Not ready for a child (warning: long rant!)

[Unsure1748]

I'm 26 and my DH is 30. We got married a year ago and have lived with in-laws ever since whilst our house is being renovated. It should be complete within the next few months. Things haven't been easy. The household became a very toxic environment and MIL and I have a hostile relationship. She is extremely critical and judgemental of everything I do, wear, the way I talk, where I go (everything) and resents me for not being as religious as she is and she showed it with many remarks. Her bullying and harassment towards me led to me feeling very isolated and I had breakdown after breakdown. Basically what I'm saying is I told DH there is no way in hell I'd have a child whilst still living with in-laws. If MIL is this critical of me just being ME, I can't imagine how controlling she would be if I had her grandchild in the house too. I can imagine being constantly berated for not being a good mother, told I'm not feeding him/her properly, not dressing them properly, judgement about sleeping routines.. you get the idea. I want space and freedom.

The other issue is I only started working a bit over a year ago and I'm still making money and adding to my savings. Having a child right now would put my career on hold for a bit and would make me financially dependent on DH as he'd like me to stay home for a few years to take care of our baby (or babies if I had another quickly). I'm not ready for that. It'd also be harder to go back to my career after a break as I'm out of the habit and my job is intense. I want to enjoy FINALLY having my own house and safe space, I want to enjoy my job and make more money to add to my savings before I end up staying home for a bit.

DH is becoming impatient and won't stop pressurising me for a child despite the reasons I've outlined. I've told him I 100% DO want a child in the next couple of years but I'm not in the right mental space for one right now.. I can't even consider it whilst living with in-laws. I'm sure I'll be ready once we have our own place but whilst we're still living with in-laws, my brain freaks out at the idea?

The last time DH pressurised me, he assumed I didn't want to be a mother. He was telling me the beauty of raising a child should outweigh my other concerns but I told him he's asking me to relate to something I have never done (raising a child).. I can only think about things I've experienced so far directly. I was in tears as I'm tired of being pressurised by DH and his mother for a baby when I keep expressing my feelings and how I'd be impacted the most by a child emotionally, physically and financially hence my decision should be respected at least a bit, surely? Clearly it isn't or I wouldn't be repeatedly asked again and again. When do you think is the right time to have a baby? After we move out and I've been working for another year at least maybe? Or am I just being selfish I don't know. If so, help me see sense. They make me feel like I'm doing something wrong and tell me that 26 is not still young whenever I still have time and am young.

I’d be running a mile OP. Your DH sounds awful.

You are TWENTY SIX.

Unless unusually broody and loaded you shouldn't even be thinking about having a child. Five years time would be fine.

I had my first at thirty six and was still one of the youngest in my NCT class. By 26 I had already met and was living with DH. But we were too busy having fun. (Seriously, I look back at that decade, 25-35, as one of incredible opportunity, travel, career progression, and fun.) Your life sounds bloody grim at the moment. Please change things!

Abusive men LOVE trapping and bullying a strong, educated, independent woman. Something about their psyche rewards them for being able to get a woman like that to do what they tell them. So of course he was encouraging of you - now you're married, he's got you trapped and so we move on to the next phase which is a gradual crushing of your ambition and spirit.

This situation will not improve when you move into your own house.

You haven't said if you have told your family exactly what's been happening, I suggest you do, don't mince words or try and 'make it sound better' - brace yourself and tell them the whole truth. Best of luck OP.

Maybe but I don’t think so.

OP has shown absolutely zero cognition of her husband being abusive or that he’s entirely uninterested in protecting her from his mother.

There’ll be posts when she’s pregnant and MIL won’t fuck of.

There’ll be posts when the baby’s routine or her parenting isn’t respected.

There’ll be posts when she’s pregnant with the second and miserable.

We’ll all ask why ion earth she had the children with such an awful man.

She’ll say she hoped he’d change, we’ll be told we’re victim blaming, ‘how could she know?!’

She could know because it’s fucking obvious.

I honestly feel that once we move out and it's just me and DH, and I feel like I have a safe place to call home again, I will be much more inclined to have a child. By that time (so in a couple of years) I will be at a good stage career-wise, financially and emotionally too. I want time to make money, progress up the career ladder, and to enjoy having my own home.. I've barely even started my life yet and only just started working properly as I've been at uni until about 24.
You are wrong.
Your husband will be exactly the same man he is now when you finally move.
Here you are, planning to start wanting a child, when you know your life has barely started.
Look back to your liberal upbringing & family background, Would your folks not be appalled if they were reading your posts?
Your husband is a controlling man. Moving him away from his mother is not going to change that. He believes that your role is to give him a child, & to put yourself, your career, & your life, second to his wishes.

I'm not sure why he pressurises me either. Whenever I tell him I'm in my mid-twenties yet he says that's getting on the older side now and I need to have a child asap to avoid pregnancy complications.
He pressurises you because he genuinely believes that his opinion & wishes are more important than yours.
Look at how he talks to you - you are "getting on the older side" he sees you as a breeding animal. How can you hear that & not feel angry, & violated, & used?

You are focusing on how critical & controlling your MiL is, because that's easier to stomach than accepting how critical & controlling your H is.

He's the man who is still pressurising you, who will not let up until he has what he wants from you, who feels entitled to tell you when you ought to get pregnant, who wants to sabotage your career, who has not ONE thought in his head about what sacrifices HE is going to make, because HE won't be raising this child - he reckons that's your job.

He will then force you to give up your career entirely, or subject your child to being brought up by your abusive MiL.

Neither of those choices are going to bring you any happiness.
So why go there? You would be insane to tie yourself to this man via a child.

Eager for a baby my arse. It’s not about the baby, it’s about control. If he was so desperate for a child, why hasn’t he offered to be the stay at home parent or any other solutions to OPs concerns?

OP, he’s a misogynistic man who doesn’t have any respect for you. I think you need to consider very carefully as to if this is the future you want, trapped at home under his control, with nothing but an allowance that you have to use for food and the baby. I can imagine you’d end up as one of those women who haven’t have their hair cut in 3 years because you don’t have access to enough money. You sound like you really have your head screwed on, but I’m worried you’re going to compromise yourself one step too far and wind up miserable.

Yeah, OP I think you have to accept that your DH is abusive. If you want to rationalise it in your mind because you love him, it is probably due to being raised by MIL, but that's irrelevant to what the answer is for you. Your DH won't change, because in his mind it is easier to beat you down than to change his own views and mindset.

Leave him. He won't change. It doesn't matter that you are moving into your own place - it is near MIL, you won't be able to keep it clean enough or be enough of a slave for her son whilst working full time. It will never end.

Please don't have a baby with this man. Keep working to build a running away fund. Do not hand baby to MIL - it may legally give her grandparental rights if you decide to leave DH because the abuse escalates (which is common after pregnancy).

Right now, you have freedom. Please use it.

I don't know, I just value my work. Over this past year, work has been my safe place. When I got married, I moved to a different city and away from my friends and family. Hence, when things got hostile with MIL, I'd just stay at work all day and distract myself with the endless tasks there instead, as I had nowhere else to go. It really helped keep my mental health in check, being in an environment with people who knew nothing about what was going on at home, and kept my mind occupied so much that I didn't even have time to think about the trauma at home. I don't want to be locked down at home with no intellectual stimulation as I know how vital going to work and keeping busy was for me when going through rough times. Or else, I just crumble.
Yes, I thought you'd moved away to be with him.
This isolation you have been feeling, that you have only been able to assuage with work ...? Imagine being trapped with a baby, all your friends & family far away, no work in sight, no respite, just keeping house for a controlling man, who will soon want you pregnant again ...
How long do you think you could withstand that, before losing your marbles?

I considered leaving the baby with MIL as I thought a baby is still very young so she can't have much of an influence in terms of putting things into the baby's head. By the time my child is a bit older and old enough to understand the things MIL is saying, they'll be in school anyway and with me after that so won't be spending much time with MIL once they're 3-4. That then allows me to go back to work as well. However, an issue is DH has openly told me multiple times how they'd like me to stay at home for a few years and raise the child rather than going back to work at the first opportunity.
3 - 4 years is plenty of time to put things into the baby's head.
You are in cloud cuckoo land with this thinking. 3 - 4 MONTHS would be ample time for MiL to pour poison between you & your child. There is no way you would be able to tolerate her essentially getting her paws on your baby & raising it as her own. So where does that leave you? At home, doing it yourself, with a husband who refuses to pay for childcare & is now financially abusing you & actively sabotaging your career.

You're right, I have been beaten down a lot about it recently and I have been gaslit. My family are the OPPOSITE and very supportive. Not a single word about me having a child and if I ever mention it, they'll just say 'oh whenever you're ready, ignore what everybody else says, it's your body so you have a child when it's right for you'. The pressure is from in-laws and DH alone.
Please, please do what PP suggested upthread, & go home for a while.
You need to get your head screwed back on. You need a break from all this control & pressure. You need to remember who you were before these 2 weirdos abducted you.

Has he been brainwashed by the Taliban?

I did tell him to back off. The last time he didn't drop the baby thing and I broke down and started crying without meaning to as the pressure had build up inside me for so long. I told him to stop it now and how I feel extremely pressurised, uncomfortable and backed into a corner and made to defend myself repeatedly and how I'd had enough now. I told him all of it how nobody had the right to tell me what to do with my OWN body seeing as I'M the one impacted the most emotionally, physically and financially - not him or MIL. He dropped it eventually.
OP - people in a reasonable relationship wouldn't see this as you speaking up, & him backing down.
They would see an extreme case of bullying, where you have had to tolerate unendurable pressure for so long that you finally broke down.
How is it you think it's in any way acceptable or normal for you to be treated like this? To be pushed & pushed until you end up crying?
To have to defend your own human rights over your own body?
Can you not see how extreme your situation is, how controlling & unpleasant your H is?

I'm glad I spoke up as before without a thought, I was going to allow MIL all childcare responsibilities. I just thought the baby will be too young to comprehend what MIL is saying anyway and by the time my child is old enough to understand, they'll be in school and then with me after that.
You are 26 years old & can barely cope with your MiL.
You cannot possibly be planning to leave a defenceless baby with her.

@Unsure1748

this man and his mother are abusing you. He knows you will wake up and see the real abusive him, so he wants to trap you with a baby. It's a very common tactic.

Forget everything he said to you prior to marriage, that was to reel you in. Look very hard and close at his behaviour now. He is bullying you, manipulating you, pushing your boundaries, you've broken down crying and begging him to stop. What decent man does that?

THIS IS THE HONEYMOON PHASE.

This is as good as it gets. It will never get any better, even when you move out or have children. In fact, it get worse if anything.

His mother is an abusive bully and he is his mother's son. An abusive bully. Who's trying to trap you with a child so it's harder to leave. And he's trying to make you give up your job after having children so you become fully dependent on him and can't leave.

You really need to leave, for your own sake and that of your future children, should you want them.

However, I've now come to the conclusion that I'm not wrong for wanting to wait.. I am ALLOWED to have these wants and desires because it's MY body that's going to be impacted, my finances, my emotions and quite frankly, my entire life more than anybody else's. I think I just need to realise that I'm not so powerless and helpless, I'm the one with the uterus after all so really it does all depend on me. Nobody can force me to do anything against my will and I won't have a baby before I'm ready. The pressure is just very hard and uncomfortable to deal with. It plays on my mind for ages afterwards too and torments me.

Why do you feel you have to continue enduring this torment?
Is it the sunk costs fallacy - pinning all your hopes on the new house?
Moving out of MiL's place isn't going to change your H's attitude.
If anything, he will ramp up the pressure, because he will believe that you now have no 'excuse', & must start baby-making.

He's already isolated you from your friends & family.
He wants you barefoot, pregnant, & in the kitchen. Financially dependent on him.
All that guff he gave you about loving your intelligence & drive? Lies. Some men prefer strong women, they're more fun to break.

I suspect you are just about managing to hang on to your sanity by working very long hours & dreaming of moving out of MiL's. Unfortunately, MiL's attitude & behaviours are going to follow you to your new house. Her son is of the same mind she is, & neither of them are going to rest until they have broken you. I am not being melodramatic. Many PP's on your thread have experience of controlling relationships & yours is extremely worrying. We know the patterns, we see the signs - the women posting to you have centuries of combined wisdom about this shit. Please listen. You are strong, but you are wasting that strength on barely holding your sanity together in an abusive situation.
Imagine how you would fly, if you were freed from it.

This.
OP - he is putting you through mental torture.

It won't stop if you give him a child. He will find new things to torture & control you about. He will continue ganging up on you with his mother. He is more married to her than he is to you - you are the third wheel in their obsessive, enmeshed relationship.

Why OP - WHY?

Why are you gradually giving more & more of your one precious life over to this man?

You shouldn't even be thinking of childcare options.
You shouldn't be holed up in your PiL's house, dodging bullets left right & centre.
You should be focused on your new career, & out having fun with your friends.

You are 26, & all your husband is offering you is dead end after dead end.
You're not allowed to rent, you're not allowed control of your own womb, you won't be allowed paid childcare, you're not allowed to stop hearing his opinions on all the ways you are lacking as a future mother until he's made you cry.

What is making you stay & endure this shit?

Yes. This is it. I actually typed a similar word for word response about the childcare to another poster. I know I'm jumping way ahead of the gun here as none of this has even happened yet but I know he is very stubborn. He will be firmly against childcare I predict as he will think it's pointless. He will say why are we paying for childcare when my mother has offered to help for FREE? I can't say much to that e.g. about her toxicity without things getting heated as he will be biased towards his own mother and probably say something like just because she was that way with me, doesn't mean she'll treat her grandchild that way and how I'm just being paranoid. He'll probably then say I should pay for it as it's what I want, not him and he earns much more than me. Paying for that childcare will eat so much of my wage that I'd feel quite anxious and vulnerable. But, I'm definitely considering it. Unfortunately, it isn't my decision alone.

It could be ALL your decision alone.
You are just with the wrong man.
Do NOT have a child with him. Ever.

Why on earth would you want any future child to have to grow up in this batshit family? Why would you put yourself through that? If you are going to have to pay 100% of childcare anyway, why would you choose your H as a father, when you could use a sperm donor, & do it all your own way?
Or meet a decent, respectful man, who wants to have DC with you in partnership?
Or even find out that you're not as committed to having a child as you once thought you were, & skip the whole thing?

You are so young. So trapped. Can you even remember what freedom feels like?

You understood my thoughts SO well and you read my mind - what you said is exactly what I've been doing. He didn't say he'd help with the pick-ups and drop-offs, so I assume I'd be doing that. YES, I've been tying myself up in knots trying to find a job that would facilitate all of this and accommodate for the school holidays as I think I'll struggle with my current job (7am to 5pm, 5x a week). Then, as you said I realised I couldn't find a job to accommodate for this so the next best thing would be to become a SAHP.

No.
The best thing would be not to become a parent with this man & his family.
You still seem to be operating on the principle that it's an inevitability.

How can OP "enjoy" her coercively controlling marriage?

And what makes you imagine that her bully of a MiL should A) have any kind of influence over her child or B) be allowed to continue to control & manipulate OP via her child?

It's hard to believe you are agitating for OP to hand over even more of her already precarious personal autonomy over to this awful family.

To be honest, I don't think there will ever be a right time to have a baby with someone like that, who sounds totally unsympathetic to your emotional distress, and also to the horrid way his mother is treating you! He should be washing his hands of her treating you like that or at the very least having very firm words with her telling her it is not acceptable to do so and will not be tolerated!

Are you sure you don't know already that its not a good idea to have a baby with him and that's your real reason for feeling anxious and unsure about it? X

And if these issues are here now....it will only get worse with the stress of parenting

Your MIL will 'win' any dispute in how to raise your child in future if you have a baby with this man. Your DH will ensure it.

Think long and hard before having children with this man. Ever.

Honestly OP I'd be concerned having a child into this family based on what you've said about your mother in law, sounds like she'd be visiting a lot and taking over or insisting you visit and sounds like your husband would go along with it.
You are not old at all and have plenty of time for a child.
If you do want to stay with him and have a child be sure your strong enough to stand up to them. All the best

Your husband's 'love' comes with strings. He wants you to behave yourself and be a good little girl. Sadly, it seems nothing anything of us can say will make you see this. A man who truly loved you would not behave in this way.

Oh sweetheart. Having a baby with this man is NEVER going to be the right thing to do. It's clear you aren't ready to accept this relationship is doomed but please stick to your guns and make sure you don't get pregnant.

I agree with everything you've said. I've read it all and you're absolutely correct. My own mother echoes a lot of what you've said too. Despite not being from here, she also upholds many British values and is much more open-minded and modern. Strangely, MIL is so backwards and conservative. Hence, she clashes with me repeatedly regarding everything as I am the polar opposite. My mum has always been a working mother herself and when I told her about what DH wants, she wasn't too happy either.

She said it was up to us ultimately, but how I'd worked far too hard at university and put too much effort in over the years to just give it up and become a SAHM to please somebody else, and how it wasn't wise to be financially dependent on somebody else in case it all goes wrong. She suggested working part-time, so I could continue maintaining my financial independence, could continue contributing towards my pension, maintain SOME form of sanity in case I need a break from my home life, and if God forbid anything happened to DH what would I even do? Working part-time also allows me to progress through my career, a bit slower, but I can still progress. Conversely, if I came back to my career after 5-6 years off it'd be so much harder and I'd be well out of practice. At least if I have my own income, there's a second income to fall back on. Therefore, I'm going to rule out the SAHM idea totally now despite the problems it's going to cause.

Yeah, I'm just not going to let all this baby pressure stress me out now. I need to put myself first. DH is older than me and has had those extra few years to travel, socialise and make money. I'm further behind and I've told him this. I need more time to build myself up and focus on ME before putting a baby first. I will do that when the time is right, I'm confident. Ugh, I can just tell when it's my birthday, the lectures from MIL will start again about how I'm now another year older and how I STILL haven't gotten pregnant. Just need to let it go through one ear and out the other.