Namechanged for this, and have my flameproof suit at the ready...apologies for the length of this, once I started it was hard to finish IYSWIM and I hope it makes sense.
I'm 32 years old, in a loving and happy relationship with a fantastic DP. I'm desperate to have children. It's like I can hear my eggs ticking. And each month I hope desperately that my contraceptive pill has failed. I've not got to the point of crying over it but it's not far off.
What I'm struggling with is that I would really like to be married before I have children.
But DP has been through a horrendous divorce and, whilst he loves and cherishes me, can't get his head around getting married again. He is more than happy to try for children with me, and I believe that he is 100% committed to me and our relationship. I totally understand why he has the opinions he does, and he can understand mine, I think he does want to compromise but the reality of it scares him, and I don't want to force him into something he doesn't want to do.
I?ve been brought up as a practising Christian (CofE, if it's relevant) and have always believed that for me (not necessarily anyone else, these are just my views, others should do what is right for them) that marriage should come first. I feel that if I'm good enough to have children with, I'm good enough to marry, IYSWIM
We can both see each others' POV but we are fairly immovable. It's got to the point where even just the intention to get married would do me. We've talked about it but I don't want to force the issue too much - for all I know he's choosing a ring on his lunchbreak - but how long do I wait? Yes, I know I could ask him, but I don't want to!
Having said that, if I was to get pregnant accidentally (unlikely but the pill is not totally infallible) then I've no idea how I would respond, but we / I wouldn't be questioning whether to keep the baby or not, it would be a given, it would just be a matter of me getting my head around it and then dealing with the family fall out. It would devastate my family and make life much harder for my DP with them if we were to have children before getting married as they are very traditional.
What I really don't want is for me to get pregnant and for him to propose then, as then I'll think I forced him into it and he doesn't really want to.
Should I just think feck it, not get the next prescription filled, and we can just see what happens as I feel time is running out (I know this is totally illogical) and if I wait for him to change his mind on marriage I could be waiting a long time? To be clear, I would only do this with his consent, I wouldn't trick him into having children. He's said again this weekend that he's looking forward to us trying.
I don't even care (well, I do a bit, but not hugely) about not having the big white wedding, I would marry him tomorrow with just the two of us there. He's not keen on the whole big wedding scenario anyway and I've said fine, I could compromise on that, we could have parents and siblings only, to me marriage is about the lifetime that follows the wedding, which is only a day. He said couldn't we have the lifetime first, then the wedding...
AIBU to give up my long held principle? Should I give into my hormones, or stand resolute?