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 had a very similar experience to OP except I wasn’t bothered about boy/girl, I just needed another child. I totally understand how she feels. We decided to have another child even though my husband was reluctant. I was ready to divorce. The resentment was too much to continue. I wasn’t being babyish, I didn’t need to grow up and there was no fixing the problem. We didn’t agree and there was no path where we could both be happy. The reality was that every fibre of my being needed to have another child.

we are now 5 years on, having had that extra child and we are both very happy. Those 5 years have been rocky and involved lots of resentment from my husband but we survived and are out the other side.

IMO you can’t switch off the physical need for another child.

I am not devastated I have boys. Have never said this. Not here, not in "real life".

I am saying I would like to add a girl to my family unit and this has always been a longing of mine - having girls.

I have never in my life said I didn't want boys. Nor am I resentful towards my children.

Would you be saying the same to someone wanted a third child irrespective of gender? Why aren't the first 2 enough? Why don't you want the first two?

You are saying this post is about how let down you feel because your husband won't give you what you want

Grow up. Get therapy. Work your head out.

This is NOT about your husband being unfair

Its about YOU being unreasonable

But you can't see that because you need therapy

Thank you. This is similar to what I feel

Why is there so much hate on this thread? All the OP wants is a child and that is driven by biology. She’s not selfish, she’s being honest about what she wants. OP - you are not doing anything wrong, other than being open about what you really want in your life. I get it but I don’t have a solution. I convinced my husband. If he hadn’t been convinced, I think I would have been unhappy for a very long time.

Would you be saying the same to someone wanted a third child irrespective of gender? Why aren't the first 2 enough? Why don't you want the first two? it’s not remotely the same.

You love your boys because they’re here, but you didn’t want boys, you wanted girls but have had to settle for boys hence this emotional need for a 3rd child.

But actually if someone was threatening to divorce their husband over his refusal to have a 3rd child I would absolutely tell them to get over themselves. And I absolutely think that too would cause resentment in the existing children that their mother was so fixated on having another child that she was prepared to destroy their family over it.

My mother always wanted a boy. She told me that, more than once.
I'm an only child. We never bonded, she didn't want a girl, she made that very clear. I was a disappointment from the day l was born, so far as she was concerned. I was (and still am) quite feminine. My mother never was, she'd been tomboyish as a child, never cared about clothes, hair, makeup, and she had no idea how to relate to me.
You're lucky enough to have two children. You're aware of this. You're also aware that there's no guarantee of having a girl if you have another. There's no guarantee of having your dream child of a 'girly' girl, even if you do.
What if you had another boy? Would you break up your marriage and your family, and still not have a daughter?
My friend got pregnant with a much wanted baby three years ago. At eight and a half months, she lost her baby. Stillborn little girl. She's never been the same since.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles. Some people would give anything to have what you have. Your husband doesn't sound like a bad man. He's thinking with his head and logic. He sounds like he wants his family to be financially and emotionally stable.
I've never been in your situation, nor will l be, l lost both of my babies a long time ago and it's far too late now.
I'd think about some of the very good advice you've been given on here. With respect, this isn't just you about you. There are others involved.

You can say what you like, but your boys will know they weren't enough and if you were to have a daughter they would know she was wanted more. You would treat her siffetently and it would show. If you feel.so strongly about having a girl, you are deluding yourself that it would be any different. You really need therapy not a third child. Harsh but true.

I am repeating her suggestion back to her to demonstrate how ludicrous it is.

you say that 'Adoption is an option' as a means to have a daughter,

This is just horrific! Oh yes, children who need adopting are absolutely there to fill a gap in your desire for a daughter. Good luck going to try and get approved as an adopter and saying oh yeh by the way I only want a girl. I absolutely cannot STAND people who talk about adoption as a 'back up' choice to get what they want as if the child is a pawn in a game of creating a 'perfect' family.

aside from that and FWIW I do vaguely understand your resentment or anger that you would like to try for another child, and your husband doesn't (I don't understand the desire for a specific sex, but as others have said that is what therapy/self reflection is for).

That is tough. Loads of people are in this situation. Loads of people desperately want another child (or even just ONE CHILD fgs) and cannot have them due to fertility issues or financial issues which means they can't afford IVF. none of that makes it easier for you but I'm not sure what you are posting for or why you posted in the way you did - it's weird that your husband wanted you to post this and edited the title as well to get interest / whatever.

there are other threads about people desperately wanting a second or third child and who cannot have them, and are supporting one another. Maybe you are better off trying to find support there if that is what you are after.

Exactly. What if her husband told her he wanted a divorce over it? This is indulgent if you have an otherwise good relationship

She’s not selfish,

Yes she is @Pinkoctopus6. We can't always have what we want.

All this aside OP I actually know someone who went down the route of needing to have another child. They just wanted one.

Somehow she got pregnant with twins. They were born prematurely and suffered brain damage as a result, and now both of them will need 24 hour care for the rest of their lives.

What she imagined to be their perfect family imploded overnight.

Oh and they ended up divorced, so now she spends most of her time caring for the babies she desperately wanted and now sadly, wishes she could turn back the clock.

Be careful what you wish for.

Why is it selfish to strive for what will make you happy?

I have never in my life said I didn't want boys.

You are saying that when you're considering going for IVF though. Most people who get IVF want all the precious embryos they create, even though they aren't physically able to have them all. But you, and anyone else who goes for sex selection, actively don't want them all. So, yeah, don't say you've never said you don't want boys when you are willing to destroy the ones you'd create through IVF.

You wont say anything like that about the boys you have now because you know it would make you a horrible person. But it is clear to most people that you would rather at least one of them to have been a girl.

I absolutely do not rather one of them be a girl.

Please read posts from other parents that have been in my situation, further up the post. None of us don't want out current children nor do we we want to change them in any way.

I wish to ADD a girl to my family. Not change the two boys I love.

That's pretty much the definition of selfishness 😂

You said "sods law I got 2 boys" it sounds more like they're an inconvenience than wanted 🤷‍♀️

I was replying to the poster who said they couldn't believe someone would put this in writing, the person I worked with was devastated; didn't say you were did I?

Both plans are bonkers.
Having another child won't necessarily result in a girl.
Is there a way to choose a girl accurately?
Divorcing because your boys are not girls is going to really mess up your boys.

Find a way to feel thankful for your husband and boys.
Revel in your own femininity.

Join a girly group, like Hip Hop class.
Apply to be a foster carer and a mentor of little girls. Having a girl visit for one weekend a month could really make a difference to her life and it will teach your sons more about women.

You will have a special bond with your daughters-in-law, nieces and grand daughters.

Be arsed she's damaging other people's lives as a result

You didn't want to have boys though. You've just accepted them because that's what you got. If you had a choice at the time, you would not have chosen them. Just like if you did go for IVF. You will choose rather than leave it up to chance again.

Because 🙈

I understand the yearning for a girl. I was desperate too, and I’m am still mourning the loss of the girl I will never have. The friendship that we would have built and the girly experiences we would have shared. I look at friends little girls and feel desperately jealous at times. And in part I acknowledge I yearn to create the bond I never truly had with my mother.

I too have two boys. The first I was genuinely happy when he arrived (plenty of time for a girl, I thought), but for my second I was much more focussed on having a girl. Then I had four miscarriages and went through several years of trying for that second child. At points I just wanted, needed, a baby - boy or girl, to get over the pain of the miscarriages .

When it finally happened, he was a boy. I had huge relief he was here, safe and well. But privately (without even my husband knowing) for a few days after I mourned the loss of my dream girl. After the pain and trauma of try to conceive for so long, I knew I couldn’t face that again. And even if I tried and were successful, and it was another boy, it knew that would not be fair on anyone.

I do know your pain. You can, and will, move on. But the grief does always linger.

Because again, these are two different things! Wanting a child versus wanting specific characteristics for a child are worlds apart. What you envisage doesn’t exist. Your attitude towards this is genuinely shocking, and I feel so sorry for your husband, your current sons, any future daughter and any future son - all for different reasons!