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Boyfriend or Baby?

6 replies

twentynate · 02/12/2019 20:33

My partner (who I've been with for five years, since I was sixteen, and we have only ever been with each-other) has just decided that he doesn't want children, ever. He doesn't see how they would bring a higher meaning in life that he can't create himself, and doesn't want them to negatively affect his life so that he might one day resent/regret them. His father died when he was seven, but apart from that there are no health problems that he could pass down, and he has had a very happy childhood/life. There is so much love and trust and friendship in our relationship, we do almost everything together and have never fought over anything. Our families love each-other and we love each-others families, and my younger brother sees him as a best friend. We just moved to London from Australia about three months ago so that he could study at Uni, and have made a home together. It hasn't come as a complete shock, he was always unsure of having his own children, but we had discussed adoption of a child (not a baby) and he was all for it, but I have always wanted a child and have never wavered from wanting one. I don't even want a child anytime soon, I want to wait until I'm about 30. I trust him 100% with everything, I feel comfortable with him and I saw us growing old together, and I believed in that future so much, but in that future there were children and family Christmas' and whatnot. It feels like my whole world has completely flipped and I don't know which way is up. Do I leave, possibly never to find the perfect person, or have kids and they turn into terrible people, or do I stay and regret not having children, grow to resent him, and leave in another five years when we're even deeper in? He also told me that if I stayed he would feel terrible that he had taken that opportunity away from me. Every path feels unbearably wrong and I honestly don't know what to do.

OP posts:
WindowsSmindows · 02/12/2019 20:37

He's only 21. I'd guess that 90% of 21 year olds don't want children. Biologically speaking you are way ahead of him.

PotteryWheel · 02/12/2019 20:40

Of course you leave, OP. You’re very young, and have years to find someone better-suited who shares your desire to have children. And frankly — and I say this as someone happily married to my teenage boyfriend — the number of relationships started when you’re sixteen that last into adulthood is vanishingly small. See what else is out there.

MarleneandBoycie · 02/12/2019 20:41

I can't imagine making life decisions about a lifelong partner at 16 or decisions about starting a family at 21. You are both very young, he is at university and you are living overseas, enjoy that, don't rush through everything.

IHaveBrilloHair · 02/12/2019 20:43

Discussing adoption strikes me as... oddConfused
Anyway though, he says he doesn't want kids, listen to him.

AnotherEmma · 02/12/2019 20:44

Never ever ever sacrifice motherhood for any man.

You are absolutely sure that you want children and he is clear that he does not, so you are not compatible and you should end the relationship.

The sooner you do it the better.

Do not under any circumstances stay in the relationship in the hope that he will change his mind one day.

Mummyshark2018 · 02/12/2019 21:11

Sounds like the move to London may have been a catalyst. Have you noticed any other changes in him and your relationship? 21 is very young imo to be following bf to the other Side of the world for uni. What are you doing with yourself whilst he's at uni?

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