AIBU if DH wants another child but I don't

[morethanaword]

Myself and DH have been married for five years now, we are both 30. We already have a DS aged three who goes to nursery and both DH and I work full time earning good money and have agreed that we want to either relocate abroad or travel for a while as our son is still young.

DH and I met at university and we've never been the type to want a huge family, we discussed plans that we would keep things small. I come from a big family and I feel like I could never handle another child but lately DH and I have been arguing as he's very keen to have another child, discusses wanting a daughter and even asked his mum to have a chat with me.

This began about two years ago when our son turned one, DH was very keen to conceive and try for another child but due to work stress, we decided to put it on hold. However, I do not want another child, but as DH's family is small, he wants to keep our family as a good size. We never argue about other stuff except having another child and I'm not sure how to go about this.

I just feel very bad but I just can't handle another child, I love our son and my career is going great and I feel like being pregnant and having another kid will be stressful considering I suffered with PND with our son.

@AnotherEmma

I think the hurt he's faced is far less than I've faced but my mind just feels a bit to blame here even though what have I done realistically? I never realised how hard it was to make decisions about how many kids partners should have with each other.

I wonder if he thinks having a daughter would "fix" everything??

Everything would go "right" next time...

Just a thought, it would be a big distraction from his behaviour in the past and he clearly is enjoying his "Dad" role. The other possibility is that he wants you more reliant and "stuck" with him?

hope you sort out what you want.

I know once he mentioned that he thought boys were 'hard work' so maybe he wants a girl because she may be easier but that's never going to be a reason to want your child to be another gender. I really cannot dismiss his role as a father as he's great with our son - puts him first and his mum messaged me to ask if he could have our son for a while but I refused - I think its best if I look after DS.

I would take the time to decide exactly what you want. He's off thinking and deciding so it's a good time for you to do the same
Whether it's to try for a good co-parent partnership, marriage where he starts stepping up and being a loving partner and accepts that you've been clear or if you just want to redraw boundaries.
Single Parenthood a generation ago is much different to what it is now.

Single Parenthood a generation ago is much different to what it is now.

In what way @Justanothernameonthepage?

I think I would like to reconcile, providing he shows me that he's more than capable of supporting me and our son and to realise that things have changed but we'll be able to work through this.

How old was your son when you went to stay with your mum?

@sprouts21 my son was newborn, or so roughly about a week old when I went to my mum's while DH looked after him. I would try to see him weekly but my PND got worse.

Who did you try to see weekly, your husband? I thought you and your newborn son together went to stay at your mums is that wrong?

@sprouts21 my son was newborn, or so roughly about a week old when I went to my mum's while DH looked after him. I would try to see him weekly but my PND got worse.

So DH looked after your newborn DS while you stayed at your Mum's? Was this for the whole five months?

I have to say that this makes me reassess the situation. If your DH cared for your DS for five months while you stayed with your parents, he definitely cares very deeply for both you and your DS.

It doesn't excuse the tampering with your birth control, but it does indicate that he has it in him to be a supportive Dad and partner.

I don't know what to think now, this info. has really surprised me - I thought he was a dick, but maybe not. Perhaps more misguided or immature?

my son was newborn, or so roughly about a week old when I went to my mum's while DH looked after him. I would try to see him weekly but my PND got worse.

So DH looked after your newborn DS while you stayed at your Mum's? Was this for the whole five months?

He wants to risk all this again ?? Wow
((((((Hugs)))) Op I hope the two of you work this out. 🌸🌼🌺

I don't think it matters who looked after the baby. Even if he did he's only done what women do all day everyday.

Op I think it's going to help you to write down the timeline so you can be clear and factual about what's been happening, and for how long.Because just six months after coming home after being very unwell he was hassling you for another baby. And he's still hassling you now. That's two years of pressure and he has refused to listen to you.

Where in the timeline did you have therapy, and when did he mess with your pills and try to get you pregnant without your consent?

Using the tea comparison lets imagine that your husband became seriously unwell after drinking tea. He tries to explain but for some reason you don't believe him. He becomes so unwell he has to leave the home. You still don't believe him and won't support him.

It takes him a good while to recover. You now realise he was telling the truth and apologise. Six months after he's recovered you try to convince him to drink tea again. He quite rightly refuses explaining it made him ill.You continue to try to convince him and blame stress when he says No. On one occasion you slip tea into his drink without his knowledge or consent.

You then ask his mother to convince him and seek out the advice of a website. Eventually after two years he tells you firmly he doesn't want tea ever again and you respond to this by crying and needing space. It sounds ridiculous because it is. You could swap tea for getting a mortgage or going on holiday.It really doesn't matter because the problem is not the subject but your husbands refusal to be told No.

It's not normal, not one bit.

I probably should have mentioned it, I really thought I did but yes DS did look after my son for five months as I went to see him weekly as I could without having a breakdown. I do think he's a great father, and perhaps looking after our son alone for those months meant he got close to our son who he's very fond of and wants to go through it again.

The timeline goes like this

FEBRUARY 2015 - our son is born and I develop PND

END OF JULY 2015 - I return home, well enough to look after our son.

APRIL 2016 - I return to work and realise how much I missed it

AUGUST 2016 - DH and I have a chat about more kids, I tell him that I don't want more as my job is going well and I can't risk PND again

OCTOBER 2016 - DS swaps my birth control pills with vitamin pills, I do not fall pregnant and I find out roughly a week later when he confesses and I go through his search history.

NOVEMBER 2016 - A few weeks have passed and we try for therapy, he promises not to do it again and we move on albeit awkwardly.

IN 2017, a few conversation arise about more kids but I still refuse.

NOVEMBER 2018 - DH again pushes his luck for more kids, MIL even tries and so does my mum and DH discusses plans of relocation.

PRESENT DAY - we've split up after our chat.

I know he's backing off now, and you've even (albeit possibly temporarily) split up, but I am amazed that he pushed you to have a second baby, when PND after your first was so severe that you had to be away from your newborn in his first 5 months of life.

I also don't understand how he could possibly have thought you were over-dramatising your PND. It sounds about as severe as it gets.

Wishing you well, OP.

Sprouts
Very good analogy. I have in despair read ops, where children with allergies and intolerances, have been fed foodstuffs like gluten or dairy by people, who don’t believe the children will get ill. This in essence just the same.

Bottom line morethan there is still a lot of denial around your PND. Your mother, husband and mil are all infantilising you.

I also struggle to understand how your husband, who you describe as very fond of your ds, would want to put you ds through a totally avoidable situation. He would likely suffer greatly. Interesting use of words btw “fond”. Doesn’t he love him unequivocally?

I also wanted a second child. But my dd took such an irrevocable toll on my physical health that I knew I couldn’t carry another child. I acknowledged i ran the risk of never be able to look after my dd again. Dd was ivf so it was somewhat different but dh never pressured me for another child or to implant our frozen embryos.

I can’t deny the decision for me was easy. It was a difficult grieving process whereas my dh was just grateful for what we had.

I hope your dh can go through this process with grace. I also hope his being at your mils won’t be too difficult. She clearly is on “his side” in all of this when clearly it shouldn’t be about taking sides but about you and the child you already have.

Please listen to sprouts21's Tea Annalogy

Reading that tea analogy really speaks volume to me. I never understand my husband’s lack of understanding. Is it the fact that his mother has possibly babied him or worse, been the instigator behind all this? I don’t possibly know but it’s come to disturbing measures that perhaps I’m better off alone with my son even though I do love my husband.

My choice of words, “fond” in particular were perhaps not the best to use. DH loves our son more than anything, the time they spent without me has created a strong bond despite the hardships and he’ll always be his priority as he wanted to take him while we sorted things out.

I’ve been also struggling to sleep for the last few days, I have work in about three hours and I just don’t have the will to go.

Thanks for the clarification on fond. I was trying to gauge his capacity for emotional understanding.

Whether you are better off without him long term is something to answer in the future. I think you are right now because you need time to process this all properly.

I’m also struggling to understand how he can be contrite for having tampered with your birth control whilst continuing to pester you for another child. Is he not just more sorry he got caught?

Remember to be careful of relocating with him as you could find yourself stuck abroad an awfully long time with your ds in residency as a child overseas.

I also wonder if getting you abroad is also a way of removing you from your family and support structure to wear you down. If you had a child and PND overseas and were forced for example to return to the U.K. alone to be looked after by your parents again, the laws of your host country may be very different and see you permanently losing custody your baby and child.

@Mummyoflittledragon

At the time of discussion our plans to relocate were due to DH’s job moving overseas and better pay, however we always planned to return back home every few weeks as we were only moving to Sweden but I never quite thought about DH wanted to move for me to lose my support system although that support system is well and truly broken at the state of my MIL and mother’s behaviour.

DH is also Swedish and his father lives there; if I relocated with our son with DH, is there more grounds for DH to abduct him? Not trying to say DH is capable but this stuff terrifies me.

Abduct him? I wouldn’t have thought the risk was greater there than here. Sweden like the U.K. is a member of The Hague Convention.

As a member of the convention, if you took your ds home to live to the U.K., that would be treated as abduction. Therefore your husband could prevent you from returning home to live in the U.K. with your ds if your marriage fails. That would be until your ds is 18, 16 if youre lucky depending on the laws. By that time, he’d probably want to be a permanent resident of the country.

Your husband has already shown himself to be manipulative and controlling. He has manipulated your mother into pestering you to have another child. Not that I’m saying you should view your mother as an innocent victim.

You also won’t be able to return to the U.K. so regularly once your ds starts school. I’ve done the expat thing prekids but this isn’t an expat scenario. This is a permanent relocation.

I wouldn’t be going with him. In all honesty I think it would be best to let him go alone and see what happens with your relationship. I’ve read too many rl horror stories about this stuff, I know.

Our plans to relocate are off for now and possibly for good. In terms of grounds for abduction what I should have said was, as DS has his grandfather and few other relatives out there, could they try to go against me as that’s his family too and use my PND previously to say I’m unfit to look after DS or something else.

I don’t think you need to be in another country for a partner to try to manipulate the courts into believing you’re unfit. I also don’t think they could use the PND against you. You’ve recovered. They could bully you into depression and use that. Your dh could financially abuse you and not give you access to funds to return to the U.K. on trips. You would be at a disadvantage because you’d be financially dependent on him, not speak the language and have zero support structure.

But this is all very hypothetical. I would imagine Sweden has very good protection laws and financial assistance. These are all things to check out prior to relocating if you ever did.

Having done the expat thing, an international move puts a lot of pressure on marriages. One of dhs colleagues marriage broke down. You find purpose in working in your current role / have a career. The effect on your mental health of losing this would be of deep concern to me. You would likely be signing up to being a sahm in a country, where I assume you don’t know the language for a considerable period. Being a parent would make language learning more problematic as you wouldn’t just be able to pop off for classes.

The fact that your PND was so severe just makes it even more unforgiveable that he sabotaged your contraception. I'm also very surprised that your mother is pressuring you to have a second - given that you stayed with her so she saw it first hand.

I'm sorry I had sympathy for him until the birth control switch! I know it's hard to want different things but damn that is low.

I would need trust him after that. End of.