I love her but she wants a child badly and I dont

[user1462882883]

Hi everyone,

I am new here and a male ( bear with me!). I have read this board for a while and wanted to post my story to share and would appreciate your views, especially anyone who can relate to it.

I am in a relationship with an amazing woman who i truly love, and who loves me. We want to be together forever. We have been together for just over a year with one or two splits.

Early on she said she had always wanted children in the near future, and I told her that children have never really been something i have yearned for. We were falling in love and this issue fell to the wayside - for a bit. Then it resurfaced and she hadn't changed her mind at all, it was non-negotiable for her. So i told her i would open my mind to the idea of becoming a father more as i loved her.

Fast forward to now, and she has given me an ultimatum that either i get on board now while she can still have children ( she is 37), or she will look elsewhere or have one on her own. So effectively she is choosing a hypothetical child over her love for me.

I have been to counselling, to explore why i am not paternal, and no matter what i do or try, i just cannot generate a want or a desire for a child of my own, even though i love this woman. It is so heartbreaking to lose her over this, i dont want to lose her. I will never meet another so perfect for me in all other ways.

I just cant seem to get that longing or want for a baby / child. People say once its my own, then it would kick in, but surely you have to have some sort of want on some level to do this?

Please advise as i cannot cope with the thought of losing this woman.

Helmet - you are referring to something different; that sabotaging your own contraception equals trapping a man. I don't agree.

What I think is rare is women sabotaging a man's attempts to use his own own contraception.

It's irrelevant that you think a lot of men would want a significant amount of couple time before trying for a baby. Babies are conceived at all times and plenty of men understand that older women need to crack on. I told my dh that i wanted a baby very early on and we started trying straight away. It was a nice thing for us.

Let this poor woman go. She's been totally honest from the beginning about wanting a family whereas you have dillied about and basically wasted her time. I totally understand why she wants a definitive answer with a plan and commitment in place; there simply isn't time to wait. You can't change that.
If you did say ok to see how it goes I can imagine you not being able to cope with the pressure of sex at prescribed times etc and would end up wasting even more time for her. Either get on board completely or go your own way.
And by the way have kids is amazing.

I don't think anyone that relied solely on their partner's contraception, can reasonably say they were trapped, if they didn't take their own precautions on top. Personal responsibility and all that. We all know the risks and nothing is bullet proof.

Having

And your experience is anecdotal anyway. If I said I don't know anyone who has sabotaged their own contraception or anyone else's (apart from my ex who was also an abusive rapist and therefore not representative) it wouldn't offer any credible counter argument to your point that it is common.

Anyway, apologies for the digression...

I think once you have come to terms with this break up OP it is a good idea to consider a vasectomy as a means of taking this issue firmly off the table in future relationships and reassuring yourself that you won't be able to be swayed by the emotions of really caring for someone and still having the option to give them a baby but having to choose not to.

(In a similar position with considering sterilisation myself as 'giving my husband a child' resulted in the twins and was about him more than me)

Well obviously it's anecdotal.

I am sure we all agree that lying about contraception is an abuse of trust and I certainly think men would do well to be aware that this happens and act accordingly.

Oh absolutely!

My poor kids have to deal with this splitting hairs and obsessing over small details in negotiating their future relationships but I hope it will help (them all but the boys mostly) to understand what it actually means for them when they think "I trust my partner to take the pill".

Say you're married and have agreed you don't want kids and the wife says she is on the pill. Is her husband really supposed to say, "I'm going to wear a condom anyway just in case you're lying"? Yeh, that'll fly.

Ultimately you have to trust people for lots of things. And you can be fucked over in all sorts of ways as a result. But the alternative is worse imo.

The OP has had a pretty hard time on here when all he's been is honest and stuck to the same story all along i.e. he doesn't and has never wanted DC. His gf made the decision to 'waste' a year of her life trying to change his mind on that, but ultimately that was her decision. If she'd been sensible she'd have walked away 12 months ago when he made it abundantly clear that he didn't want DC with her or anyone else.

OP, let her go. She's a 37-year-old woman on a mission to get pregnant. Time IS running out for her. She may already have left it too late. But if you don't want to try and impregnate her, step aside. No good will come of you hanging onto her. Yes you love her, but she's in thrall to her biological clock and you aren't going to win this one. Take a deep breath and end it right now - if only for your own heart and sanity's sake. And from now on don't date women who are desperate to have a baby if you aren't prepared to give them one, because it will end in tears every time.

(Poor BF has had the lecture too when he said he doesn't need to be involved in my contraceptive decisions as he 'trusts me' but he was also the wally who thought he could just get a vasectomy and have it reversed if at some point we agreed we would try together or we split up and he wanted a family)

Whats - I'm simply saying he should own the choice and if not comfortable with it not necessarily say 'I don't trust you' but 'I trust you but I am more comfortable with taking precautions as well'.

If someone kicks up a fuss about that it is only because some women have internalised this belief that a man's contraceptive choices are based largely on trusting/not trusting their partner too.

When I was married my h didn't take me going on the pill in addition to him using condoms as a sign I didn't trust him and it should be the same the other way round.

Is it just me or is there a vast amount of drip feeding going on here?

This thread because a gigantic me-rail.

2016Hopeful, there are many women who don't want children. We are not mythical beasts, you know.

Don't have a child if you don't want to be a father. It's not fair on the child. End of story.

Can l just say, all the talk on here has been about small children who ARE hard work. But they grow. They grow into adults who are like you. You have adult conversations with them. They are delightful in every way.

Try thinking ahead to 20 years, with an adult child, who talks to you about everything, makes you laugh, isn't emotionally dependent on you, or trapping you in anyway. (Apart from financially!)

Let her go.

"So i told her i would open my mind to the idea of becoming a father more as i loved her."

This isn't him saying he didn't want kids all along. The implication there was that because he loved her he'd be open to having a baby. If he had always said he didn't want kids she could have found someone more suitable earlier.

With theme of looking after your own contraception has the poster considered having the snip? Obviously this should only be done if 100% sure there will be no future desire to have kids. His may help relieve some of the pressure in future.

I suspect if he told her he had the snip, the 'meeting for coffee' would stop. She is desperate and the meetings are just stringing her along even more. She hopes the meetings will lead to something more, and even if you are sure they won't, her hope is that they will. This is stopping her meeting someone else. She needs a clean break from the OP. You don't need to know that she is OK. She is a grown woman.
And having kids can be great, and adult children can be great, but if you don't want them, it's not that great , especially not for the child, who's father couldn't cope and walked out of something he was forced into in the first place.

You're not right for each other. Don't waste any more of her time and both of you move on.

I predict:

You split, and you meet someone else and fall madly in love and have a baby with them in the next 12-18 months.

That's usually how these things go.

Agree with Aye

And when you meet someone else you pretty much wonder what you ever saw in the current 'soulmate'.