Can men be content without children

[Anyoneorderachinese]

Hi all
Long term user but have NC as quite identifying alongside my other posts.
Just wanted some thoughts on this as I'm in turmoil about it.
I am 40 and have one child with my XH. Very difficult birth with DD and complications (she needed complex surgery when born) which made the following few years very challenging. We came through the other side and she's now a happy and healthy pre teen. Relationship with XH broke down and we have been divorced for over 5 years.
2 years ago I met a new partner who is amazing. It's the most loving, calmest, healthiest relationship I've ever been in. He's 10 years younger.
From the start I made clear I do not wish to have any more children and he has consistently said he understands and is fine with this.
The worry rears it's head now and again that down the line he will change his mind and want children. At which point it will be too late for me.
Just trying to process this as it keeps rearing it's head.

There's been a few posts like this on here recently and all I can think is if it's such an issue for YOU why are you dating men who don't already have kids in the first place?

Of course they can. Not all men want children.

Been married 26 1/2 years, together 31 and we don’t have children and we are both delighted with that. Known him since I was 11, we were in the same year at school, same English class. For the first 15 years of our marriage, I was a teacher and he was in the RAF, so aside from not wanting to have children, we thought it was not a great idea to do that while he might be sent away for 4 month detachments, while I would still have to carry on with life at home including my FT job. That gave us another excuse to those that asked.

It’s been 11 years since I left teaching, and I’ve since had a hysterectomy. Best thing ever, and he agrees.

So he's 30? Difficult. My friend's relationship broke down because her 32 year old boyfriend "wasn't ready" for marriage and children and at 35 we found out that he's had a baby with someone - we didn't even know that he was in a relationship! She was devastated.

The point is he changed his tune in a very short space of time. If he had just proposed by the time they got married and honeymooned and TTC he'd have been that age anyway. C'est la vie.

Yours might, or might not, but you do need to have a frank conversation with him and find out if he's really thought about this.

@PickledElectricity that's the opposite situation to the OPs tho-he didn't want kids and she broke up with him (I assume), then he found his next partner also wanted kids and probably just gave in. He still probably didn't really want them and will more than likely be a shit dad.

I’d say that the vast majority of men are more content without children. The amount of so called fathers who barely help out or have a relationship with their own kids is astonishing.

I think there's definitely a good chance he will change his mind, given that he's only 30. I'd be more comfortable committing to a guy 40-plus who says he doesn't want kids.

My ExH was pushing me for a child. 10 years down the line (after we separated when DC was 1 year old), he hasn't bothered to see him for 9 months, made no effort for Christmas or his birthday this year. No card. No present. No phone call. Not even a text.

I'd say even if they like the idea of children, when it comes to reality, whatever form that takes, the novelty wears off.

Most of the men I know want children. I think a lot of men say ‘I don’t want children’ because they can’t say ‘I don’t want children with you’. Like women, there are also quite a few who genuinely don’t want to have them.

Common advice here is that women need the legal safeguards that come with marriage. If you were married you would probably be a little more confidant with his answer.

Just by reading your thread title alone I'd say yes. OP

He might say he's fine with it now but he is still young and hasn't had a child of his own so if in the future he does change his mind and wants to have children and decides to leave you for someone who could accommodate that you really can't be too upset about it as the age gap is substantial enough for you to accept a possibility of potentially growing apart. All the best 💐

This.

In real life I've met few men who enthusiastically want everything that comes with parenthood. Most just go along with it and often are resentful.

If yours wanted a younger prospective childbearing woman, that's who he'd be dating. Enjoy your good fortune. Don't get financially entangled.

He maybe be or he might change his mind at some point
No relationship is guaranteed to last.

I'm another who's never met a man that was enthusiastic about kids beyond generic notions of playing football with a boy child or walking an adult daughter down the aisle. Like the way children think about getting a dog.

Back when my friends were having babies, my friends' husbands all seemed really resentful of the reality of parenting and they didn't do much of the work.

By contrast, the childfree men that I know are all really boundlessly happy with their lifestyle (as are the childfree women).

I think a lot of men can be content without children, and a lot go along with having them because their wives have made it a condition of their marriage. But I agree that talking to him is the best way to be as certain as you can be.

Honestly I think a majority of men don’t want children.

There’s a minority who do and then a large chunk who can take them or leave them but are fairly passive and reluctant to change their lifestyle to accommodate them.

But I think most probably don’t care.

If he says he doesn’t want them I would take him at his word.

My DH was around 30 when we agreed no children, and he's never changed his mind or regretted it in twenty years.

Men and women change their mind regarding having children. Yes, it's always a possibility. However, all you can do, is go by what he's telling you now. Some men aren't bothered about having children (as some women), and have the attitude, if it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. Others are adamant they don't want children, and nothing will persuade them otherwise. Your partner sounds as if he's in the 'not particularly bothered either way' category. Have a honest conversation with him. Tell him that you won't be wanting children in the future and as you age the chances of it happening dim anyway. Therefore, going forward he needs to be as sure as he can, that he doesn't want children of his own. There's not much else you can do to protect yourself.

This is all massively helpful, many thanks everyone.

Strangely, most of the replies are the opposite to what I've seen. Most of the men within my (different) friendship groups have been very keen for children, sometimes more so that the women. All have then been very hands on dad's and are all still together as couples. Maybe we're the anomalies?

The only polar opposite I've seen was like the friend of @PickledElectricity
My friend met her husband, seemed devoted to each other and both said they never wanted kids (they were late 20s) They had a sudden, awful break up and 5 years later, he's remarried with two children. She is also remarried but still child free by choice.

In my experience more men are content not to have children. They don't have the same biological urge that women do (obviously). I do think a lot of men sort of like the idea of having kids though, and are influenced by peer pressure, fomo etc. That's until the loss of freedom and the fact they're no longer number 1 in their partner's affections or attention hits home. Men really don't like that or understand it at all.

I do tend to think most men would like one child, preferably a son mostly if they have the chance.

Most of the most unlikely child men I know have had one then been snipped. They normally also don’t marry till a child has been produced and such we get the lovely snipped story in the speech.

Just be wary that many men don’t want children till they find a women they want children with or a women they want to keep who wants children. Many men have strung women along not believing in marriage and such to be married and baby on the way within months of a separation.

That’s a massive generalisation to make 🤣

Some men will be, and some women will be. There’s no universal answer. Entirely dependant on the man in question

I have never met a man who actively wanted children and suggested having them. Lots are happy to try or accepting if it happens, but I don't know a single one who actively wanted one. I'm late 40s and work in IT so could just be the men I know.

Well, if it's a priority for you to have a relationship with a man who will definitely never want to have a child with you, I'd focus on older men with several children from a previous relationship. A divorced friend of mine, who is about to turn 50, a high earner, athletic, good-looking, an all-round good catch, keeps being introduced to much younger women (30-35) by his friends. The snag is that he has three challenging, expensive teenage sons from his marriage, absolutely does not want and cannot afford another child, and these women often do.

So I think he's now tending to date women in their mid-40s for precisely that reason. I think it's hilarious that he's being thrown in front of incredibly glamorous younger women, and having to discount them on the grounds of children.