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.

No I wasn't sure. I've got 2 DS and my DB had 3 DDs so I think our % were higher 😅 Not a betting woman, but if I were, I'd not be betting I'd have a girl DC3!

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain

But why does it have to be his choice only?

Because when it comes to creating a new life, the 'no' voter gets the final say. It's the only reasonable path because a child deserves to have both of its parents fully on board with it being born! That's not to say it's unreasonable to have discussions and really talk through all options, but at the end of the day if one partner says 'no' to a child then they get the final say. And their partner has to decide if that 'no' means the end of the relationship or not.

This really resonates "I found the wording interesting when you said "feel like leaving". That tells me that you really really don't want to but the desperation is such that your brain is forcing you to think of every way around the situation."

I absolutely do not want to break my family up. You have worded it better than I could.

I was a practising therapist. I would definitely be suggesting therapy.

You’re being totally selfish. You may not leave your husband but he may leave you if you go on like this. You need therapy . There are millions of women who would do anything for either but can’t. Count your blessings.

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

sorry but you do need to hear that because it could be your reality. A 3rd child your husband doesn’t want and another son you wished was a girl. Utter madness

You are more than welcome. What I would say is seek therapy. You deserve happiness and deserve to enjoy your lovely sons and husband.

I saw your recent post about how therapy wont change how you feel. That's the thing about therapy though, it will help because it will deal with the negative thoughts you are having. Right now you can't see that because you are entrenched in this terrible thought process.

If you don't, OP, I think you will lose so much more. You are deeply unhappy. What harm can therapy do? It surely can't get worse than this. Can it.

So as your husband has asked you to have therapy and a load of people, including therapists, on here have said you need it, will you consider doing that for your family?

trying for a third won't guarantee a daughter

trying for a third won't guarantee a daughter

trying for a third won't guarantee a daughter

trying for a third won't guarantee a daughter

trying for a third won't guarantee a daughter

OP, I do understand in a way. I had a miscarriage and then fertility issues. At the time I told my DH that if I couldn't have a baby, I'd leave him and move far away (he had DC from prev which were a constant reminder). Yes I felt totally unhinged in my thinking. It was all I thought about and I was deeply unhappy and resentful. On the brink of IVF I fell pregnant naturally and had my DC at 41.

Gently and respectfully, I think you need therapy, talk it through with someone. Such strong emotions are not going to go away on their own.

I’m not sure if you are in the Uk or not , as you mention sec selective IVF which is illegal here, so you would need to go abroad.

You will also be unable to adopt in the UK for the sole reason to have a girl. As a single parent you would be seen ( by placing social workers ) as less desirable than a two parent family.

There are very few healthy babies ( of either sex ) available and you would have little / no chance of getting one. The only exceptions are if you are black/ mixed heritage or you could consider a child with significance disabilities , as there are more of these children waiting.

As you already have two children you would have to show how you could support and care for your existing two children along with a traumatised toddler / young child. You couldn’t work FT for example.

Social workers would want to interview you ex husband, so you would not be able to conceal your motivation for adoption.

If you live in the Uk and plan to adopt abroad, you still have to be approved by the authorities here.

So no I’m afraid it’s not possible to “ guarantee a daughter “. Let alone the kind of daughter you have in mind.

So I would strongly urge you to get some counselling or therapy , to help you learn to live and be content when you don’t have everything you want. You are not alone, most of us live with lives that are less than perfect.

You need to learn to be happy with what you have. And not ruin the good in pursuit of an unattainable dream.

OP, I think this is where therapy could be most helpful, even if you take someone else’s suggestion of doing therapy for a year and then rediscussing a third child. But since you have said you feel no pressure to make your child “a girly girl” (since sadly, many women who long for daughters DO envision them as a sort of doll they can dress up), perhaps it would be helpful to unpack what you feel you can do with a daughter that you can’t do with your sons, and whether that’s realistic or not (it’s not just about her liking dinosaurs instead of dolls; she might be neurodiverse, she might end up choosing a different gender, etc. All things that would hopefully not affect your ability to love her unconditionally). But therapy will really help you get the heart of what you think a daughter is and what you think a mother/daughter relationship is, and why being a decent, loving, caring, supportive parent to two sons either can or can’t change or satisfy those feelings for you. And whether you and your DH can then work through that, to either decide on something like sex selective IVF or put the whole matter behind you.

Even if your husband agrees and you go for sex-selective IVF, therapy would still be a good idea. In grief, we can fixate on an imagined solution but life often doesn't work out that way. Whatever the root of this pain and longing, it probably won't be healed by giving it what it craves. The chasm will open up in a different area of your life because the reality of having a daughter will not actually solve the issue.

It is hard to fathom that you can ever find peace and acceptance when you are in the throes of grief. It doesn't seem possible. But you can get there - not without hard and painful work, but you can. Find a therapist, don't be afraid to change therapist if one doesn't fit. Work towards peace, even if you do get your daughter one day. Because she won't be the answer you're thinking she will be.

@Stephjea it’s worth remembering that the daughter you get may not fulfil your need either……what if you end up with a fractious relationship with a daughter who rejects your parenting?I have always felt the weight of my mum’s disappointment that I am not the sort of daughter she wanted or envisaged.As a mother of girls, my being a mum has brought up a lot of my own mum-daughter issues and if you have pain from your own mothering you may need to look into this first. We often replay our own historic family issues within our own family unit that we create unconsciously so sometimes we need to learn to break the pattern.

@Dottytea well that’s great and wonderfully lucky!

I don’t see a problem with it and would have done it had my ex been up for it. Instead we did a girl sway. Now I’m late 40’s and my kids are all grown up or nearly (youngest is 16 soon) I do look back and think I was a bit obsessed and silly over it but you can’t help how hormones and longings make you feel. To most on here it makes no sense and they genuinely cannot understand one bit how the OP feels as they’ve never felt those feelings. I was part of an online boy/ girl gender preference group and I’m still in touch with some of these ladies 20yrs on. Interesting most did go on to have the gender they wanted (most wanted daughters after 2 plus boys but some the opposite) naturally (with some swaying) and one lady went to California and did IVF, implanting 2 eggs and ended up with girl triples to add to her 6 boys! No-one in the real world apart from her mother knew she did IVF as no-one would have understood. She adored her boys but she was willing to remortgage her house for the 30k package she chose and was fortunate to get pregnant on attempt no 1. I guess they are around 14 now and I’ve lost touch with her now. Another lady who had around 5 boys in a row went on to have 5 girls in a row, and very similar for another. I guess if you have lots of babies the odds mean eventually you’ll have opposite gender. For me my 3rd was my final baby regardless of gender. I have a career and we had no family so childcare was expensive so it wasn’t practical. I was very grateful and felt super lucky to have had the girl I longed for to join my beautiful boys.

I genuinely have a great relationship with my boys and like most women in these situations it’s never about not wanting the gender they already have. Most women feel ashamed for having these feelings as society reacts like many of the posters here and accuses you of not loving your boys. My boys have no clue I was desperate for a girl, neither does my daughter and I doubt I’d ever tell them. Because I don’t ever want them to think they weren’t wanted, especially DS2 as I was delighted when he was born. All of them. Society is very judgmental about sex preferences / gender disappointment.

What if you actually had a daughter? You would favour her so badly over the boys, you would alienate and damage them. While smothering her/expecting her to live up to your childish fantasties of what having a daughter is. You need to get some professional help to be able to love the children you already have for who they are.

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

This!
You need to examine why you want a girl. Is it this idea that she will always be by your side, or be like some female friend you can go shopping with? Because some girls dont grow up like this and some daughters have difficult relationships with mothers. Some boys on the other side are very dedicated sons and some love shopping.
I also wanted a girl, but had 2 boys. Thats life and I wont change them for anything in the world. I wish I had more children and possibly a girl, but its not reasonable for us and Im not going to be miserable since I have 2 children. Some women cant even have any.

I kind of wonder, does OP's DH not want a third child (and daughter) because he's happy with what he's got e.g. sons. Lots of people want things (not necessarily boys/girls) that they can't have.

This. YABU it’s all about you, you’re literally prepared to break up your family for this…

I just read your post again, one woman who had 5 boys in a row went on to have 5 girls in a row. WTAF?! Mind blown!

I know you don't want to go into details about the past Op but there's obviously something there that drives this desperate need for a DD. Events from your past, especially in childhood, can leave very strong emotions that go with us into adulthood. Even though you're not that sure about therapy if it could address those emotions it might help you to look at the issue with more clarity.

There’s no evidence of that. My daughter has never been treated with any preferential treatment. Not unless you include not wanting her to walk through a woods where there’s been sex attacks so she’s had more lifts to school.