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.

OP you haven’t said if you will now go to counselling?

Yes. Counselling was already being discussed prior to posting. I think I mentioned this further up in the post.

Apologies if that’s the case, the only messages I read were those that said he’d asked but you didn’t think it would make a difference. Definitely give it a go before you make any further decisions and after a course readdress the issue depending on your feelings.

I had my dd through ivf. I’m very drug sensitive, which I didn’t know beforehand and the hormones from the pill (which I took to regulate my cycle) damaged my health. I managed to have dd after a few attempts and had several embryos in the freezer.

I really wanted another child and grieved that I’d never be able to as to do so would be to risk my health and risk not being able to look after dd at all. When she was about 3 I remember seeing the little boys a year older ‘graduating’ from nursery ready for big school and desperately wanting a little boy. As I say, I’d already grieved a lot for the loss but I just remember seeing those little boys and really wanting one of my own.

Dd is 15 now and she briefly dated one of those boys last year, now a great big strapping lad. I still would very much like to have been a mum to a boy. Well I’d really have loved to have had more children full stop. I’ve collected dd’s friends over the years and been a bit of a second mum to them. Always available to chat or for advice. Some of dd’s friend’s parents are the same with her.

My advice is to fill your life with the joy of other children. Many will cross your path and make your home a happy house that your ds’s friends want to hang out at.

@caringcarer

You can't choose the sex of your DC, unless you adopt a DC. Then you get to choose. Would your DH agree to adopt a DD?

This is absolutely not how adoption works.

I'm adopted. I find the framing of adoption by some posters, who seem to think it's similar to picking something you want out of a catalogue, really uncomfortable.

In 2024 in the UK, if you said to professionals in the adoption process that you want to adopt a child as long as it's a specific sex, you would be booted out of the process. Rightly so.

I can understand your longing. But I think even if you then did have a girl, you would be wise to seek therapy to avoid putting on her whatever it is you’re hoping to correct through your relationship with longed-for girl. So either way I think you need help.

edited to fix typo.

Talk to him about what he can do for you in recompense for letting your dream go.

I'm not convinced that this will achieve anything.

He doesn't want another child. End of. His objections - financial, emotional and emotional are all totally reasonable.

Definitely need therapy. I can't imagine bring so incredibly ungrateful when having 2 wonderful children to be carrying on about grieving and 'spending my days crying'. Seriously try taking your head out of you ass and take a look around at the world for a moment.

only a few posts in and people have suggested therapy so I’d be asking yourself why you want a girl, what that actually means to you, how you feel that would make you happier. What is it about having a girl you feel you need?

Back in the day before they allowed you inside once you were crowning and dumped you back on the kerbside within 20 minutes of your placenta plopping out?

Joking aside, that is a really sad story. Not sad for her. Sad for that poor little boy.

I hate to break this news to you, but boys are just as likely to be assaulted as girls are in woods.

Some people are not even blessed with one child, please look at your life and be grateful.

Hello op, slightly different take here. Think more about the idea of having a third child, because if she did arrive as a third girl, the fact it’s a third baby, child and adult will be felt more than her sex. Do you want three children? Did your partner ever agree to three children? Can you afford/live your lives how you want with three children? Imagine in five, ten and fifteen years time how that might look.

Have you also sat down and spoken with your husband about why he doesn’t want a third? Sit and let him talk - let him go through all the reasons and listen. Perhaps there is a reason you hadn’t thought of - either you can think about that for yourself or support him in understanding how that worry could be ok. The mere fact of listening to him and going through it all sensibly might help him understand where you’re coming from a bit more than you going on about wanting a daughter. Talk about it logically together.

Honestly I have no idea why anyone indulges this kind of talk.

The only people I think are deserving of sympathy here are the two boys who are always going to be second best.

I think the only good thing that could come out of this would be for you not to ever be able to have a daughter.

Get a grip and be grateful for the children you have rather than being prepared to destroy their lives for the sake of your own selfish wants which will probably never even come to fruition.

Do you think that your boys deserve to be part of a broken home, deserve to spend 50/50 between you and their father?

And what if your now husband goes on to have more children and has girls? How will you feel about your DS’ having sisters while you’re single and longing for a child which was never meant to be?

No sympathy here I’m afraid. You need to get over yourself.

Sounds like you need therapy not a divorce.

What? You drove your daughter to school to avoid walking through the woods where there had been sex attacks but not your son/s? Feels like pretty extreme preferential treatment.

Maybe the husband would benefit from a divorce though.

And the OP’s DS’s who will at least spend half of their lives not having to feel that they’re not good enough because of their sex.

You keep saying you can't help how you feel

YES, YOU CAN

If your feelings are causing you and others to be unhappy and in pain.....then you work through your feelings in therapy, to get through them and out the other side

Stop blaming your husband....this is YOUR shit. Deal with it

Please do not adopt a child to try and fix your past. Children who need to be adopted have already experienced trauma. They aren't there to bear the weight of being responsible for living up to someone else's ideal. Adoption is for people who want to give, not take. The fact that a wealthy woman feels entitled to just choose a vulnerable girl like you're picking sweeties in a shop, to try and heal some issue or other from your past, is stomach churning.

I'm sorry if you are hurting. But children don't exist as therapy aids for sad adults. Get some therapy and take responsibility for addressing your own issues in a healthy way. You are a very fortunate woman. You have two beautiful children, a husband who seems to have his head screwed on and a very comfortable lifestyle. Don't ruin it for all of you.

Totally agree. You can't know that human being until they are there. Daughters are not dollies to dress up and pose in different positions and outfits like Barbie. They aren't there to be the miniature embodiment of you. You can't re-live your youth vicariously through them, necessarily. Maybe you'll be their friend and confidante but maybe you won't.

The relationship with a daughter may be nothing like you envisage it to be. They may be much harder work than your sons. They may not ever be your 'best friend' in spite of all your efforts. My sister has a daughter who is the most difficult to get close to of all her four children, three of whom are boys. She doesn't understand her at all and my niece keeps her mum emotionally at arm's length. The one she has the closest, easiest, most 'daughter-like' relationship with is her second son, who tells her everything. Her DD is prickly and tells her nothing, resenting any intrusion into her personal life.

You really need to get past your idealised image of what having a daughter will be like. As much as it would be sad to be lumped with a third son who was a disappointment the second he plopped out, it would also be sad for a girl to be born to such fanfare only to disappoint you hugely jlater on, just by being herself and not conforming to your dreams and expectations.

I’ve read your posts . You’ve said plenty of times you love your Boys and you love your family , but , you’ve never said you love your husband. Maybe this is the issue .

Just leave. Divorce him, meet someone else, marry him , then have a baby girl..............that sounds like it's a solution.

Yeah, because it’s that easy isn’t it.

Frankly any man would be mad to get involved with someone who essentially only wanted them for their ability to have a daughter.

Imagine getting together with someone, and the pressure they would feel under to provide a daughter right away. Any man faced with that would likely run a mile.

I worked with someone that had 2 boys and was devastated. Would regularly tell us how much she wanted a girl.
I wonder if she ever did and his the boys feel knowing their mum didn't really want them 😟

I am far from a wealthy woman and I am certainly not trying to "buy a child".

We are high earners with pretty high outgoings (which is the case when you live in London believe it or not). We are doing ok, we are not wealthy. Which is neither here not there as this isn't what the post is about. My husband is right that paying for nursery fees will stretch us. I think it's doable. He doesn't.

I haven't commented on what my plan is because as I have said I don't want to go do down that rabbit hole. I haven't said whether I would want to adopt or whether I would choose gender selective IVF (I have said I would consider the latter). I am merely saying there are options out there and have named a few.

I don't feel this post is about any of the above so will leave it at that.