Don't want kids but wife does - is divorce the only solution?

[justthisguy31]

I'm a bloke, aged 31, married to a clever, beautiful, successful woman who loves me, but I'm starting to think we should get a divorce. She seems firmly set on having a baby, and the idea of parenthood scares me stupid. I know how much hard work it is, as the oldest of a big family, and I still have so many other things to do in my life that will be hard or impossible with a child.

We have had the argument, several times, and then talked about it for real, and finally agreed a compromise. If she still wants a baby when I turn 38 (she is 6 months younger btw), we'll do our best to have one. That gives me time to build a better career and save some money, and both of us some years together as a couple, to have fun before we have to live just for someone else.

Are we just kicking the can down the road though?

I wasted time in my 20s on bad ideas and dead end jobs, and it took me until last year to find a career that would fly. Now I'm doing something I really enjoy, that pays well (for entry level) and has great prospects, but I'm still on the bottom rung. My wife, on the other hand, already finished her PhD three years ago and started a very promising, but very intense academic career. Which is to say that if we had a baby now, the only option that would make financial sense is for me to chuck in my job and be a stay-at-home dad. Not exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I'm also biased by my own parents' financial problems. My mum gave up work when I was born, and while my dad has had a pretty good career overall, when I was 10 he hit a rough patch and got into debt. It took the rest of my childhood for them to get back on a stable footing, and they still don't have the comfortable lifestyle they did when I was young. I remember endless fights, totally futile because there's no way to argue bills or petrol prices down, and I can't shake the fear that we'd end up in the same sort of hole. Even worse, as the lower earner (and likely primary child-carer) I'd be in my mum's position. Trapped.

Then from my wife's point of view, 38 or 39 is old for a first child. If it turns out she can't have a normal pregnancy and a healthy kid at that age, it will be my fault for insisting on the wait. Maybe a pregnancy will work out fine, or maybe she'll change her mind about wanting a kid, but if it doesn't happen there won't be any way back. I don't want to risk trapping her.

So I'm starting to think I have to let her go now, while she still has time to find a guy who wants children ASAP. Still not sure though if it would be self-sacrifice, or just selfish. I am sure she'd miss me, and I'd miss her.

I've typed this up more to organise my thoughts than to start an argument, but if you see flaws in my thinking please say so. Tis a forum after all :-)

[Dadaist]

Why would you need to chuck your whole career in and become a SAHD? Isn’t that where you need to find some compromise OP. You could both reduce your hours and go for a bit less income but with prospects of increasing hours when child/ren are a bit older? I’m not sure I see how that is ‘the only thing that makes sense’?

[Highlandheath]

You should have had that conversation before you married...

[Hanab]

There is no guarantees in life, you can win the lotto or you can go broke by tonight. You don’t know if you will take your last breath in the next min.

You are all about you in my humble opinion. I am sure she has sacrificed a lot for you. Have you really thought about her point of view? Has she asked you to be a SAHD?

Most of your post is about you! What about her? It seems you are looking for an out of this relationship.

You can go and have a one night stand or a fling and that person can fall pregnant.. will you step up?

Think long and hard before you leave a woman who has ambition, who seems to love you and is wanting to pro create with you.

It seems ( again in my humble opinion) you will find it quite easy to walk away from her. Do you really love her? Or is she convenient ?

If you can’t see yourself with her and you don’t appreciate her and honestly don’t want to pro create with her let her go. There will be somebody awesome in the wings waiting to snatch her up and shower her with all that she desires.

[Toomuchworking]

You're being a bit dramatic saying you have to give up your career. I'm in the peak of friends and family having kids and not a single one (male or female) has given up a career to be a stay at home parent. My own husband does 4 long days, my sister has a very high powered job and does 4 long days too, works from home for another one. Universities are generally really flexible and there would be more options than you realise in your own job. I do find it interesting how it's accepted - even assumed - that mums will go part time or condensed hours, but men generally feel their workplaces (even if they have a less demanding or well paid position) could not possibly cope without them.
However, if you just don't want kids and want her to wait until she's almost past fertility you should definitely just split up, that's incredibly unreasonable.

[RumpoleoftheBaileys]

🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️

[Tangy1]

I wonder what happened

[sausagesandyogadontmix]

I wonder what OP and his wife decided?

[Rockluvvindad]

Damnit me too ! Thread necromancer !

[Rockluvvindad]

A man's perspective. I had two beautiful kids with my ex wife. When she told me she wanted to start trying for a family, I was totally freaked out. we were working hard, enjoying our time together, doing loads of holidays, buying and doing up a nice house. Eventually I came round and we went for it. DD 1 was born in 2000 when I was 32, and ex wife was 30. DD 2 was born three years later.

I don't think people that marry young really know what they want out of it 10 years later. It's all well and good deciding that by this age we'll be doing this, have that, and then try for a baby etc... Life happens while you make plans.

The reality is, it's NEVER the right time to have kids. When you're young, you don't have enough money, when you're in your mid 20's and 30's you're too busy having fun, building a career and doing other stuff. If you're an older parent, you may well have the time, but not the energy, and you might have to decide career or kids...

When you hit late 30's early 40's, for women if they haven't had kids by then, it is a REAL ( as in there is a real, biological countdown ) imperative for them if they want them. Time is not on their side, so please understand that. I ended a relationship recently with a 39 year old woman because kids was her No.1 priority. I understood that, and at 47 realised I didn't want that. I loved her so much that the right thing was to let her find someone who would be everything that she wanted, and give her the chance to do the one thing in the world she wanted above everything else.

What you're experiencing in terms of doubt isn't unusual to guys. If this was a male dominated board, you'd get plenty of responses saying they felt the same when the time came to make a decision ( yes there are guys that REALLY want kids and know it from the start... For lots of others, it's a huge decision we never really think about making till we have to ).

So after all that waffling, I would say this.

If you both love each other, you will get through this. Don't think. Do. It will be chaos. It will be hard. It will test you both to the limit. You will have to re-evaluate many things you had planned prior to having a kid. If you're lucky, it will be the best and most rewarding time of your life. And as one guy to another, the second you hold your baby for the first time, suddenly the career doesn't seem all that important any more. I still feel that way 15 years later. I would have happily dropped my career 15 years ago if it meant I could have more memories of my eldest's first few years.

RLD.

[Lavenderice]

Fuck, me too!

[Lavenderice]

Oh my god OP you made a massive mistake by posting this on a parenting website, where the majority of people love being a parent.

The fact of the matter is it's perfectly acceptable to not want children, you don't need to have an excuse for not wanting them, you just need to know you don't.

You need to be completely honest with her and put the ball in her court. She stays with you and might be childless or you split now. Don't let it hang over the pair of you, those 7 years will be like a waiting for a bomb to go off. Ignore people who say things like

It's really hard to judge which men actually mean they don't want them ever.

Erm, Blurred Lines anyone?

[TheFormidableMrsC]

Oh fucking shit. I have just typed a great big long speech on a zombie thread. I'll copy and paste it just in case somebody else posts something similar

[TheFormidableMrsC]

Actually, OP, you have my sympathy. I never wanted children (no matter I now have two!!), however, it wasn't in my life plan if I am absolutely honest. It is really difficult when one party changes their mind, this is what happened with me. When I married my husband I had a child from a previous relationship. He didn't want children of his own and I made clear he was marrying the wrong girl if he wanted kids. We had an agreement, or so I thought. Then suddenly, 11 years later, he became desperate to have a child. I did become pregnant (that's another story) and had our DS at 42. Parenting later in life is hard. There is no denying that. Husband found it very difficult, eventually after a glut of affairs, he walked out when DS was 2 1/2 and undergoing diagnostics for autism. So, I ended up the single parent in middle age. Awful. Not suggesting you would do this, however, what I am trying to say is I don't think fatherhood was how he thought it would be and I felt very resentful that he had put me under so much pressure only to sod off when the going got tough.

Anyway, I don't agree with some of the posts here, I think that you are being sensible seeking advice. I do, however, think you really must sit down and have a thorough heart to heart with your wife on this subject. As somebody said upthread, it may be a phase for her or indeed, be warned, you may suddenly decide later on that you do in fact wish to reproduce. I don't, however, think it is realistic to expect her to wait until her late thirties. You can carry on having babies for ever more if you choose to, but her window of opportunity is fairly limited.

When all is said and done, if you are not singing off the same hymn sheet then it would probably be better for you to go your separate ways. That seems very sad though. I really do hope you manage to work things out. Good luck!

[goddessofsmallthings]

WARNING - ZOMBIE ON THE LOOSE

[MaggieJoyBlunt]

[MaggieJoyBlunt]

Oh god yes it's a zombie With email addresses

Well spotted gamer.

(Where's the zombie warning?)

[Sallystyle]

Well, he got a hard time two years ago

[MaggieJoyBlunt]

Gosh OP is getting an extremely hard time here.

It reads as though being trapped as an unwilling SAHD is as much an issue as the DC themselves. Which sounds a reasonable concern.

[gamerchick]

Ooooold thread

[happyh0tel]

As a man you can potentially have children when you are 80+ ?

A womans fertility decreases dramatically from age 35+

What would happen if your wife "got accidentally pregnant" before age 35 ?

Having a child is not guaranteed

People also change as they grow older.
One person may say they dont ever want children & be with a partner for many years. They split up. They each start a new relationship & they are parents within a year !

Suggest having an honest conversation with your wife, so that you can both decide your futures

[Supertubes1]

I just finally ground a site where someone had my problem. Please respond and let me know what happened. I'm down to the wire. I would really appreciate your info. Thank you. Pete

[southfieldsmum]

Your first step is having a real conversation with your wife. Where you admit that maybe some of your reluctance has less to do with money & career and financial security (although those are all good things) and perhaps a bit about your experience of your parents marriage and your childhood "stuff" (which it is btw) and you are projecting their unhappiness onto the unknown of becoming a parent. That you have ideas of what it would be like soley based on these early experiences. I am sure she does too, our 'first' families are our role models for our future families. Have a chat, ask her how she really feels about this 'compromise' - I doubt very much she really thinks it is such a good idea, or if she does now she will not in a few years time. Have a conversation and in the process of that say that perhaps exploring these tricky thoughts and feelings connected with becoming a parent is a good idea. Ask your GP to refer you to a counsellor where you will get 6 sessions to talk it through. There are loads of low cost counselling centres around just google it. Most important TALK TO YOUR WIFE. You cant make the decision by yourself
and what mners think. Come on man - step up.

[Xollob]

differentnameforthis I know of a couple where the wife is about 47 (not sure about the DH) and they have been approved.