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.

Again, you haven't read my posts...

Who said I want a girly girl? Loads of assumptions in your response...I was a tomboy myself.

There are ways to guarantee a daughter (adoption,etc...)

I definitely think you should learn to appreciate the two boys that you do have. You have a healthy and happy family, why fix something that isn’t broken?

I knew someone who desperately wanted to try for a third. They had two of the same sex but desperately wanted a chance having the opposite sex. They got what they wanted, except their third child is severely disabled. Not the child they ever imagined having. Not saying that it would happen to you & your husband, but I wouldn’t risk it. Just be happy as a family of 4.

I know a woman who was in a similar situation, she now has 5 boys.

Unfortunately we don’t always get what we want in life. I totally understand your feelings however. I would have loved a second child but it was not to be. I was sad about it, but I came to terms with it and was grateful that I’d had a child at all.

You have to find a way of coming to terms with this. Your husbands reasons for not wanting a third child are just as valid as yours for wanting a daughter.

it just takes time to get over it. But you must come to terms with it.

IVF is a bad idea and the idea of gender selection I find distasteful.

sometimes we have to be grateful for what we have…

perhaps have some counselling to help you get over it

No social worker or adoption panel would approve you to adopt because you have some idealised fantasy of what it means to parent a girl. Adoption is about finding parents for children, all of whom have experienced trauma in some way. It is not about fulfilling your needs.

My SIL wanted 3DC, my BIL wanted to stop at 2DC.
They had a 3rd, and she is a lovely little girl (they now have 2DD and 1DS).
My BIL is permanently stressed (all. the. time.) even though my SIL does the majority of the childcare. It's like he hasn't got enough bandwith for 3DC.

Personally I think they should've stopped at 2DC

You have a fantasy daughter in your head. I can guarantee any daughter you have, if you had another child and it was a girl, would not fit the fantasy.

Children are separate, individual people. They don't exist to fit into the mould their parent(s) choose.

What is the fascination with having a girl ? you do not know what sort of relationship you will have with her? And i speak as someone who doesn't get on with her mother and tries to spend as little time as possible with her.
Girl year above me in school sounds like you. desperate for a girl tried for years and hade 5 boys, rumor has it she paid to get next pregnancy's to be a girl ( don't hound on me as Dunno if its true or not, its just what was said ) Three months after having so wanted girl, got pregnant again, again another girl. Now has 7 kids ranging from 12 years old to baby, drives a converted transporter van, doesn't work, husband works all hours and they literally look ragged. Dunno how they afford it, nor how to give individual time to each child an also time for themselves. I think you need to defo see a counselor and deal with this yourself

OP how can you be sure that the aching for a daughter will go away if you have a 3rd son? It may be even stronger, and harder to deal with, when you have a new baby to look after.

I knew someone who had 3 boys and wanted a girl. She went ahead and had another child, and sure enough, she had another boy. She loves him but really isn’t interested in him. Her parenting days are done. She delegates childcare for her youngest whenever she can. Never goes to school events, never takes him anywhere. She openly admits that had she known she was going to have another boy, she wouldn’t have got pregnant again.

You need to get some therapy to work through these feelings, because there’s really no happy ending here unless you get your mental health under control.

Those poor boys.

This does kind of interest me, as the child of a mother who was absolutely desperate for a daughter.

My mum was very close to her mum and sisters, and always wanted a daughter of her own.

She got a daughter (me) but we're absolutely nothing alike and have never really had a good relationship unfortunately.

I think she had a picture in her mind of what having a daughter would be like, and was determined that we should be what we imagined. In reality I'm a disappointment to her. We have nothing in common, I don't think we could be more different.

On the other hand my DH and MIL are very close.

I'm sorry to read this. It's not fair.

You should read this post a few times, OP.

Isn’t it just?

I does come across that you love your boys. For their sake, I would try to get to the bottom of why you’re so desperate for a girl, and explore how to let it go. You’ll inevitably hurt them by breaking up the family and - even if that’s not the case - they might very well feel that it’s their ‘fault’ for not being what you wanted.

There are swaying groups on Facebook, maybe if you show your husband how you can sway the odds in favour of a girl he might be more inclined to give it a shot? I think what people are saying about you more likely to have a 3rd boy is untrue.
Gender disappointment is a real thing and you are not alone in wanting a certain gender. Most couples ideally want at least one of each.

Each baby is a 50/50 chance or maybe slightly more likely to be a boy as more boys are born each year than girls. Out of couples with 3 children the odds of having all of the same gender is 12.5%

www.quora.com/What-are-the-odds-of-someone-having-3-sons-and-no-daughters#:~:text=The%20odds%20of%20someone%20with,%3A1%2C%20or%2012.5%25.

just imagining this thread... in reverse

man comes here saying wants a son and will divorce wife as she doesn't want more children. the mumsnet mafia would hunt that bastard down lol

You need to grieve the daughter you don’t have. If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to move forward and fully enjoy being a mummy to your two boys and it will destroy your relationship with your husband

I did this when faced with multiple failed ivf cycles when trying for a second child and my partner said no more. I couldn’t imagine facing a life with just an only but then I grieved the child I would never have. Once I did that I realised how much I missed out on my present family by looking forward to my future family. I wouldn’t have it any other way now

If working through this alone is not working, you need to seek therapy to help

I admire the many PP here taking extensive time to address your emotional wants, because frankly I think it comes down to: "you need to stop being so bratty".

I feel for you. My husband has changed his mind about having a fourth and I feel gutted that it's the person I love the most who's chosen to take away the dream I had of four children, which we hoped for even before we married.

It's so frustrating isn't it, when you're grieving for what could have been, and you know they could fix it.

But please don't end you marriage over it - this is the "for worse" bit that you vowed to keep married through.

And don't do that to your sons. Like so many new parents, did you murmur promises to your babies that you'd put their welfare above your own?

If you leave now you might feel some temporary triumph that at least you've made the strength of your feelings known, and your husband has got "what he deserves". Honestly, any relief is likely to be fleeting though, given there's a significant risk you still won't get your longed-for daughter.

But your sons? Their life will only be worse for it. Even if they forgive you when they learn the truth as adults, they still won't get their family restored. No more celebrations or even just bedtimes with both the people they love the most. Please don't do that to them.

Who knows, your husband may yet change his mind. But even if he doesn't, please don't destroy your sons' happiness and security for a what would still be a small chance of meeting someone else and having a daughter one day.

How will that resentment go away if you get pregnant and wind up with son No 3?

The only possible answer is counselling.

Might not fix it but at lease you'd have tried

It sounds like you are seeking to deal with past trauma or disappointment by controlling your future. But you cannot use a future daughter as some form of therapy to fix whatever was wrong or absent in your relationship with your own mother. Please try and reflect on this, and how unfair it would be to any future child and to your 2 boys. Even if you went on to have your daughter, you would be placing such an unreasonable level of expectation on her and on yourself, based upon so many years of idealising this hypothetical, perfect relationship, which is bound to be so different in reality to what you expect.
You really need to consider having counselling to resolve these issues. You may not feel in control of your feelings at the moment, but you really are in control of whether you seek help, or risk destroying your family.

As a mum to 3 boys, please go to therapy. Whatever the reason you feel like this, it's not healthy and it's not fair on your sons or DH.
It also really stood out to me that you love your family, adore your sons, but never once said you love DH.
Massive issues there that a 3rd child wont fix. It's not normal to want to leave your husband because he didn't produce a girl.

So what if he resents you for No 3 if you do go ahead?

I can't see if you mentioned how old your boys are? I too wish I'd had more, but partly that's because mine are now 10 and 7 and I think I could cope with one or two more now the first two are more independent. However, I'm probably too old!
You are only mid-thirties, you've likely got years of fertility left. Obviously you can't bank on your husband changing his mind, but is it possible in another few years when your sons are a little older he might be keener for another? If I were you I'd work on trying to improve your families finances by getting more qualifications or a new job, or working on a small side business.

You would rip apart your boys whole world just on the off chance you meet a man in the next couple of years who wants a child with you and even then theres a 50% chance it’s another boy?! No matter how good your co-parenting is, being shuffled from one house to another every week is horrible for children.

Take a deep breath and start delving into why you feel like this and how to get over it. This may mean therapy.