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How to deal with not having another child that you so desperately want

1 reply

Paddypug1 · 11/02/2025 21:21

Please be gentle with me. I'm very emotional but I really need some advice.
And I'm so sorry for crazy long post.

So me and my partner have been together for 12 years and have a 5 year old together ( alot later than I would have hoped for)

We spoke about a family before having our little boy and i expressed how important it was to me to have more than 1 child. We agreed we would have more than 1 child so started our family.

I had hoped for a relatively smaller age gap of about 2 years but my partner wasnt ready at this point. The 3 year age gap came and my partner still wasn't ready. So again we had lots of conversations and again I compromised. It got to the 4 year gap and I really started to struggle with not having another child or even trying.
My partner started avoiding me and wouldn't come near and wouldnt be intimate giving me all the excuses.

We're now at the 5 year gap and I really am struggling now. I'm so upset. I think about it all the time. I long for a baby. I've got these huge awful feelings that I don't know how to cope with. I feel I'm grieving a child I don't even have. Which i know is such an insensitive thing to feel when people actually have lost a child. I just don't have the life I was less to believe i would have.

Side note:this isn't the only thing I've compromised on. For years and years before started a family I had hoped to get engaged and married. Which never happened but I have been able to get over that upset.

My partner now says things like life is so much easier now and can't understand why anyone would want to go back to the baby days.
He says he doesn't want to say never to having another child. But I feel like I'm being strung along and I've been strung along for so long already.

Anyways,
Obviously I love my little boy to pieces and I'm so so grateful to have him. He's my best friend but he would honestly be the best big brother.

I just don't know how to deal with these feelings.

Has anyone been here? How did you cope with the feelings. What was the outcome? I really don't want to leave my partner but its more because I feel for my son who loves his dad and woulsnt cope with him not being around everyday. And my partner knows I won't leave.

Just to add I'm 34 and feel very much like my time to have a baby (for me personally) is fast approaching it's end!

Thank you in advance. I'm at such a loss. We get one life and I'm just really struggling with this.

OP posts:
SlaveToAGoldenRetriever · 11/02/2025 23:21

I was desperate for another child until DD was about 6 years old - unfortunately fertility issues and my deteriorating relationship with DH didn’t allow for a second DC. It was at that point though I realised that DD being an only child was for the best, especially in a financial sense. She has had experiences and opportunities that I never would have been able to give her if she had a sibling - I was able to send her to a lovely prep school for example and she has had costly sports/hobbies that I could only dream of doing when I was younger. We have an incredibly close relationship (she’s 20 now and it’s like having a built in best friend!) as I have all the time in the world for her, she has never had to compete for attention. Even nowadays I have no clue how people manage multiple teens/young adults at once - they’re bloody expensive and help with uni costs etc hugely mounts up.

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