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.

If it is the desire for frilly dresses, a gentle toddler who loves signing and dancing and Disney princesses, having tea parties, and as she gets older feeling like you can only properly bond with a daughter in a woman-to-woman way you can't with a son then you need a head wobble because that's just not guaranteed. It's not mail-order for a child with a particular personality and set of interests. Will you get a girly-girl, a tomboy, a girl who decides she's trans when she hits her teenage years. Who knows.

Gry and see it from your sons point of view. You would be willing to break up your family just because you want a girl. Have a think about how you would feel towards a third boy?

I am very much of the opinion that if both partners don't want another child then you don't have one. Forcing someone to have a child they don't want isn't fair on them or the child. And in this case your existing children.

It sounds like therapy may help you come to terms with this and find some acceptance for the family you have.

I would do this. The point of my thread is my husband doesn't not want a third, even if we could guarantee a girl. He will not budge.

Please, please get some help with this because at the moment the message you are sending to your boys is that they are not enough. Whatever in your past has driven this you need to nip it in the bud now before you damage your boys.

I’m sorry. Having a difficult mother-daughter relationship is tough. But having your own daughter isn’t the way to resolve it. I suspect you want to go back and have a different experience of being mothered, and be the mother that your own mum couldn’t be to you. But having a child is not the way to resolve those feelings.

Please seek a therapist who can help you unpack that and help you provide for the child inside you that needs mothering. That pain is very real. X

I'm sorry for how you feel and also sorry for the stick you've been given on here. You're not saying you'll break-up the family fhs, you're just explaining how sad you feel and how you can't help blaming your (blameless) husband. I do think you need to talk this over with an expert as the only things you can change (that you have control over), are your feelings.

I'm a twin with an older sister and, when my twin sister emerged, my father apparently said, "I thought at least one of the twins would be a boy!" and turned awsy. My mother told us this some years after his premature death and I struggled to forgive her for repeating it when it was too late to know whether he got over the disappointment. I hope you are able to come to terms with your husband's decision even though it's such a painful one.

Sadly, you are being really illogical. Get some therapy and explore the reasons for this. Wanting a girl is one thing but risking your family unit to achieve it is very foolish.

Sorry you are feeling this way, it must be horrible. X

So, if he agreed and you had another boy, would you resent him then? His reasons for not wanting a third child are sound- logistical and financial, apart from the emotional side of things.

If you resent him and you carry on resenting him, you’re going to ruin your relationship anyway.

The trouble is, OP, you don’t want a third child. You want a daughter. And not just any daughter, but one that’s going to fill a very specific emotional hole that you haven’t been able to fill yourself.

Im afraid the chances are that if you have a third child you’ll have an unhappy one. Because it will either be an unwanted boy, or a girl with a massive weight of expectation on her. I also can’t really see how you can protect your sons from these feelings. If you have a girl they’ll see how you treat her differently.

It doesn’t matter what the back story is, it won’t make this the right answer. Right now the only answer is therapy to get past the big issue that you’re trying to fill with a baby. Can’t you see how unfair that is on the poor baby?

You’re in an impossible situation where really your only current option is counselling to get to the root of and try to heal the pain you feel.

I have 2 boys, now teens. I think as they get older the relationship you have with them is so fulfilling that it wouldn’t matter if they were male or female. I have the same relationship with my sons as I had with my mum. It'd be the same if I’d had daughters. Also, having my son’s girlfriends in the house is great!

I hope you can heal your pain.

"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."

Having a third isn't a compromise, it's not something you can compromise on. A child is a child. If you both want the child at different times you can compromise on timings because end result is a child you both wanted. Having a third is you having a child (over 50% chance of it being another boy) that he didn't want! You want him to give in, not the same thing.

@Dottytea this is tone deaf and offensive.

So here’s the thing.

I was a “wanted daughter”. Except, my mother had a very fixed idea of what a girl should be like, she didn’t want a daughter really, she wanted a doll. Something to dress up in frilly frocks with bows in its hair and play with. Something to do exactly what she wanted.

I didn’t turn out like that and it’s no coincidence that I am very much not the Golden Child.

Therapy is what is needed to fully unpick your feelings and help you move past this before it becomes the loose hand grenade in your family life.

No I wouldn't resent him for having a third boy.

My resentment is for not being willing to try. We could have gender selective IVF, for example. I'm not saying this is the route we are going to go down.

My point is simply, I resent the not being willing to try.

Yes completely valid that he doesn't want to.

That doesn't stop me feeling hurt and resentful.

With my first born I didn't have any preference on gender. It was my first pregnancy and it was all new to me. I just wanted a happy, healthy child With my second, after having a boy, I was sure he would be a girl. He's a boy and I want him to be a boy. He is my amazing boy. I don't want to change him.

I think the post has been massively misconstrued.

I DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE OR REPLACE MY BOYS. I want them to stay just as they are. They are amazing and loved beyond measure.

I want to be given a change to try for a girl to add to my wonderful family.

Thank you. This is really helpful. I appreciate the empathy and you have understood the vain of the thread.

OP your feelings are valid and don’t let anyone tell you/ make you feel otherwise.
your husband is selfish for being so rigid and not taking your feelings and needs into account. There should be a compromise. To me I couldn’t tolerate a partner that showed such little consideration and regard for something so central to my happiness. YANBU for feeling resentful and considering leaving.

But what if your daughter doesn't meet your expectations? What if she's a complete daddys girl? Complete tomboy? Behavioural issues or disabilities? Having a girl will in no way be guaranteed to meet your expectations or guarantee a good relationship with her.

@Tandora but there is no guarantee that having another child will result in a girl. Will the OP be even more desperate for a girl if the third child is a boy?

I DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE OR REPLACE MY BOYS. I want them to stay just as they are. They are amazing and loved beyond measure.

But they are not enough. This entire thread is literally premised on them not being enough for you.

And not in a “our family isn’t complete, we’d love a third child, I’d love them to have another sibling” way, because it’s clear that you don’t want a third child, you want a daughter. Can’t you see how damaging this could be?

I sympathise with the wish for a girl- my only daughter died at birth and I secretly hoped that I would have another (I already had 2 boys when she was born). Instead, my next 2 pregnancies were boys (I didn't get pregnant to have a boy though, and the last one was unplanned). It sharpens the loss sometimes, to know that I will never experience having a daughter.

However, very few people get exactly what they want in life, and far fewer get the number and sex of offspring they dream of. It helps me to remember this, and to accept the wonderful family I have as a great gift. Accept your sadness and try not to struggle against it, or it will just eat you up.

This possibly sounds harsher than it is meant to sound and I'm sorry you are so upset but I agree that you would possibly benefit from some therapy to deal with your feelings.

Life for many people doesn't turn out the way they hoped when they were children for numerous reasons - some people can't have children at all, some people end up on their own, suffer bereavement, illness, a million things could happen. Most of us recognise what we dreamt about as children isn't always the reality of the hand we are dealt with.

Your husband could agree to try for a 3rd, you get your daughter, but actually she's nothing like you imagined. Then what?

I am not saying your DH is correct in his decision but I do think decisions as big as bringing a child into the world should be based on logic and reason when you already have 2 children to consider and not a childhood dream. He is quite right to worry about finances etc, a 3rd child to support would be a big change.

I do find it worrying that you say you spend a lot of time crying, especially when you have 2 children. That can't be good for them to be around. I do think counselling may help you come to terms with things. On the face of it, you have a lot to be thankful for, far more than many, while I understand gender disappointment is real, it's a shame to grieve for an imaginary child you dont have when you have 2 actual children right in front of you.

Of course it is a bloody chore and for many a difficult process. I would rather have been able to get pregnant shagging my husband. Choosing to do IVF because you must have a daughter is mad to me and many others.