AIBU to divorce over him not wanting second child?

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We have 1 healthy, 9 year old DC. I struggled massively with PND and when DC was 4, I fell pregnant accidentally using a bc method that is no longer in use due to the failure rate. I had an abortion, which was of course ultimately my choice, but my husband made it clear he didn’t want another child and couldn’t support that choice (we both work in similar fields, earning similar money). This decision haunts me and I feel I legitimately made the wrong decision, but at the time I felt selfish for wanting the baby (I was 26 at this time and more easily pushed around than I am now).

I would love another baby. My husband has booked in for a vasectomy. I have not been on any form of contraception for 2 years, and my husband has used the withdrawal method or condoms in that time. I don’t want to force him into having another baby to stay with me (and I think he would now). I am 31 and I would love another baby so much, but once you say ‘I want a divorce because I don’t think you want to parent with me again’ there’s no going back is there?

We provide our DC with a lovely life, and we are happy together otherwise. It’s just this. If I can’t have another baby, I’m not sure it’s something I can just ‘let go’. I never thought I would be like this. I’ve tried and tried to be neutral. I’ve climbed the career ladder in the meantime and provided for our son.

I’ve tried to I bring myself into the way of thinking ‘how amazing our 40s will be’ because we had DS so young. But I can’t. I also can’t make DH want something he doesn’t really want. He’s amazing, and I’d rather set him free and give him the chance of a baby/toddler free life and just raise our son, then trick him into a pregnancy he doesn’t want. That hurts me more than anyone could know.

What should I do? Should I let DH free, or should I just swallow this forever?

Warn him then. Tell him you want to discuss the vasectomy. We know all about his thoughts on another child. Does he know yours? Does he have any idea how strongly you feel? Why not? You can't force him to want a child or have a child. But he should know how you're feeling.

He said he knew it was final and said that that aspect of it upset him, and he didn’t really want to discuss that. That was a few weeks ago and I’ve just been kind of sad ever since really.

He doesn’t get to choose not to discuss it.

He doesn’t get to be dismissive of your feelings.

You need to tell him you are going to need to talk about it all, because it isn’t settled in your mind and you are feeling very upset at the idea of the vasectomy right now.

Ultimately, whatever happens you need to discuss it (again, I think with a counsellor to facilitate if possible) because your mental health is being affected by burying these feelings in favour of an easy life/fear of conflict.

Agree with PPs. You need professional help in talking this through with someone other than Mumsnet.

The biological urge to have children is very strong, but I cannot believe that you would be willing to inflict so much damage on your loved ones for the possible chance of having another child.

If you do explain how much you regret the abortion and how much you want another child, he may choose to compromise

How can he "choose to compromise" when there is no compromise to be had here? The OP wants a second DC, her DH doesn't. There's no middle ground between having a baby and not having one. So when you say he "may choose to compromise" what you actually mean is he may be persuaded into raising a child he categorically does not want because otherwise his wife might leave him and he'll lose at least 50% of his time with the DC he already has. That's not a "compromise" at all, is it?

@HennyPennyHorror, the OP would be leaving her husband to have a second child, so unless she is planning to use a sperm donor or get pregnant through casual sex, she will be bringing a stepfather figure into her existing child's life. The child will have to live with an unrelated man who almost certainly will not feel the same way about him/her as they do about their own child. Children are much likelier to be abused by a stepfather than by their biological father.

And it's unlikely that if the OP leaves her ex-husband to have a child with another man, he will stay single forever. Their child will probably end up with a stepmother as well.

I don't understand why you're saying, "But the blended family is hypothetical at the moment." The OP is thinking of leaving her husband with the specific intention of giving her child a stepfather and half-sibling! And if more parents stopped to think about the reality of blending families before they split up, the divorce rate would probably be lower than it is.

Valanice OP wants another baby. Her husband doesn't. She's therefore thinking of giving herself the most chance she can of having a baby.

But it's all just thought. Not happened and may never happen. The CURRENT issue is her husband does not want a baby with her.

IF....if she does leave him and meet someone and fall in love, that's to be dealt with then. Not now.

Of course it's a possibility...but that very possibility is WHY she's thinking of going. Because she wants a baby.

You can't live your life in fear. If she has a failed marriage behind her and a child from that marriage, she does not have to become a nun just in case her child doesn't like her future partner.

I'd leave him. He seems to think making unilateral decisions that affect you - hence, he 'refuses to discuss it' - is fine. I'd never have had the abortion, but that's by the by. I wouldn't want to live with someone who won't discuss major issues like an adult, baby regardless.

I can't really walk in your shoes, op, but your partner is probably right. Would you really want to have PND again? It might be worse second time around.

Enjoy what you have and make the most of your life. Everyone gets broody but it passes.

I'd never have had the abortion, but that's by the by

This really did not need to be said.

I find it very sad that you would consider inflicting pain on the child you already have for the sake of the chance of having a further child which may or may not be conceived in the future.

So the OP's husband isn't complicit in 'inflicting pain' on their child by making unilateral decisions about things and refusing to discuss them with his wife ? The OP is the one making all the sacrifices here. Sounds like a real power imbalance, tbh, OP, with you continually capitulating to this man.

Surely he has the right to make a "unilateral" decision about his own body? He wants a vasectomy, he's entitled to get one. You're right, refusing to discuss it isn't the best way to handle the situation but perhaps he feels discussion is pointless since OP is very clear that she wants a baby and he's adamant he doesn't. They can discuss it til the cows come home but what will that achieve?

I'm not sure what I'd do in your shoes but my dh felt we should stop at one after I had postpartum psychosis among other things with dc1. I could understand why, he essentially had to work from home for the first six months to ensure I was still breathing by the end of the day (we were lucky his employers were amazing) but I on the other hand desperately wanted a second child partly due to my own childhood. I felt angry that he felt he could use how ill I'd been as an excuse and he felt angry that I couldn't see how traumatic it was for him, first thinking I was going to die on the operating table and then watching me lose my mind.

I'm not sure if I would have left him if he hadn't been willing to talk about it but it would have damaged our relationship for sure. As it happened, when dc2 was born I was absolutely fine apart from a couple of weepy days so PnD and similar with one doesn't always mean it will happen again.

I do think though with at least 9 year age gap, your existing child will get little benefit from you having another child at least in the short term which when weighed against the fact that you are considering leaving his father..makes it harder still . There are 13 and 17 years between my mum and her half brothers and whilst they are very close now, she hated and resented the first one especially when he was born.

Could you get some counselling to address how you feel about the abortion and then perhaps talk to your husband about how being pushed into it made you feel?

So basically, you reminding him that condoms + withdrawal arent th safest has reminded hm that he raly need to take responsibility in his fertility. which on paper is great.
but not when its done slyly wo any conversation about it and outting you in front of the facts so you cant argue about it.

I think he knows very well this woud be extremely hurtful to you. I think in sme ways he has been stringing you along by his avoidance of 'confrontation' aka 'I want something different'.
Thats why youve had all those comments about needing to tell him ahaead, not agian etc... He is shutting down the conversation and has done so for many years, i suspect since the termination, if not before. I suspect he is also hoping that having railroaded you into a termination, he is hoping to d th same woth the vasectomy. After all, you cant stop him. But he is also NOT taking into account how this is detsroying the trust and the resoect betwene you two. H eis taking a realy big gamble there in hopig you will just accept it. I susoect ressentent is what is goig to happen and that will be pushing you apart.

This was crap fom him. Really really crap. And disrspectful.

My advice would be counselling again so you can express those feelongs to him in a safe environment. One where he wll have to listen and hear the pain he has created. And one where you migt finally feel listened to.
I wouod really encourage you to have a chat and ask him to postpone the vasectomy until youve had counselling.

I find it very sad that you would consider inflicting pain on the child you already have for the sake of the chance of having a further child which may or may not be conceived in the future.

Personnally i find it very sad when one partner has so little respect for the other feelings that they have no issue pushing them in having an abortion they dindt want. And then impose no children wo any conversation about it. The way the OP describes it, he woudnt have talked about it if it hadnt been on the shared calendar!
I find it sad when that sort of decision is imposed by one person onto the other.
And I find it really sad when that same partner is refusing to acknowledge the hurt they have and are creating (by their decision, by not talking about it, by stringing them along etc...)

As for the current child....
they wont get anymore hurt by arrival of a new sibbling. No more than any other child sounless you are advocating for children to all be single child, then that point is moot.
If the hurt is coming from getting divorced, this wouod only happen because of the OP's DH refusal to communicate around the subject. For the way he handled things (very badly) and how he just pushed in pov with no respect for the OP's feelings. Seeing that it has happened for years now, I wouod say that the OP wouldnt be te one resposnible for the divrce, he would be. Unless you areadvocating fr women to just accept whatever decision their husband is taking wo having the possibility to disgaree or feel hurt etc... and wo expecting tem to be treated with respect.

OP has not said specifically that she didn’t want the abortion at the time. She says she regrets it now, but my take is that at the time they talked it through together and she decided that it was what she wanted. She is entitled to change her mind. Her DH is also entitled to change his mind, and she should not at this stage assume that he can’t be talked round, to a point where he is genuinely comfortable with the decision to try for another child. It can happen you k ow.

He can’t be that serious about wanting another child if he’s using the withdrawal method!!

I wouldn’t consider another child if you had PND with the first. I don’t know why people risk putting themselves through that twice!

I think for sometime he has made his position very clear but it is the booking of the vasectomy that has made you realise he is not going to change his mind.

If you seriously think that you can’t live with only one child and do want to divorce over the issue than you must think very clearly about what this will mean not only for you but your existing child. You might not meet another man who wants a child or you might meet one and have that child but your existing son decides he would rather live with his dad. He will know that he was not enough for you and this could cause resentment even before you introduce a new man and baby. Then you have the financial implications. If your husband goes for 50/50 and so no maintenance is payable can you pay the mortgage, finance a maternity leave, childcare and all the other costs involved?
What if your desperation for another child leads you to make a bad choice for the father of that child and he leaves you high and dry.

It comes across like you want another child more than you want your marriage. I’m afraid I don’t understand this.

I’m in a similar position with my DH. Not to the point of considering leaving him, but I want to try for one more and he doesn’t.

Our situation is different - I did fall pregnant when our twins were only 14mo due to contraception failure. He said he didn’t want our third child, but I stuck to my guns as I did. It caused a rift for a while, but eventually DH got through his fears of what a third child would mean for us and began looking forward to welcoming our second son. Then at 41 weeks pregnant we were told our sons heart had stopped beating. He had died in womb and it’s left us both devastated. I know my want to try once more is related - not to replace my lost child, that could never happen. But because I’d created the reality of having three children to love and to raise, so completely in my head and heart, that to not have that opportunity kills me a bit inside.

DH doesn’t want to try again, he has his very valid reasons, the most obvious being that he can’t face the chance that we might lose that child and we barely manage with the feelings of loss we have already. The only thing that keeps us going is how delightful our beautiful twins are and how much we love them and each other.

I asked him to revisit the conversation six months after we had it last time (when all he offered at the time was an outright ‘no’ with no further explanation). I said I don’t expect his mind to change and there’s no way I would want to change it for him, but right now I can’t handle the option being taken away forever. So we set a date for that conversation to happen. I have taken to writing a diary of my reasoning (on both my good and bad days) and I’ll present that reasoning to him. All I ask is that he consider my point of view thoroughly when responding, whether he responds with a yes or a no, I just need to know that he has truly heard my side, my emotions on the matter, before we come to a decision.

That has helped him as he doesn’t fear conversation turning to TTC at random intervals and I don’t want to feel like I’m flogging him with it.

As for what comes of our conversation on the set date, who knows, I already have my DD and DS so I know my want is quite selfish on a biological level. If DH still doesn’t want to try again I will accept that, it will be hard and I know there will be times when it will hurt me, but I will not risk the family I have for the child that could be.

Maybe set a conversation date with your DH, request that he hold off on the vasectomy for now (you can ask, that’s not unreasonable, but don’t expect anything).

Also explain your feelings as expressed here, that you love him and your DC and you don’t expect him to change his mind - but you want the chance to put your side across and have it be truly heard by him and for him to consider the points you raise when giving his response. You will have to do the same in return of course.

Good luck to you OP and please keep in mind the family you have is more important than what could be

Got my maths wrong my twins were 9mo when our third child was conceived - don’t know where 14mo came from. So they were very young and the demands of raising them was DH’s main reason for fearing having a third child, especially so close together. This came from the fact that my pregnancy with my twins was extremely difficult and lead to them being born very premature and very low birthweight. They spent the first four months of their life in NICU which was a terrifying time for both me and DH. Just wanted to add that as it sounds awful when I say DH just simply didn’t want our DC3 in the early stages of my second pregnancy x

I think for sometime he has made his position very clear but it is the booking of the vasectomy that has made you realise he is not going to change his mind
I agree with that. I think deep inside you said you didn't want to be the one responsible for contraception because if an accident happened, you would be guilt tripped into another abortion. Unconsciously, you probably hoped that he would trip and the accident happened, probably why you were tracking your cycles.

It must be hard when the person you love so much isn't prepared to give you what you want more than anything else, but it isn't make it wrong. Imagine if before marrying, you'd agreed that you wanted to experience life in different countries. You are both e cited at the prospect. You then both have an opportunity to move to Japan. You go, are glad you have but you realise settling is much much harder than you had envisaged. It takes years to finally adjust to the point where you finally feel at home there, and you are comfortable with your life.

Then your OH start talking aboit feeling the urge to move again, stsrt a new adventure. You are horrified as the prospect of having to start again, somewhere new, making new friends, feeling lonely etc...is giving you cold sweats. You say this to your OH but he is insistent that it will worth it, that it won't be as hard second time, but you can't consider it. When you tell him that you really don't want to move again, he tells you how unfair it is because you agreed that you'd live in different countries and you'd always know that that's what he wanted to do and agreed.

You feel under massive pressure to do what he wants to make happy but you can't go ahead with him because you strongly believe that you'd be deeply unhappy if you did.

Of course it is not exactly the same but similar and if you'd posted the above, posters would have insisted that your OH was unreasonable to force you to adopt a lifestyle you really didn't want even if before married, you thought it was what you wanted.

A poster said that the feeling of wa ring a other child never goes away. I totally disagree. It does go away when you finally accept that you are fortunate to have what you have and slowly, with help of a counsellor ideally, you learn to grieve a life that you'd imagined ha ING and focus on what you do have.

@NaviSprite first of all I am incredibly sorry for your loss. That is horrific, I can’t imagine how strong you must be to continue on through this and get to where you are now.

Thank you all so much for the advice; I’m not sure some have seen my later posts explaining that I definitely was venting last night and my marriage with DH isn’t something I want to end. I suppose that’s the beauty of anonymous online forums; you can be angry in that moment and write your thoughts down. Definitely when I read back my OP from last night this morning, I saw how drastic those words were and the reality of ending a marriage isn’t something I want. I don’t regret posting though; I got some really useful replies, even the ones that were like ‘come on, don’t be ridiculous, pulling apart a good marriage over this is a massive overreaction’. And it is. Really it is. I’m glad I wrote down my deepest thoughts so I can contextualise them and think about what’s at the core of the issue.

I do feel like I wasn’t (for a while) in control of my fertility. Combine that with broodiness and not talking and I think it can become quite destructive. In the silence surrounding fertility, I think my mind can become quite a nasty place to be at times. I definitely have unresolved feelings over the termination and I regret it. I’ve messaged a few counselling services today in my area and I’d like to go and see one to discuss this more to see if it helps me put things to bed.

Now onto DH. I messaged him today and outlined that I’d like to talk to him privately about the vasectomy this week. I told him I understand it’s difficult for him to talk about but at the end of the day, this is at the very least, a surgery. And I just want to go through a few things. He messaged back and agreed we should talk either tonight or tomorrow night (DS has a club tonight requiring pick up and drop off so we’ll see). He actually agreed he doesn’t like talking about it because it’s so emotionally charged and it makes him feel sad. I explained I felt that’s the reason it is so important for us to talk, so we can both move forward and you know what, if he’s feeling sadness then I’d like the opportunity to be there for him and comfort him too.

I won’t threaten to end the marriage over this. Because it’s not something I want to go through with; and I do love him. My feelings bubbled up last night into something awful and nasty and I said things I didn’t mean, and I don’t want that to happen anymore. If it increases in frequency; I could actually damage my marriage. I don’t want to do that. I also don’t want to issue ultimatums like that because I don’t want him to have a baby with me because he wants to keep me. That’s unhelpful all round. I do want to be heard though, rather than just avoiding the issue. I do feel disappointed at not having a second child. I can’t help it. I understand marriage is about compromise, but this is a biggie you know?

I definitely need to have this chat with DH so I can start to put this to bed, and focus on what I do have. I’m really lucky to have a job I enjoy, good health, a lovely warm home, lots of lovely friends, a nice family, a good stable marriage and of course our darling DS who lights up our lives.

Thank you again for all the comments

I do want to be heard though, rather than just avoiding the issue
And that, as long it is not so emotionally loaded it turns into emotional blackmail, which clearly you say you don't want to do, is absolutely your right. You do deserve to be heard and if indeed it is what you need to move on, then it is the least he can give you.

If it is any compensation, I've been where you are. I thought I'd never get over it but I did. I focused on something to accomplish and set my mind to it. It isn't take my mind of it fully to start with, but did when I started to be successful and it became a new focus in my life.

Good luck with the future OP.

@swingofthings we have to. I’m going to set out clear rules for our conversation. In the past whenever we’ve had to have a difficult conversation (perhaps following an argument for example), either party can call ‘enforced niceness’. When we talk under that rule, we have to speak calmly, quite slowly, not swear and we have to be as careful as if we were talking to the CEO of our company. It’s always worked quite well up until now.

I don’t want to emotionally blackmail him. I don’t want to look back and think ‘I could have done better’. I want to do this right, and I want to move on in the most positive way.