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.

I get the longing for another child - it’s can be really hard and you can’t just switch it off even if you know it’s not the right time. I do however think that if you only want another child to have one of a certain sex, that’s VU.

I had so many miscarriages and couldn’t care less if I had boys or girls, because I just wanted them to be alive.

I’ve got boys as it goes. I bloody love it.

When I had my second child the midwife was talking to me and the student midwife. She said she'd just delivered a baby girl to a woman with 11 sons, she was determined to get a girl. I said I felt sorry for all those little boys and she said she felt sorry for the baby. I didn't understand why and she said think of the hopes and expectations being carried by that little girl, how can she ever live up to it. When I thought about it I did agree.

How wonderful to have two children you love so much. You are blessed.

You keep repeating that you wouldn’t leave your marriage over this. Have you considered that in suggesting your thread title your husband is telling you he now considers your marriage at risk? That you need to come to terms with this or he will leave.

I said my husband believes we can't and I feel we can.

We do live in London which sways things in his favour

Absolutely

You're going to ruin your sons lives if you carry on. You're willing to ruin their family life because you want a girl? What do you think that's going to do to them? Start prioritising the children you have! What if you do have a third boy with a man that's been forced into it? That poor boy will be unwanted by both of you 🙄

Please don’t go for sex selection abroad. I’m sorry but unless there is a reason like genetic abnormalities affecting boys then its just deplorable.

Not without her dh on board

I'm sorry you're in pain about this OP, i can feel it in the thread and your replies but i can also feel an irrationality in it all.

You say you love your boys and I'm sure that's true but it's a bit disingenuous to say you wouldn't change them...you are literally considering gender selection to add the gender they are not to your family.

The only way you can ensure it's a girl is by adoption or IVF... Via both of these routes it will be known to your sons that you are going out of your way to have a baby of the gender they are not.

This is VERY different to having 2 kids and wanting a 3rd which you have mentioned a few times.

It's very clear that you're trying to fill a childhood void by wanting a daughter, having a daughter won't fix you. She'll be a human with her own wants and needs. All children are humans with wants and needs, boys are beautiful, girls are beautiful and the most important thing is that they grow into humans you like, get along with, are interested in and apart of their lives - that's no different if you have a boy or a girl in this day and age (thank goodness).

This is VERY different to having 2 kids and wanting a 3rd which you have mentioned a few times.

this

going abroad for gender selection reads “you weren’t enough”

trying for a third reads “we love having children so much we wanted more”

OP I think the root case of this issue I that you have formed an idea in your head of an ideal future with a daughters you have a close bond with. It's the movie you play in your mind over and over.
There are many daughters who don't get on with their mothers, many examples in my extended family.
I have a boy a two girls. By far the most affectionate is the boy.
If you get pregnant with a girl- have you considered she might not what you have in mind of that ideal relationship? I would explore all this in therapy.
I wouldn't have another child unless you deal with this first. All the best.

Even if your husband said yes. Even if you had the guaranteed female embryo and it implanted

you are NOT READY to be the mother of a daughter and potentially never will be and I’m sorry that this will be a difficult point to accept.

you really need to address the root of your desired for a girl before you even contemplate such a decision, as hinted above you cannot fix what has been with what could be.

Addressing the desire and reasons around your extreme desire to want a girl with a professional could likely mean you cannot and should not even try for a girl.

Practically The finances would be tight despite your income, if you went IVF there’s risks of complications and costs for childcare whilst you travel to get treatment abroad. The time out of work for treatment and recovery. There’s Potential for this to be quite frequently too.

ivf has quite a low success rate too. How many rounds would you insist on before you could accept it won’t work? When would you happily stop?

how much are you willing to abuse your body, because ivf is brutal and the medications and injections needed to Secure a healthy supply of eggs and prime you for implantation isn’t a walk in the park, and how much time out from being home, of being around your boys would be too much?

How will you cope with failure? Either naturally trying or IVF?

I think your husband truly knows all of this. He knows you well enough to say no and he doesn’t want any part of it.

right now he is seeing your current mental state around this decision, and knows that any failure to have a girl will likely consume you and irreparably harm you, him and your boys.

Please get therapy because you need to understand why you are so fixated on having a daughter.

A child's gender does not tell you anything about what they will be like or what your relationship will be, as you have acknowledged in some of your posts.

Therefore it is not about having a particular kind of child. Because that child being a girl gives you nothing definitive in terms of what else she would bring to your life.

There is something else going on. Some form of projection, wish-fulfilment, an unconscious desire to fill some kind of hole or make good some kind of pain which is emerging as a desperate and specific need for a daughter.

If you do this work, I really believe it will help. I hope you find a way through this, as living with this sense of deep lack sounds so painful. But it is not lack of a daughter, that is a metaphor your brain is latching on to represent some other kind of lack. Identify that and you can find peace.

I think the only way to come to terms with it is to get to the point where you can understand (and really feel it too) that the fantasy daughters you imagined are just that a fantasy. Even if you had a girl now, she probably wouldn't end up being the way you have imagined because you've built up an image in your head that a real person probably couldn't live up to.

In fact it could be very hard on both of you to try to 'live that dream' - would you be upset and frustrated with her if she wasn't the little girl of your fantasy. She'd end up feeling as though there was something wrong with her.

And what about your sons? Would they see you doting on a daughter and feel less than? I hope they don't know how sad you are all the time that they aren't girls.

What are you expecting to gain from a daughter rather than a son?

@Dottytea your default is to assume people "can't read" or "don't read" your messages. I read all your messages and I think you're tone deaf and offensive. HTH.

OP just like you before I started trying to conceive I wanted a girl, and even said I would do gender selection IVF one day to get it. However I went on to have multiple miscarriages and had to turn to IVF to fall pregnant even once - I realised how naive I’d been to think IVF would be worth it just to select a gender. It’s a gruelling, draining process and honestly I think only worth it if 100% necessary.

Might be worth posting why you want a girl so badly so people can help you process?

My parents adopted me after having quite a few sons and mother wanted her daughter.

Simply having a daughter doesn't guarantee it will be the fantasy you had. I was happily estranged from my mother for the last 30+ years of her life.

Sometimes fantasies aren't what we imagined. caveat emptor and all that...

Additionally you may have another son if you tried again, what then??

Honestly I think you are unreasonable. What are you saying about your life to date by effectively rejecting what you have emotionally? Your husband is allowed to have his view. You are placing unbearable pressure on him and your sons for an idea that might never happen. There are no guarantees. If you have a good husband then treasure him. This kind of indulgence is not one many women get to have.

I’ll tell you my story. My first child was a daughter who was incompatible with life and we reluctantly had to have a termination very late on to spare her agony after birth. It was awful. Then two months later I got pregnant again. I realised how much I wanted our baby to be a daughter. Of course the scan showed our child to be a boy and for a bit I was distraught, obviously my subconscious brain had seen our new baby as a replacement so I could pretend we’d just had our baby a bit late, and all the trauma hadn’t happened.

So our son came along and he was lovely, but I decided that a daughter wasn’t possible for some reason. I don’t know why.

Then five years later this little beautiful girl turned up but I love her no differently despite my earlier upset and really wanting a daughter. In fact I’d say I am more like my son, who enjoys a good talk about interesting subjects, whereas my daughter is very similar to my husband and less of a talker. She won’t do anything with me she doesn’t want to do, she won’t be dressed in anything I choose, it’s great because I’ll never need to worry about her being easily lead I guess, but she’s never been the archetypal doll like daughter people think they are going to get. I’ll be surprised if I ever get a girlie day out with her (actually she’s quite brutal when it comes to me clothes shopping).

Even if you force your husband into a corner and miraculously get this daughter, despite the odds being against you, you’re not guaranteed this mother/daughter thing you’ve got in her head. She may have other ideas! It may be one of your sons likes talking to you more, and is kinder when you’re buying a new outfit 😂

You get what you get, it really doesn’t matter what gender your child is, they’re all fantastic in their own ways. I wouldn’t want my son to feel that he was second best after the daughter I lost because he isn’t. I hope your sons don’t feel they’re second best to this mythical idea of a daughter you have in your head too.

I always envisioned myself with a daughter. Never ever envisioned myself with sons.

My first baby, a little boy, died 2 hours after he was born and after that, I was desperate for a girl. Not just another baby but specifically a little girl. So desperate. I cant even begin to describe how much I wanted her. I did get her and she is such a lovely kind little girl..... but funnily enough, I get on a lot better with my 2nd DS and we are a lot closer.

Now, if I was to ever have another, I would want it to be a boy 100%. I know your not supposed to say this, but I would be disappointed with another girl.

I always always wanted a daughter, never wanted sons. Yet I've ended up enjoying my DS so much more. It's possible that even if you did have a daughter you just wouldnt have the relationship you imaged. I know I dont and it's very sad

Going against the majority here. I also ended up with a DS, but still have the longing for DD. I think your DH is being too dismissive of your dreams and wants, especially after you compromised your desire to wait, to fulfil his dreams. I understand why you feel resentful.

I get it OP. You are grieving for the loss of a dream. For the loss of the daughter that never was. (If she is not to be.) and that’s what you’re not sure you can move past. And you are worried that as time goes on, you will begin to resent your husband, because he did not want to share that dream with you, whilst you’re still in your fertile years. You know the cost of gender selection IVF and feel you can afford this, so the only obstacle in your way is your husbands objection.

I don’t believe that means you love your sons any less, or regret having them. You’re grieving for what you do not have.

that said, I think there is some great advice on this thread that I can see you’ve read and took on board. I absolutely do think therapy will be the best thing you can do right now, so that either way, you can heal and not break up the family that exists right now.

I understand the disappointment of a partner not wanting another baby, I would like another and sadly my partner didn’t. It definitely made me feel resentful. It wasn’t about gender for me as I am luck to have both. I can also understand that gender disappointment does not mean you love your children any less. It’s more about your unbringing/maybe even certain prejudices you have subconsciously. I think however you should have a third because you want a third person/baby in your family not a particular gender as you may or be up disappointed (even if you are gauranteed a girl they may not have the relationship with you that you envisaged).
For me my partner is worried absolutely my health with another baby, and I am slowly coming to terms our family is the size it is. I want them to have more siblings in-case something happens to one of them (I mean is that crazy?! I don’t know, but let’s face it our emotions aren’t sensible)