So worried about my DSis - how do I help her?

[MadAboutQuavers]

My DSis is in her late 30s and shares a very nice house with her DP, who has two DCs under 10 from his previous marriage. They come to stay with them every other weekend, and everyone has a happy time together.

DSis and her DP have a nice comfortable life and want for nothing, both work and earn very good salaries, have lots of weekends away, parties, etc. When they got together about 3 years ago, DSis said that she will want kids of her own one day. Her DP's response to this was, well of course kids are great, that's fine with me.

Trouble is he has now renaged on this and decided he definitely doesn't want any more childen.

She is devastated.

She first raised this topic with him nearly a year ago, when he first expressed doubts about having more DC's, and she gave him a year to think about what his final decision was. He has now told her that he's definite on this.

They are going for couples counselling.

I want to say to her "get out now while you've still got time for yourself", as I believe there's no prospect of him changing his mind. He's wasting her time, and knows he is. Thing is, if she's having any thoughts about giving up on the idea of her own DCs, I don't want to be too bombastic about it and make her shut down from listening to the possibility of any outcome other than an enormous compromise. She's terrified of the idea of losing him and their nice but empty life, and having to go through the trauma of selling up.

She wants to discuss this with me tomorrow when her she's back from a work trip. How do I help her? I'm so scared of her staying and funding herself in a situation in 5 years time when it'll be too late.

Sorry, that's really long, but I'm so worried about her.

*finding, not funding, sorry

Oh how awful. Not much advice to offer, only the experiences of women I have known in the same position.

My sister married a man who had had a vasectomy because he definitely didn't want any more children. My sister accepted that because she loved him so much. However after a couple of years it started to destroy her; she was in a terrible state. After a lot of talking he agreed to have his vasectomy reversed and they had a DD. The main reasoning behind his decision was because he sincerely thought he might lose her. He never seemed to resent any of this but is easy going and never does much round the house anyway.

My other sister virtually ended up threatening to leave her husband over him "deciding" he didn't want children. It was the thing where when they were first dating she had asked him and he had said "oh yes I'd like them one day" - as people do - and when she decided that "one day" had come due to her age he said he didn't want any. He reluctantly agreed to start a family, had a face like fuck most of the time when my niece was a baby but they got through it and he was a devoted dad. When my nephew was born he had come round entirely and even worked part-time to share the childcare. I speak in the past tense as he died suddenly 10 years ago.

Another friend, always very maternal, spoke often about desperately wanting children, split from her husband and found a new man who didn't want children. She changed her tune entirely and kept saying she didn't want them either, never really had . . . she is now 45 and still with him. I feel so sad for her as I know her well enough to know what she really wanted.

Thank you ladies.

needafootmassage - I've just spoken to her and this is what I tried to do. Just listen, and be a sounding board without directing her anywhere. Thing is, I was in this situation with my ex who I split with when I was 39, and this is partly why she wanted to discuss with me and get my thoughts on how I felt.

Balloonslayer - thanks for sharing your stories, they made me feel very sad and scared for my Sis .

This is what frightens me most of all; that she'll get to the point where she has no choice biologically because she is too old, and then it will hit her. She's currently spending a lot of energy rationalising why she wants children, and whether she wants them more than her current set-up. I've tried to explain that certain feelings can't be rationalised, and you don't realise that often until it's too late.

I know it's none of my business, but she's my Dsis and I want her to be happy above all else... Aarrgggghhhhh

Both my sisters however hit that "it's now or never" feeling around 20 years ago - they were both about 30. At that time, your early thirties were old to have a baby. And yet, there still would have been time for them to split from their husbands, dust themselves off, get over their heartbreak and find another man before 40. (Yes I know that sounds clinical but that's exactly what another friend of mine did, and more power to her).

The friend was about 35 when she met her new man and would have been in the throes of "oh I need nothing in my life but him" for a couple more years, leaving her in a much more vulnerable position age-wise. But then . . . he made his position clear.

I realise I sound really manipulative and cynical.

I have no problem with men who put all their cards on the table and say that they don't want children right from the start. But men who claim to want children to reel a woman in and then change their minds because they've got everything they want now, thank you very much, make me want to spit.

Oooh another thing.

My advice would be to say to stop trying to rationalise why she wants children. Being told to explain why you want children as if, if you give the right answer you'll be allowed to have them is an unwinnable argument in my view.

If someone asked any of us: would you like to take charge, for the next eighteen years of a living thing that will:

• ruin your figure
• cause you an agonising ordeal that could last up to 48 hours
• live by sucking your bodily fluids
• be incontinent for up to three years
• keep you awake at night
• break many of your precious possessions
• severely affect your libido
• stop you going on the holidays you want to
• restrict where you can live
• cost you approx. £100,000 to look after
• constantly demand more and more material goods
• be rude to you and reject your most heartfelt advice with "whatever"

the chorus of "Shit, No!" would be deafening.

We don't want children because of any logical reason. We want them because we are animals with instinctive, biological programming, and to ignore that programming causes us profound distress.

She wants children because she's human and she wants children. That's all she has to say.

Exactly balloonslayer

She has always maintained that she will want children "one day", since her twenties

I just don't see that a successful career, nice house, healthy bank balance and a relationship that is (on the whole) a decent one, is going to compensate for that instinct

She seems to think that if she does get to the point in the future where she questions how she's ended up without children, that saying to herself "well, I thought about this carefully and thoroughly, and made a decision at the time" is going to be enough, when she no longer has a choice

She has readily admitted that she definitely doesn't want to start again, live by herself, and give up what is otherwise a loving relationship

She's therefore being driven by fear, without realising just what she's trying to talk herself out of

Gaaahhhhhh

Tell her to look 10-20-30 years into her future and imagine the with and without children versions. Can she see herself having a happy and fulfilling life in either scenario? Will she be fine, at any of those stages, not to have children in her life?

I did this, and however I rationalised not having kids in the here and now (was in my late thirties, lots of socialising and clothes shopping and travelling and culture for distractions), when I thought of myself as a 60 or 70 year old without children I pretty much had a panic attack. I knew ultimately I would have terrible regrets.

And I heartily agree with Balloon Slayer above. There is never a right time to have a baby, practically speaking, it's always an upheaval and scarcely rational financially speaking or in lots of other ways. But it is completely natural and understandable to do ti anyway.