & I’m assuming a couple together 4 years will have holed up together during the pandemic even if they hadn’t been living together by that point.

Plenty of “pandemic babies” from couples holed up together with nowhere together and nothing else to do! So utterly irrelevant to OPs situation.

He also lost a parent 3 years ago. So 6 years after being together.

The uncertainty put alot of people off.
I know several who lost jobs, businesses. It was all furlough and payrises

I get that life happens but any woman who wants kids (says she always has) and is with a long-term partner doesn't wait till 41 for this realisation. They don't come off the coil to TTC at 39 and then agree to go back on the pill. These are active choices not to have a baby and to say 'my age is against me somewhat' is very different to the women on here who long for a DC at that age (sometimes a second or third DC on those threads where a DP doesn't want another) and have already tried IVF and are so desperate they'll leave their husband. Even with covid and his parent, this would have shot up the priority list by 40, above getting engaged, getting the house etc. I could understand it if she'd not met DP until late 30s, but to have been together so long and still be on contraception... I'm just questioning the narrative that this is him pulling the rug vs both of them have ignored the ticking clock. As PP says, it's not his ticking clock anyway and he can change his mind down the line so OP needs to take her own lead not his.

Use your imagination!

I think you have to decide what your priority is.
Do you want to leave him and try to have a child? Would you have a child alone?
Will you ever be able to forgive him for this if you stay with him and accept no children or will it just break the relationship further down the line when your chances for children are even lower?
It sounds like based on the timeline of having the coil removed that he first specified being unsure about having children over 2 years ago. That was when you should have really nailed down the conversation, letting this drag on for several more years when he was showing signs of not being 100% on board for kids was a mistake, he always has the luxury of time, you don't and after having been together for 6 years, you should both have been on the same page and able to have mature and honest conversations about it. Instead he's strung you along and you've allowed it.

What has the pandemic and lockdown got to do with trying for a baby?

Yep this! V different prospect going for your first in your 40s.

If you also look at this thread, there are a lot of people (unhelpfully imo) urging OP not to worry as she‘s easily got until her mid-40s! 🙈 If everyone left it till their mid-40s, there’d be a lot of very disappointed, very regretful people.

I can understand you are upset and focusing on trying for a baby or not but have you truly thought about what sort of parent he would be anyway? You’ve described an eight year project with him to get him to a place of greater happiness in his life (and he’s still struggling by the sounds of it) do you really want to take on ‘project make him a decent dad’ as well?

Because you’d resent him even more and that’s even without the fact you’ve poured all this love time and attention into him for the last eight years while he timed you out fertility wise.

Bear in mind, 5 years ago the pandemic and lockdown started, then 3 years ago he lost a parent. Life happens. I wouldn’t just assume it’s complacency.

I'm 41 too, and I'm pregnant now. But I've had ten miscarriages. I feel blessed to be at 17 weeks.

Op as pp said, come off the pill. You might need a couple of months for your body to reset. The first poster nailed it - the pill disagrees with you, so the ball must be in his court. Does he really want to leave after all you've built together, or is he just hurting from the events of the last few years.

You don't have much time now. Practically speaking, if you come through this and decide to try, I recommend the clear blue ovulation tracker.

Best wishes.

And with every pregnancy, the body is swamped (in a good way) with oestrogen. With breastfeeding, it’s keeping the body pregnancy ready.
most v different starting afresh at age 41.

He told you two years and one month ago - after you had to go on the Pill, after the removal of your coil for the purpose of getting pregnant, the discussion about which took place 2.5 years ago, that he did not want to have children. You did not hear him.

A year ago, under the new regime of him not having children, you agreed to marry him. These are the terms of your future with him you agreed to by getting engaged. Did you understand that?

Is a date set for the wedding?

Will he come out of this grieving fug in 5 years, the pair of you still unwed, straight into the vagina of another woman, who he'll immediately get up the duff?

He's not at your stage of life. His clock is not ticking. He's feeling the final countdown from you, but not his own death knell on fertility. He's got plenty of mileage left before his hard no on kids forever. He's allowed to change his mind, and he's said no at this point. So that's a hard no to kids with you, because time is very much ticking for you. So you're done with him.

You would never, never be able to move past the fact he made the decision not to have kids on your behalf. Even if you stayed together. It would always be there. His selfish, barnacle-behaviour that kept you hanging. And your inability to hear his underlying message.

Acknowledge the collective wisdom accrued by many of your MN friends here and cut your losses now. Get out, get a fertility MOT, and enjoy your life howsoever it goes on from here. You deserve an amazing life, with or without children.

Maybe she choose not to listen

People telling a woman in her 40s to skip off to a sperm bank to have a child is dumb founding.

Very optimistically she’d be having a baby at 43 and single. Almost guaranteed to be an only child. So someone will be 10 with a (at best) 53 year old Mum, no father and no siblings…but as long as OP gets the baby she wanted who cares about what fair for kid right?

OPs only just now been able to purchase a property with her fiancé so I’m assuming would struggle to on her own? But yeah sure, get that strangers sperm in you TODAY OP.

OP has had 9 years to have the baby she supposedly desperately wanted. She has chosen not to. Let’s stop pretending she didn’t have a choice. She did. Her partner has made is so clear he wasn’t keen on parenthood and she chose to ignore the warning signs despite her age. She should not have required repeated explicit communication that her partner didn’t want kids. Anyone can see that he did not want kids from her words and his actions.

If you got together early 30s and 'from the start... always wanted children' then something here doesn't add up. I get that you say you were waiting to get secure enough to have kids, but you know that your 30s is the time to TTC if you want kids - which you both did 'from the start' so how was this conversation never getting from abstract to tangible ttc by age 35, or 36? If you were staying on contraception, that's an active choice you're making not to have kids and then he even articulated that choice and you went along with it. So it's not that 'he no longer wants kids' - he's never demonstrably wanted them and you've either lied to yourself or not been that bothered through the whole of your 30s until age 41. I think you have to wonder how much you do really want them, because it doesn't seem to have been a priority for you either. If I'm wrong and it truly is, I agree with others advising donor route asap. But if you're dithering and want to stay with him, then admit to yourself that you're okay without having kids and that it's not a matter of him hoodwinking you, you've both gone this route by design (him) or default (you).

It doesn’t help OP to be unrealistic about the odds. If she wants to be a mum and she is 41, I would tell her to get herself checked out. Then she can make an informed choice about the options.

OP just my two cents worth but if you do want children I would get private fertility tests and counselling if I were you, now - presumably you are still menstruating regularly at least? - to get an idea of how the land lies there.
Female fertility can vary wildly. The majority of women are fertile in their very early forties, but a small cohort of women start to have fertility drop from the very late twenties and conversely a small cohort of women stay fertile well into their forties. Until you try you can't know for sure where you are, but tests can give some indication.
Committing (or not) to these tests should help clarify for yourself how you feel about wanting a baby.

@mintandpistachio sorry to hijack the thread but I just wanted to say I was in this very position a month ago (although thankfully I still had my own place, but we were living in his) at 38.5. I've now left him and am pursuing donor sperm to make embryos.. my clinic were surprisingly ok when I informed them about the change in plan. They only wanted to check I wasn't married to my partner etc as that would have meant I could not proceed on my own as easily. My partner had not been fully keen/ready for trying for a baby but we had decided to create embryos together to give ourselves more time to get to the "ready now for a baby" stage without hopefully running out of time. But then he decided he wasn't ready.. so after a lot of painful conversations I've ended the relationship. It was hell but even after 3 weeks or so it's getting easier...

I'm obviously not planning on implanting just yet as I'm still dealing with the emotions from a break up, and I am holding out hope that I might meet someone sooner and still have the chance of a family together. But I want options if, say, in a year I'm no closer to that and then I'll go ahead as a single mum.

to the OP and to you @mintandpistachio , I think you really need to think how you will feel without children in 10 years if the relationship ends. There's no guarantee you'll be with this same person (interesting in all of these situations it seems like the partner has not married you? same here - maybe also an indication of commitment issues!) in 10 years but if you have a baby (and are a good mum!) then you'll have that relationship and love for the rest of your life. Which one can you really live without?

I would (and am) want to do everything to see if I can have children and not delegate that power to someone. Then at least if it hasn't worked out for me, I know at least I did everything I could. I wouldn't want to look back with regrets wishing I'd tried. Are you likely to regret having stayed with the partner in 5 years time or regret having left and tried to have children? I also tend to think that if the relationship is really meant to be, then maybe if the children stuff doesn't work out then maybe they'll still be there in a few years time too!

Not quite as the percentage chance is then dropping every month (after 40). At age 43 it’s around 1-2%. I can only repeat that I worked in fertility for over ten years.