To call off the wedding because he won't get a vasectomy

[Messymaker]

Me and dp, 27, have had dc not too long ago. We both agreed for various reasons (health,money ect) that we don't want another child and that is that. Whenever we get pressed on when we are going to have the next one dp always calmly responds with "we won't be" and it made me feel relief that we are on the same page.

Without getting into details i had a horrible birth and pregnancy and have been told that if I have a second I will have an increased risk of getting certain illnesses. Even to this day I'm still suffering with side effects of the pregnancy, which I don't know if it's normal or not. But at 27 I've accepted my body isn't the same anymore and is more like used goods. I've come to peace with never being the same condition again.

Dp agrees he would never want to put me through it, and values me and dc we have now as a priority.

Great!

So we have discussed many a times, him getting a vasectomy. Mainly because it's more accessible and easier for him to do rather than me get my tubes tied. He said he would start looking into it all. Except, nothing has come from it. As a consequence I don't want to have sex with him as I'm scared about any risk of pregnancy. Yes we use contraception but we all know that isn't full proof. The other night we talked about our wedding for next year and I brought up the topic of the vasectomy. He very quickly said "but its so permanent"....

Now I'm so confused. I said to dp I thought that we agreed we was on the same page. Yes we are still quite young fertility wise but we've had the substantial amount of experience to know another child isn't what we want, and pregnancy on my body is definitely something I CANT and WONT have again. I said to dp that inclined he may want the choice to change his mind down the line and if that is the case who does he have in mind because it won't be me?

Now I don't know what to think. I have this horrible gut feeling he will secretly want kids further down the line, we will get married, he will realise this and leave me for another woman. I don't understand where any of this has come from. Dp has witness first hand how awful it all was for me and said he would never want to inflict that trauma onto me again. But clearly although he parades around telling others and me he doesn't want another child he subconsciously does?

In this the end of our 5 year relationship? Do I call off the marriage. I'm so confused and tired from the thought of this a

We agreed we don't want children.

another perspective- at 27 I can understand his reluctance. It may not be that fact he wants more children or he will leave you. He might be worried you might leave him and then he is committed to no more children with someone else. I know a widower who remarried & had to undergo a reversal. There are all sorts of scenarios to take into account.

If you double up on protection condoms plus pill/Mirena you'll be pretty well covered. I physically and.mentaly can't cope with being pregnant ever again and yet I don't want to do anything permanent. Maybe he's not ready to let go completely, maybe he is thinking of possible scenarios where he might regret having a vasectomy, aor maybe he just doesn't want to do that. His body, his choice. If that's a deal breaker for you then it is what it is.

For what it's worth, I completely agree with you, OP.

Also, I agree that you shouldn't go into a marriage planning for divorce, but you can never plan for being widowed

Yes this!!!

No, I think you should, and get sterilised while you’re at it.

If you won’t then you must want more children. That’s your logic, right?

I don’t think I’m missing the point. I think you’re missing the point. If you are this unwavering and adamant about your needs then this wedding isn’t a goer in the long term anyway. What if you die (god forbid) or he meets someone else in the future and changes his mind about more kids? Your controlling behaviour is trying to take that choice away from him. He is 27!!!

I think he should call off the wedding tbh.

@yogasaurus thats good for you. Go tell him then.

Really??? I am sure that the OP didn't realise that!

Thank you so much for your unhelpful input.

@mnhq - I don't think this post should be taken down just because an OP didn't get the answer they wanted. This might serve as a usual point of reference for anyone debating this issue in the future. They're welcome to leave the thread, but that doesn't mean it should be deleted.

@Ribena20 go make a thread about the same issue then.

Your many years of experience and maturity are really shining through OP.

OPs getting a really hard time here and it reads like you're now getting sucked into catastrophic thinking about the future, so the thread probably isn't helping much.

In case you're still reading, I wonder if it helps to think about it this way.

Practically, him having a vasectomy would give you profound relief about the fear of getting pregnant again, and enable you to have sex without the attached worry. I get that (and they are really important things)

From a relationship point of view, it sounds like you want him to be willing to do something for you that in some way compares or makes up for the trauma your body has undergone through pregnancy and birth. You also need assurance that he isn't going to leave you over the 'no more children' issue. I get those as well.

He quite possibly doesn't see it as "keeping his options open" as all. It might just churn up feelings for him that he's not articulating very well. But while it is reasonable to not want to make really permanent changes to your body at 27, regardless of what you hope and plan for the future, I imagine that's a very hard thing to empathise with when you feel your body has been changed irrevocably by having your joint child.

I would talk about the second set of things rather than the first, otherwise you'll get stuck on the vasectomy issue and not resolve the important feelings behind it. It might help to unpick it with someone neutral / a good therapist, as well.

But I really feel for you, hope you can work it through.

the naivety of a 27 year old. Bless you .

@Screwballs yup. Just as much as all your lovely personalities are too

That got hostile from the OP fast. Don't marry him. You don't seem to want to.

I'm male and got a vasectomy at 38. We have two young children. I was put under NO pressure by my wife. Literally ZERO. In fact she was erring on the side of caution and actually didn't want me to have the procedure due to the small but significant risk of long term pain and complications. Not to mention the what ifs ...for example, we split up for some reason (even if she got sick, god forbid, and died) and I got with someone else and they wanted a child. I just said no, two children is what I want and even if I lost one of them or we split, I wouldn't want another. Undeniably if we did lose a child though, who knows how I'd feel, but I thought at 38, personally, I felt old enough to not want to go through it all again.

He's only 27. Think of an awful scenario where you and your child die and he's alone in his 30's, now infertile. That would go against him if he wanted to try and move on and find someone new. Thankfully this scenario is unlikely but it could still happen. As could divorce, people change. Even individual decisions change. He might not want a second child now, you might not want a second child now, but for whatever (unforseen) reason, this could change.

It was great that my wife was very supportive thinking of my health and my future options first and foremost, even considering herself not being present in my life. For what it's worth, she had two horrible births, two emergency c sections, a baby in ICU, weeks and weeks in hospital pre one of the births.

You don't seem to have this same regard for his health or future, and no wonder he's not sure at only 27. YOU get your own tubes tied as it's so important to you, why should it fall on him? You'll still be fertile and free to change your mind in ten years etc... Correct???

Lucky escape for HTB if this is how conflict resolution is managed in Op's home.

Unfortunately MNHQ panders a lot to posters who stamp their feet crying “but it didn’t go my way!!!”.

I also had a difficult pregnancy and birth with a lasting health problem so I can understand your feelings about it. I'm currently pregnant with my second and I'm both surprised and pleased to say that it's been going so much easier this time round. It's true that every pregnancy (and birth) is different, it can be complete opposites even like mine. I never expected it to be this way.

Also, just because you feel very strongly about something now, doesn't mean you'll feel the same in 5+ years time. I think you are also failing to see that someone resisting to limiting their options isn't necessarily looking for the nearest exit at that moment. As PP have said, what if you or your child die? What if you break up with him? What if, when you're approaching the end of your fertile years (or another time), you unexpectedly long for another child? Also as this is something you seem to feel more strongly about than him, why pressure him into surgery when you could get your own tubes tied?

No one can tell the future, including you, so it isn't wise to cut off your own abilities or pressure your partner to do so. Also at 27 I'm sure you have various life experience for you to have formed these ideas but really you are still very young and there is so much you or him are still to learn about life in general. It's ironic but you're being quite childish about this.

It might be worth pointing out that your attitude about this situation might be as powerful as a factor as you pressuring him to get a vasectomy, in the sense that this shows him that you approach problems/disagreements by making threats and demands instead of discussing and making decisions together. That is naturally off-putting when finding a marriage partner. Ask yourself if your ideas about fertility plans are more precious to you than your partner, and consider your approach from that point of view.

Maybe take a step back from this whole vasectomy idea for the time being until you're feeling a bit calmer, so you can be more rational about this and make a decision together rather than one person forcing it. Sorry but I mean this in the best way.

@LadybirdLover do you not have anything better to do rather than try and start something? It's so old and boring

What? You have only to look at the number of threads from women asking if they can end a relationship/marriage for X, Y or Z reason. You do not need a externally validated reason to end a relationship. If more people realised that, we'd have fewer people trapped in unhappiness.

Then do what YOU need to do for YOIRSELF to protect YOUR body! Why are you expecting him to rescue you when you can easily protect yourself?

Essentially the post is :

I want my partner to have a medical procedure (which it seems he does not want) to make him permanently infertile (not considering his or your future) or else I will not marry him. I have no intention of protecting myself and need him to do it for me.

@Messymaker

OP, the bottom line is that you can't force him to have a vasectomy and the truth is that he is a young man thinking of the future. A future that you might not be in. You are going to have to accept that or leave him. You could die or you could get divorced. At 27 you are way too young to realise that life can change in the blinking of an eye. You seem to want this bloke to lay himself on some sort of sacrificial alter to prove his love for you. Well, tough because life isn't like that. If you do leave him are you going to insist that any future partner has a vasectomy, if so good luck with that!