Third child or divorce AIBU

[Stephjea]

Hello all,

This is a long one so please bare with me.

My whole life I have wanted daughters. I can remember being a little girl picturing my adult life with 3 daughters by my side.

Fast forward and of course it's sods law that I have ended up with two boys (who I absolutely adore and wouldn't change for the world).

However, this longing for a daughter has not and will not ever go away.

I am now 35 and desperately want to try for a third.

My husband is point blank refusing - according to him due to financial, emotional and logistical concerns.

I appreciate the first 3 years will be tough but I can only see passed this and my longing for a daughter.

I am absolutely broken and just can't see how we can get passed this.

I don't want to break up my family and don't want to put my children through divorce but can't see how I am going to move on from this.

I feel absolute resentment towards my husband and I spend my days crying. I just can't accept I will never have a daughter of my own.

Please no comments on trying for a third won't guarantee a daughter - I know this and don't need to hear it.

To add some back story. My husband is a few years older than me and wanted children before me. I wanted to wait a few years before having our first but understood his want and need to have one there and then. I feel like I compromised for him but now he won't for me, which adds to my resentment.

AIBU to be so disappointed and resentful that my husband won't budge for something that means the absolute world to me?

I appreciate I can't force someone to have a child and appreciate his concerns are equally valid. But right now all I feel like doing is leaving him which I can't and won't do due to my boys.

You need to get some therapy to deal with this. You are willing to break up your actual sons’ home for a potential daughter snd you’re effectively trying to blackmail your DH. How do you think your sons will cope, pressumsbly with a life time of therapy to get over not being enough for their own mother.

I meant to add - you'd destroy your marriage and your boy's lives for this???? What if you met someone else and had more boys? Life never works out the way you want.

They are good enough for me.

You wanted a son but can't understand I wanted a daughter?

Like an earlier pp, I was never the daughter my mother wanted me to be (I have 2 brothers). I was always aware that I didn't fit her expectations of her only daughter and it massively affected our relationship.

You are obsessed with a fantasy - a child is a child.

I have a daughter who is now a son. So even if you give birth to a girl - it's no guarantee she'll stay one. And you need to love her/him unconditionally regardlesss to be any kind of parent.

Because sex selection in this country is illegal. It opens the floodgates - if you can choose that, what other genetic aspects should you be able to pick? It’s genetic engineering and hugely unethical. Do you think that sounds a good idea?

Read my posts please.

There are ways to guarantee a daughter (adoption,etc...)

As someone adopted, I wish that myths like this weren't perpetuated. Adoption isn't like picking children from a catalogue. If you said to anyone involved in the adoption approval process (in the UK at least) that you wanted to adopt a child as long as it was definitely a girl, you would be booted out of the process immediately.

I agree with others that therapy could be life changing for you and be a way of dealing with the childhood wounds you have without making another person (your hypothetical daughter) in some way responsible for you healing them.

This. I have two boys - I can’t say I was particularly bothered about having a girl, I didn’t mind either way - but you need to get your head in gear very quickly because you will make your sons feel second best and they do not deserve that.

I’m sorry if I’m too blunt, but you need to put your existing children first and not your desire for a girl.

There’s a difference having a preference but accepting when it doesn’t happen - and behaving psychotically for the quest for something when you don’t even know what you’re looking for.

In terms of getting over it, what do you advise your boys to do when they want something they can't have? You can only change your attitude to the situation. Yes it's hard, but feeling joy and acceptance of where you are means it's worth it.

I recommend practicing meditation and gratitude, trying to live in the moment and challenging your version of the future. It's very powerful to take control of your thoughts and the way you experience your time on this earth

I didn't mind whether I had sons or daughters. Given a choice I would have chosen sons - and as it turned out, we had two of them. I felt I wouldn't have known what to do with girls once they got to the teenage stage. I'd have been out of my depth if they'd wanted makeup, pop concerts etc.. The advantage of sons is that now I have two wonderful daughters-in-law - and their mothers have brought them through the teenage years and I now reap the benefit of them.

If I was your dh I would refuse to have another child too, even if I wanted a third.

Because if you want 'a girl' you will not see the person behind, and she will never be able to live up to your fantasy of what having a girl would mean. Which would be damaging for every single person in the family unit.

I know someone who was like that (but with a boy). The boy changed gender as soon as they had a choice.

Don't make another whole human to deal with your psychological issues. You won't fix them, they'll only be passed on magnified to the next generation.

I think you need to suck it up and get over it tbh. If you have another there’s a high chance it will be another boy…..will you then want to try again for baby no4?

I wanted a boy, always pictured having one of each but ended up with 2 girls, for a while I wanted to try for a 3rd but the thought of having 3 girls was not worth the risk. I got over it.

You can't force someone to have a child, who doesn't want to have a child.

Imagine the uproar if the situation was the other way around, and it was a husband trying to convince a wife.

If you did go ahead and have a third child, and it was a boy, he WILL find out about all this. And imagine discovering you were the child no one wanted? Dad didn't want you, full stop, and mum only wanted you if you were a girl?

Sorry OP, I can understand your disappointment, but you need to find a way to get over this.

I think you do need to try to reconcile your feelings. Maybe get counselling just for yourself or couples counselling to discuss the pros and cons of a third child and see if either of you can change reconcile yourself to the other's view.

I think there is a danger in hoping for a girl though if he does agree - even if you have one they might not turn out to be the girly princess type you are maybe hoping for.

I had a friend who was the eldest of 5 girls - parents kept trying for a boy. I know a family now who wanted a girl and had 5 boys before she turned up. The mother made no secret of it and spoke freely, so it's very unlikely the younger boys don't know what a disappointment they were.

It's great to have goals and be determined to meet them but it's also healthy to know when you need to let go of them for the greater good.

OP please keep reading and re-reading. @stormywhethers321 post. Your DH has suggested therapy, and I strongly believe you should do so. ANY further discussion with him about any theoretical third child should only happen after you’ve spent some serious time unpicking your very strong feelings and motivations on the subject. Where you sound like you are mentally right now does not sound healthy.

But you didn't get a daughter. And it looks like to get one (which might not ever happen), you'd ruin 3 lives that didn't need to be ruined.

OP , you say you'd consider adoption . You cannot simply adopt because you want a girl , that would be awful . You keep saying you agree that therapy is needed , please get it sorted .

Of course you’re being unreasonable, you’re being flat out ridiculous.

I understand as I had 2 boys and my ex said he didn’t want anymore. In the end he agreed and we had a daughter. She’s 16 at the end of the month. People may judge and make accusations but unless you’ve ever had that longing it’s impossible to understand. I did some crazy girl away and became quite obsessive over it. My daughter is great but so are my boys and like you I never wanted to replace my boys and truth be told I’m closer to both my boys than my daughter.

You are being utterly ridiculous. As you yourself state, even if you had a third you couldn't guarantee that they would be a girl. I know gender disappointment is a thing but you are taking it to extremes. You need to suck it up and stop living in fantasy land. I am very sorry for both your sons and your husband. Big girl panties, please.

As other posters have said YABU, sorry. @Stephjea , could you wait until your boys were older and your hormones have calmed down a little? And then discuss with your husband about fostering or adopting a girl (that's the only way of guaranteeing a girl and even then she could be trans or a tomboy or anything). NOT if your obsessive fantasising continues and to treat her as an accessory or for self-gratification, but if you genuinely believe you arent done with parenting and could contribute something positive to a young girls life. You could have an older child where the first few years won't result in sleepless nights/nappies etc which I can understand your DH's point in not wanting to go back to that.

You’ve mentioned adoption again without responding to posters who have commented that adoption is not some kind of easy, consolation prize. You clearly know nothing about adoption. I’ll say it again: children waiting for adoption are not there to fulfil your needs. They are not a fallback because you want a girl. Children waiting to be adopted have experienced trauma and need families who understand the long-term impact of this. It doesn’t matter whether a child is adopted as a young baby, or as an older child, all children who have been taken away from a birth mother and possibly other caregivers, have had a disrupted start to life which will affect them in some way. Add to this that many birth mums have experienced high levels of stress while pregnant, have taken drugs and alcohol, and that birth parents may have significant mental health problems or learning disabilities and you can see that most children removed from their families may have to deal with multiple genetic and/or environmental issues which affect them into childhood and beyond.

Adoption is often described as ‘parenting plus’ because adoptive parents have many more difficulties to face as a result of their childrens’ early life experiences. This doesn’t just end when they join a new family, it can affect their entire life.

I am an adoptive parent by choice. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. My daughter is thriving and outwardly appears like the other children in her class. However, scratch the surface and she has huge issues with self-esteem and anxiety, finds it hard to cope with change, is extremely jealous of any other child getting any attention from me and still won’t sleep alone at age 7. She was adopted at only a few months old. She is my absolute world and I’m so proud of her. She’s loving, funny, clever and incredibly kind. However, I face far more challenges than the parents of her friends. They don’t have to deal with talking to their children about how their mum was a sex worker and that birth dad is unknown. They don’t have to negotiate talking about really upsetting stories of their child’s first few months of life or the truly horrendous experiences of their older siblings. They don’t need to struggle with explaining why their older sibling has disabilities caused by birth mum or why birth mum keeps having more children who are taken into care. Our life may seem the same as everyone else’s but in so many ways, it isn’t.

To anyone reading this who may have an interest in adoption, please do consider it if you’re willing to deal with these issues, not because you want a particular sex.

Thank you. Understanding posts like these help to put things into perspective.