age gap has just hit me...am I being selfish?

[unsurealways]

Hi everyone! Bit of background to start off with as I want to make sure I give all the info. Been with my DP for 3.5 years. We got together when I was 21 and he had just turned 32. I was working full-time, earning a low wage but a better wage than him and had just come out of a relationship (that lasted 4 years) when we met. Part of what I liked about him the first time I met him was that he hadn't rushed into marriage/kids/settling down. He was working a minimum wage job and still living at home with his parents - but he had an active social life, went on holidays - to music festivals etc. I liked that him and his friends gave me the confidence to think "You know what - there is no rush to settle down like my friends have done and my parents did. I can leave all that until later on in life and focus on being young and having fun" .... This was completely different from my teenage ex who was just two years older than I was but was all about settling down/getting high flying jobs/planning for kids etc.

We spent the first approx 2.5 years of our relationship having an awesome time together. Nights out, Holidays, Camping, Concerts, Music festivals. We didn't live together, but he stayed over 4 or 5 times a week. He got on well with my family/friends etc. All good.

Then when I was 24 we found out we were pregnant. I use DEPO injection as my method of contraception and have done since I was 15. Every few years - I come off of my injection - let my body have a period and relax and rely on condoms - and then re-start my injection. It was during one of these periods we conceived. A condom split, I was a little slow to pick up a MAP (my own fault) and now we have our beautiful 4 month old daughter, Raffie, who I ADORE. I love her to pieces, she's enriched my life so much already and despite everything I thought I wanted from life - I just couldn't imagine not having her.

She's only young at the moment, but so far my kind of thought process has been this:
-That I quite like the idea of an only child.
-That things don't have to be one direction or the other. We can have our lovely baby girl but still have fun, active lives. Fair enough we won't be doing it as much - and there will be less alcohol involved which is NOT a problem - but we can still enjoy foreign holidays, music festivals etc. If she grows up interested in the same sort of things as us then it will even be such a bonding experience for us all to do these things together - as I used to with my dad as a teenager!
-That yes, having Raffie does stretch our budgeting a little - but on our combined incomes, for the area we live in, we are still doing well for ourselves. We can enjoy these luxuries.

DP (now 35.5) moved in with me around a year ago - into my two bedroom property that I rent and have lived in for approx 5 years - to be with me and baby. He still works his minimum wage job full-time. He is happy with this job and has no ambition to progress or anything like that. I understood this when I got with him. This has never been a problem. I like to progress in the work enviroment and was promoted to a call centre manager when I was 22. I am currently on maternity leave but will return to work in two months time. I hope to be promoted once more in the future, but my long-term goal is to leave the company in the next 5/10 years and venture out into my own business - once I have built up the savings and life experience to do so.

The point of this post - since DD arrived - DP has matured alot. He's smitten with her, he loves me and he keeps bringing up having another baby - pretty much right now! He wants us to get married, get a mortgage, have another little one so that they can be close in age and he can still be young enough to enjoy them. I just don't want this! I love him alot, I love her RIDICULOUS amounts - but I do not want to just give up on everything i've ever wanted and 'settle down' - at least not yet. I'm still so young! I have so many years ahead of me that I want to enjoy and experience and I just don't see why we should rush. I'm more than happy to get engaged, to think about and consider saying yes to another baby .... but i'd want the marriage and the child to be along in about 10 years time.

I'm now panicking about our relationship, questioning why I ever let myself get into this situation. I always was wary that we may grow apart with the age difference but we'd always made it clear to each other that we were in no rush for these sort of commitments. Now i'm worried that is was selfish of me not to anticipate that as he got older his ideals would change. I'm worried that it is completely selfish of me not to want another baby and that i'm a bad mum for wanting to still have what I always wanted from life. I'm scared that it's selfish of me to still be so 'career' and goal minded. I'm also scared of the financial responsibilities. I'm the main bread-winner! I can't afford to take more time off work or become a liability to my work. We're in a comfortable position in our current financial situation and I don't want to give that up. We have a beautiful house, two cars, some savings, money for holidays, no debts etc. I don't want to change that.

....I guess i'm just looking for some reassurance. Have any of you found yourself wanting different things from your partners? Was it because of an age/maturity gap? How did the situation resolve? Is it me that should be changing my thinking in this situation? I don't want what he wants right now - but I also don't want for us to split up and this to have a negative impact on our daughter. I've tried to broach this with him - and he keeps saying that he can give me 'a few weeks' to get my head around things .... but he seems to be set on the idea and not willing to negotiate on timescale at all.

Does anybody have advice? reassurance? a magical solution?
Thankyou so much for reading this long - I realise this has turned into an emotional venting rant lol.

wEll, you had a baby quite young imo) so that does tether one somewhat. i dont think the age gap is the issue. well, maybe it is because HE had had 15 years of propping up the bar before becoming a father. i think that becoming a parent, not getting married is what takes the wind out of young, free sail. iykwim. if you were certain you loved him i think youd want to marry him as hes the father of your first child, but you had a baby with a man who was one of your first serious relationships.... and you want more relationships. he's not the one, despite being your dd's dad.

"he keeps saying that he can give me 'a few weeks' to get my head around things .... but he seems to be set on the idea and not willing to negotiate on timescale at all."

I think it's worrying that he wants things to be done his way and believes you just need a few weeks to come round to, basically, exactly what he wants. He isn't being very considerate of what you want from life and I'm not surprised you're feeling panicky if he wants things done on his timetable.

You have a choice when it comes to having another child and there is nothing wrong with prioritising your career for a few years. Like you say, you are the main breadwinner and having another child so soon could have a negative impact- it's not nice, but it is the reality of things.

You need to stop thinking of yourself as selfish just because you have your own ideas about what you want to do and how you want things to go in the future. It sounds as if you feel guilty because in your mind all the things he wants are the "right" things: mortgage, another child. But there not necessarily the things you have to do right now and you are allowed to not want them at the moment.

He is giving you a few weeks?? How generous of him! Blimey your dd is only 4 months and he's pressurising u into having more already? Let me guess.. He doesn't do much? With dd I mean.

In short, no u are not being unreasonable to only want 1 dc. Or selfish. What would be unfair is to bring a child onto the world just to placate ur partner. Is he quite controlling?

He's giving you a few weeks - what does that mean exactly? If you haven't agreed to what he's demanding in a few weeks then he's off?

YANBU! All of these things are not decisions to be taken lightly and he can't simply lay down his schedule and expect you to get on board just like that. These are important things that must be discussed at LENGTH and negotiated. You are quite right not to want to give up everything you have planned for yourself because he demands it.

Whatever decision you come to in the end, PLEASE do not abandon all of your dreams for yourself for this man and do NOT have a child that you don't want. You will eventually come to hate him for it.

I think you should remove you daughter's name from
the post - it makes you identifiable

I too am not keen on the 'my way or the highway' attitude implicit in waiting for you to get your head around what he wants(!!).

These are huge commitments to try and press another person into. This is why you are panicking: perhaps subconsciously you can hear the sound of a trap being formed, and ready to clang shut? But you are afraid to trust and respect your own opinion over his.

This last is the only part of the issue which might result from the age gap. Otherwise, at best, you want different things, which can sometimes result in growing apart. That can happen in any relationship.

Right now, your priority is to trust yourself and your instincts. Do not on any account consider a child you don't want: the burden of work will fall to you. Also, while one child will change your life, two children would change it a great deal more - as you've clearly realised.

Do not imagine for a second that you are selfish, or a bad mother, or wrong because you don't want what your partner wants at the moment. Slow up, think, and listen to yourself.

I've had a failed marriage where the age gap was 7 years, it was also my first serious relationship, and one of the big reasons that it failed was that over the 10 years or so we were together, I matured, and my partner stayed the same, as they were already in their thirties when we got together.

I think the older person in an age-gap relationship often feels they can lay down the law to the younger person, and their inexperience can mean that they accept it when they should stand up for themselves more.

You have a lot to think about, and I wish you all the best.

My dh is 7 years younger than me.
It hasn't affected us. If we have wanted different things at different times it has never been anything to do with maturity.
I don't think it's about age/maturity. I think it is to do with people just wanting what they want when they want it and negotiating that.

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

In relation to some things said above. He is a WONDERFUL dad so far. Dotes on her completely. I don't think either of us expected having our own DD would be so different to being around other peoples children. He's been good with nappies/night times etc (so far) ... he likes forgetting to take his lunch to work so he can ask me to walk up with her in the pram once or twice a week so that he can show her off to his colleagues and customers (bless the two guys he works with - they are being very patient with him) and he will voluntarily get up with her on his only day off and take her round his parents in the morning so that I can have a lie-in without being woken up for feeds (she isn't the best sleeper!)

....TBH, I'm HOPING that this is all just a side-effect from that? He's clearly smitten and loving it and thinks that this is the be-all and end all now. He's such a sop with her, and i'm hoping that he's just enjoying this new experience so much that he's got a little too excited about it and in his head rushed into this new scenario with a bit too much gusto - imagined it as utter perfection and failed to see any of the downsides. We'd had a massive row about it yesterday evening which is when he said the 'few weeks to decide comment' - and whilst he appearred to be utterly serious and hinting that it was his way or the highway - he has never been anything like this before. He has never tried to control me, influence my behaviour or bully me before. He has never failed to take my feelings into consideration and we have never had a 'we may split up' moment before, which is maybe why I panicked so badly and had my massive rant on here. Am I scared that he will follow through on the above? Petrified! Do I ACTUALLY think he will abandon our relationship if I do not submit - in my heart I don't.

I think my plan of action will be to sit him down when he gets home from work later and explain to him calmly the benefits of having some time just the three of us. Big up the benefits of a few years where SHE has all the love and the attention and it isn't split between siblings. Time where we can continue to grow as a couple and enjoy each other whilst we're still young and able to do so. Time when I can still manage to get time off work regularly for holidays and trips etc. Explain how lovely it could be waiting until she's a bit older - having father/daughter and mother/daughter days where they can go out and be silly and have fun and bond - as opposed to it always being one of us and both kids doing something because you can't take a four year old to the playground without the three year old and you can't take the girl swimming without the boy etc. (I think I MAY have put a little too much thought into this lol!)

He grew up with two loving parents in a stable home as an only child. I grew up in a divorced household, with two siblings very close to my age that I had to share everything with and do everything with. We're all very close now, but as a child I hated that I didn't get any special time. I want to make sure that my child/children gets the very best of everything - including parents! Hopefully if I can get him to understand where I am coming from then we'll be able to compromise and sort it all out.

Thanks for reading/replying/helping to calm me down mumsnetters!! Really appreciate your time.

I don't think the age gap has anything to do with it TBH. THe problem is that you want different things.

You sound pretty insightful about things, but work that further. What is is about having another child that is putting you off. From what you've said, it seems ideal that your DP would be the primary carer, leaving you free to pursue your career without being held back by having another child. Before long, I'd think you'd be earning more than enough to cover your DP's drop in income if he was to become a SAHD, although there's no reason why he can't juggle his NMW job with being a parent - plenty of second-earner mums do. If it's only career progression stopping you, I really wouldn't see another child as a problem.

However, if it's more you just don't want another child, then stick to your guns.

You really need to talk about this now. If your relationship is strong, I'm sure you can negotiate something. People often split about the issue of children/no children, but far less so about the number of children once one is already present.

You are both equally set on what you want. That doesn't make either of you wrong or unreasonable.

You say that "we'd always made it clear to each other that we were in no rush for these sort of commitments" but things have changed - you have had a baby together. That's a bigger commitment than marriage.

It seems to me that he has fully accepted that your lives and your relationship have changed because you have had a baby whereas you haven't and still want life to carry on as it did. Is it possible that he is a little unnerved by this and this is making him feel he needs you both to "settle down" together as a family?

If you reverse what you have said and look at it from his perspective it gives a different picture. It is difficult to compromise here as there is no halfway house with marriage and another baby but maybe if he felt that you were more committed to your family (as that is what they are) he wouldn't feel the need to try to tie you down.