To ask you to be brutal?

[Newbi]

Um, first post but I’ve been a lurker for ages now. I don’t think this is interesting enough to make anyone think i’m trolling, so figure I don’t need to explain how much time I’ve wasted reading old threads on here. This will probably end up being a drip feed though because otherwise It would go on forever. Basically, I’m pretty sure I need to split up with the love of my life. We want different things (children etc) and there’s no possible compromise either of us can see but I (we?) don’t want to end it. How do you get your head around not having someone you love in your life? I can’t imagine not having him around/ not knowing what’s going on in his life and almost want him enough to give up on everything else but don’t want to resent him later on. So I’m posting in AIBU because I’ve tried to find a ‘nice/naice’ (see what I did there to pretend I have street cred?) way round it but I can’t. AIBU to ask you to be brutal and force me into ending it?

Expect it to feel really hard for about 6 weeks. But then, if you are not in contact at all, you will start to feel better. Even to begin with, missing him, having made a decision and acted on it will make you feel like you're in control of your life.

The firsts are hard. You say good bye and good luck btu then the first time you have for example a job interview and you can't tell him, it's hard. But then you stop feeling that it's weird that you haven't told him and he doesn't know.

Cross post. What @BestestBrownies said then!!

You want children, he doesn't. There is no compromise.

At 37, you have a choice. If you keep going backwards and forwards with this man, in 3/4 years time, that choice will have been and gone.

You have to decide what's more important - having a family or having this man in your life. You can't have both. It may seem an impossible decision, but life is too short for regrets - you just need to decide which one would be greatest.

Break up and have a child alone. Realistically you don’t have much time left to have a child. Yes, you do hear about people having babies at 44, 45 or even later but that’s rare. After 40 it’s hard, even with IVF.

What have your conversations about children like? Is it a flat no from him? Does he have reasons why?

Do I get the impression he already has a child/children?

It sounds like you can’t voice what you want to him. Are you the love of his life? You sound fearful of him deciding he wants to separate.

what BestestBrownies said.

Please review all the 'cons' of having kids. Like the unrelenting nature of them and the number of years you are devoted to them. It really isn't all about cute babies and walks in the park.

When friends ask me what it was like to have kids I say: "Think of all the things you really enjoy doing...., now take all of the enjoyment out of them..... that's what having kids does to your life."

Make sure you are sure.

"Have kids with someone else and get back with himin 15 years?"

wtf

He’s got an older teenager and doesn’t want anymore. We can talk about it but he’s always been open that he doesn’t want more children. Weirdly this is actually really good for helping me think it through- I do feel a bit like I’ve changed the (not rules, but he was open about that and I never thought it would be an issue). Lol at the sounding teenage- I get how angsty this might sound! I can live without him (I’m very lucky to have good friends and life etc) I’m just torn because I don’t want to end a great relationship on the off-chance I meet someone else in the next 3 years. Getting back together in 15 years (or 5!) wouldn’t be a bad option but if I think like that I’m worried we’ll just to and fro!

I want children with him. I dont want one/any without him/ with anyone else (right now anyway) and don’t think that’ll change but I didn’t want them before I met him so I can’t say 100%

If you don't want one any other way, why would you leave him? You're 37, you don't really have time to spend a few more years alone thinking about it. Do you want to have no him and no children?

Agree with other posters that it is a very tight timeframe to start looking for a baby daddy at 37. Does he have any idea you are thinking of leaving him over his reluctance to have more children and if not might it change his mind?

You need to think about what it is that you want. Do you want children? Or do you want children with him? Because there is a difference.

If you want children you could end the relationship, meet someone else, have a baby and be happy, and he would just become the bloke who didn’t work out because you wanted different things.

But if you want children with him then that is more fundamental because it means that you actually want different things from the relationship and in that instance there is no compromise, so you either need to decide that you want to stay with him, or you want to leave the relationship but that would still mean not having children, in which case wouldn’t it be better to come to terms with this relationship being childless on the basis that you wouldn’t want them if he wasn’t a part of the deal?

I am in a similar position in that I am in a LDR and engaged. When we got together we knew that worst case scenario we would have to live apart until my DC left school or he would have to change jobs to move here to be with me. So far so good and although hard we knew there were timescales.

However, things have changed since then and I have been diagnosed with a life limiting illness. This means that I am unable to work, and when my DC leave school I will be moving back to be near my family and support. However his age and the type of work he does means that moving is not an option for him for the foreseeable future meaning that marriage and being together permanently are no longer possibilities.

I don’t want to end the relationship. If it ended I don’t want to be with anyone else. But I know that he wants marriage, a future etc from a relationship and those are things I know I will never be able to give him. So realistically I know I should end the relationship but equally that’s not currently what he wants but I know in time it will be, because the distance is already starting to take its toll and realistically we can’t stay in a LDR for ever and chances are that if we wait until it becomes too much then we won’t part amicably because resentment will have built by then.

But it’s never simple to just end it when you don’t want it to end. Even if you know that it’s for the best.

At 37 you don't really have time to lose if you do want dc.

What if you both stay together for the next 4/5 years and something goes wrong and he prances off into the twighlight with another woman and you'll have all but sold your chance of having dc up the river?

What if he does acquiesce and ends up having a baby with you only for the pressure and strain of babyhood to ruin your relationship?

You sound entirely utterly hopelessly besotted with him. He's telling you want he wants, or more specifically doesn't want. You'd be wise to listen to those words.

I left. Broke me at the time. Fast forward 7 years, happily married with 2 kids. Still speak to ex probably once a month.

Ironically, I left because he said he didn't believe in getting married and probably wouldn't have kids. He married someone on a bit of whim (!) altho they don't have kids yet.

You need to decide how much of a dealbreaker it is. I had a very comfortable lifestyle too when i left. Me and DH now struggle big time financially. But I couldn't be happier. Glad I left although it was beyond hard at the time.

Have you tried counselling for yourself? You seem almost to be running away from the fact you can't persuade him to have children rather than towards something for yourself. If you leave you lose on all counts (you aren't with him and you still haven't had his children).

If you end up deciding you need to go anyway, since it's so difficult for you I would advise giving up on the idea of being friends, at least initially. Sounds like you'll need to create some anger and bad feeling in order to propel you away from him and enable you to get the space you need to make a break and find a new path. Friendship can, perhaps, come later when you're in a better place.

Brutally, yes, you do have to end it - or try somehow to curb your desire to have HIS child.

He doesn't want another child. You didn't want children before and don't know if you would again with someone else. Having a child with him is therefore not an option.

How would you feel knowing that you would never have a child with him? Would it be worse having no child, or would it be worse losing him?

I mean, you can't know what it would be like to have a child because you've not done that. So it's something you're missing, but an abstract ideal, really. Whereas you know how you feel about him and your relationship, that's not abstract, that's reality.

Would you really throw reality away for an abstract ideal?

On the other hand, if you're going to resent him not wanting another child then your relationship is doomed anyway, so you might as well break it off while there's no acrimony, save yourself years of bitterness. Also, that would give you the chance to see if there was another "love of your life" out there, with whom you might also wish to procreate, who would want a child with you.

You don't have long to decide so you're going to have to bite the bullet, make the tough decisions and then just do it.

Unless you can categorically come to terms with the notion of never having your own child and be perfectly satisfied with that until your dying days then yes, you have to leave him.

Hey, you asked for brutal...

OP The way your post is coming across is that your desperate for a child with him to irrevocably bind him to you via a child. You state you only really want a Child with this man, so if you were to split in a months time the lack of Children would not be an issue. That says to me it's about him not about your wanting a child in general.