Husband reluctant to start a family, advice needed please

[Confused857]

Hi lovely people. Sorry this might be a little off topic but I wondered if any of you has gone through something similar.

When I first started going out with my now husband I was quite young and was not bothered about having children, we both said it was not a priority and we could adopt in the future. I have since changed my mind, might be because I am getting older and my sisters and friends are starting their own families which has made me feel I want my own children. My husband in the other hand has even stronger views and feelings against having children which is making me very sad, we love each other very much and I am scared this could be a breaking point.

I think he is scared of losing his freedom of going out and on holidays and has never been great with children. So my question is if any of your partners/husbands used to not want children and then changed his mind? How did it happen? I do not want to force him to do something he doesn't want just to keep me.

So when you married you agreed that having children wasn’t important . But now you have changed your mind and you are hoping he will now change his mind .

Have I understood you correctly ?

Do you think you are being fair to pressurise him? Theres no compromise between a baby and no baby - you have to both want one.

All you can do is decide if this is a deal breaker for you. And if it is, then leave and have a child alone or with someone else.

I don't think you can change his mind. You both agreed it wasnt a priority and you're the one who has changed your mind so it's up to you to decide whether it really is a deal breaker and, if so, leave and find someone else.

How old are you now?

Unfortunately having children isn't something it's possible to compromise on, so you'll need to have a long conversation with your husband and if he really isn't going to change his mind you'll have to decide whether you want to stay with him and not have children or end your marriage in the hope that you'll be able to have children with someone else.

No easy answers to this one, sadly.

No, we didn't agree anything, in the few conversations we had we just said it was not a priority at the time.

I have not pressured him and no I don't think it would be fair. What I meant is that this could be a breaking point and I do not want him to agree to to keep me with him.

You can't change his mind. Nor should you want to. Having kids is the biggest life change you can make, and nobody should do it if they don’t want to.

Neither me or my partner want children, and we won't change our minds. If one of us did, it would inevitably end our relationship.

I'm sorry you're in this situation, but unfortunately I don’t think there's much you can do...

Firstly, I'm sending a big virtual hug @Confused857 - what a difficult situation to be in :(

Can I ask your ages? When myself and my now husband started casually dating 10 years ago, we were dead set against children. It was only about 4 years ago we had a conversation and agreed sometime, way in the future, we'd think about it.

We got married in 2018 and neither of us felt ready, yet. We both said we saw children in our future, but it wasn't a big deal for us. Last year I was definitely more ready than him, but both of you need to be 1000% on board. Sometimes, age comes into it. My husband didn't feel ready for kids until about 6 months ago and he's almost 31.

Sadly, though, if it an "absolute never" from your husband and you long for a child, as others have said you need to decide which is more important to you - staying with this person or potentially having a child alone or with someone else. It's an awful situation and no decisions can be made lightly. Sending gentle thoughts.

How old are you both?

To be honest it would be a deal breaker for me.
People can and do change but you should be honest with him about where your head is at and give him the chance to either come round to the idea or end it

Thanks for your messages, @MrsEmilyBI am 29 he is 34. We have been together for 7 years, married for 5. I am not sure he will ever feel ready, he sees having children as the end of his life. I really love him and need to think about when will be the best time to talk seriously about the future.

Honestly unless he is fully on board, parenting and raising children with him will be a nightmare. He won’t be as invested. If you were to split up, he may see the children as your responsibility. Don’t do it unless he wants to fully do it as well!

Hey OP. I agree with others in that you really both need to want children as there's no other way, and it's especially bad if he told you from the start he didn't want.

However, to give you a story to help, and because I have been in a slightly similar situation, my partner had always said he didn't want kids, especially whenever we were around his friends. When he was drunk he'd then sometimes say he did want, and then go back on it when sober again. Turns out he's always thought he couldn't have kids (he thinks because he's never had an scare' before that it means he can't have) and with further discussion together we decided he'd go get tested just so he could be sure and find out. Results came back he was above average for everything except having 1% morphology. Doctor didn't say anything wrong with that (they reckon having above average of the rest outweighs having the 1%) and basically told him he was all fine. Since then he's been totally on board and wants kids. We're even going down the IVF route (as it's been a few years of unprotected and nothings happened).
So yeah, it's not impossible for someone to change their mind, but you also can't rely/hope on that either because it will completely mess with your mind

You do just need to just talk to him. The fact you said you both agreed you both could maybe adopt some time in the future makes me wonder why that’s any different from you doing it naturally?

I know a lot of people take time to feel ready, and I have saw friends who were against the idea in their 20s who had a change of heart when they were older and now have children.

You said he thinks his life will be over if he has children, but why don’t you explain to him about the positive changes it will have? You can still go on holidays as a family. It also might be possible for him to keep some of his hobbies and still go out, but just less frequently? Maybe there’s some places he wants to travel to before your start your family? Myself and my husband felt like this in our 20s and we had a list and travelled to all the top cities together that we wanted to see and eventually have reached a point in our mid 30s now where we feel like we’ve been to the places we wanted to go and have had plenty of years to just be free and enjoy our lives as a couple.

I wouldn’t say you should force him but you can certainly speak to him and find out.

I must say, my husband hasn’t been around babies or young kids much but as soon as we started reading some books and watching some documentaries on pregnancy and babies, he really took an interest and he realised how much he also wanted to.

Don't try and change his mind. It would end in disaster.

@willithappen it is nice to hear your story, I don't think my husband has any deeper reasons of why he doesn't want children other than losing the kids free lifestyle. You are right, I can't really just wait and hope he changes his mind.

@heresince2020 He mentioned adopting an older child as he wasn't so keen on the baby age (crying, nappies, etc.) I guess the change of mind did happen to me but not to him at all. His brother had a baby 2 years ago and he moans all the time about sleepless nights, not going out at all which has not help much the situation. I have tried to say to him that a baby does change things but there are ways to still go out for meals, etc, like having a nanny or the grandparents to help so we can still do things as a couple.

I will have to talk to him to know what he thinks, I wouldn't want to get pregnant soon but perhaps in the next 4 years, don't want to wait that long hoping he changes to then realised I waited for nothing.

A baby does change things though. They are demanding and looking after them involves drudgery. As they get older it doesn't get easier, they just move through new phases. Financially they are a drain and one of you may have reduced career options due to the childcare requirements.

I have 2 DC (10 and 13) and have been a P/T single parent for over 4 years.

If you want them go ahead, but find someone who wants to share the journey with you as it hard work!

That's an incredibly difficult situation to be in and I'm sorry you're finding yourself here.
I know a few people who haven't discussed this at all before they got married and now they're facing similar to you.
If deep down you really want children, then don't make it depended on your husband. At the end of the day people mostly regret the things they didn't do, and not having kids is many people's biggest regret. I doubt that you'd be able to change his mind, but I would also say don't miss out on this because of him, you can't/shouldn't force him into it, what you said you wouldn't.
You love him, he loves you. Yet sometimes people can't give us what we need, in this case it's a fundamental issue. This might well be your breaking point.
With regards to his brother... yes, sleepless nights are horrid and a lot of freedom gets lost. But when your own child smiles or giggles or hugs you, it's the best thing in the world. Some people don't understand this, maybe they're just not made to be parents. And that's ok.
My family live abroad and since he was 6 weeks old we've been flying back and forth every other month. We still go on nice holidays. Maybe it's a less relaxing time, but it's different and we get so so much from it.
My sister was keen on getting married and having children that eventually her partner gave in. They now have two boys and have a nasty divorce behind them. They're still hardly on speaking terms.
Re-evaluate your marriage, this isn't a subject where either of you should be picking the short straw.

Agree with @Enough4me, it's more than just about free time.

The fact you said you both agreed you both could maybe adopt some time in the future makes me wonder why that’s any different from you doing it naturally?

Pointlessly creating a human being for an ego trip is vastly different to giving a home to a child that already exists and doesn't have one.

@MunaZaldrozoti you’re being very rude to be saying having a baby of your own is an ego trip while you’re in a conception message board full of people TTC. Time for you to leave this area of Mumsnet

Not sure Muna meant having a baby is an ego trip for everyone, more that although DC are hard work adoption is a way to help a DC that exists and already needs a family. Originally OP and partner discussed adoption.

I wonder if he thought it would be an option in his late 40s / early 50s, to have an older DC and bypass the younger child stage.

BTW I am glad to have my DC, but just being realistic that it is hard work.

If you do have a baby he’s likely to be completely unsupportive and resent you. If you really want to have children you would be better to find somebody else. You might also want to consider a fertility review so you know your options. I needed IVF at 28.

@heresince2020, you’re not a moderator so don’t get to decide what areas of this board that people are allowed post on.

Anyway.

OP, I was in the same boat as you. When we met, we established very early on that neither of us wanted children. We got married, fended off the “so, any news?” questions and were happy.

Then I got broody overnight. Like an actual lightning bolt. We’d been married 5 years and I was 29. It was like I woke up one morning and all I could think about my my desire to be pregnant. I’d see bumps and get an ache. A friend would announce she was pregnant and I’d have a secret cry out of jealousy. It was awful.

Eventually, I asked my husband if we could try for a baby. He was against the idea because we’d both said we didn’t want that from the start but I wore him down over the course of about 6 months and we started TTC.

It was awful. To be fair to him, once he was onboard, he was committed. He didn’t want a baby, but he wanted to make me happy.

TTCing nearly broke us. I went from a fairly laid-back person to a temp-taking, legs-in-the-air monster. It was awful. I’m not proud

Anyway, after a year, it because apparent that we were having problems so I went to a doctor and eventually discovered there were some issues with me. I was heart broken. DH was devastated for me. Of course, I was straight but treatment mode.

I think that’s when I realised the damage o was doing to our relationship. DH has always been 100% clear that he didn’t want children and I was the one who changed the goal posts and wanted up upturn our lives and finances. Luckily, DH is wonderful and was willing to go through all of that to see me happy but, ultimately, he was doing it for me and not because he wanted a child. That took.

While to process. I wanted him to WANT to be a dad but he didn’t. Me changing my mind didn’t mean his magically changed and I could see I was damaging my marriage by putting him in a position where he just couldn’t win- he’s either end up with a child he didn’t 100% want, or a miserable childless wife.

So I took 6 months out from evening thinking about conceiving, and told DH. He was happy to keep going, but respected my decision.
I didn’t want to return to TTCing after the 6 months. It just didn’t make sense to keep going when I knew it was never a joint decision and, if we had a child, I’d spend my life worrying that DH wasn’t happy and felt I’d forced him- which ultimately would be what I’d done.

I’m 38 now and no babies. I actually look back on that time and think I was having some kind of hormone-Induced breakdown. There were other things going on at the time in my life that I couldn’t control so I think I was subconsciously trying to control something.

When I think about the fact that we could have a 7 year old now, I’m really glad we don’t

To be fair, I think DH would have loved any child we did have. He’s a great man and would take on that role very well, but, ultimately, it wasn’t what he wanted and I hate that I wanted to take that autonomy away from him.

Right I’m leaving these boards then. If you’re all just going to gang up on me and be nasty when I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.

@NoCallerID I think my husband is focusing only on the not so good things that children bring and he has not allow himself to think for a second of the happiness they could bring. The least I wouldn't want is to end up in a divorce and I would never have a baby unless we both agree we want it.

@Enough4me Yes he basically said he would adopt just to skip the part when they are small, not so much with the thought of giving a child a home. I understand they are hard work, my sister has two DC and she calls me a lot to complaint and also to share happy moments .

@Beachcomber1 Thanks for your honest message, for my has been gradual, it started with my sister, then my sister in law and now my best friend, I am scared of course but I feel I could be a good mum. As your DH I think mine would agree only to make me happy but I wouldn't want that, I want him to want it as well, I know I am being really unfair with him.

I have sacrificed a lot to be with DH, moved from the other side of the world so we could be together, leaving my family and friends behind has been the hardest but I did it because I really love him. It is so awful that we are now in this situation all because of my change of mind

@Confused857 now time has passed by and you have had time to reflect on the feedback here, how do you feel?

Personally, if it were me and this didn't put me off and I had a drive I would have to seriously consider options.

Adopting is much MUCH harder work and more complicated than having a biological child. For most people it’s also much slower and you will not even get past the first stage if one of you is ambivalent about it.

Any older children ( I assume you mean past the toddler stage ) available for adoption have been abused and / neglected, traumatised , probably exposed to domestic violence and have been moved many times. Many have additional needs.

They will be a challenge to care for and will require at lease one parent at home full time. I would STRONGLY advise again it as any kind of easier option.