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.

You are never going to get the definites you want. It is a plunge into the unknown that's half the fun. Do you have family? Parents etc? Siblings? This could be the most exciting chapter with someone you love.

Failing that stop agonizing and leave her Be. I am finding you painful and we have never met.

OP, you sound like a total child. 40 years old, wow.

You haven't listened at all.

On here it seems you want to eek out the last bit of drama and angst. In real life, I wonder just how honest you are being with her even now. I wonder if you have actually said you don't want kids at all; maybe you've just been stalling for so long she suspects it.

I am sure you will throw a few crumbs this weekend to get her to think there may be a chance so you can carry on. You like her and don't fancy being single right now.

I really hope she is strong and realises you are a waste of time.

I'm not trying to stop her having a child, please understand that. I wouldnt forgive myself if she missed out on this, so we arent meeting any more.

I am asking for your insights as to what it is really like to be around a newborn, and if many of you know men who took years but finally adjusted? Men who were like me at first?

If you are close to 0% then that's a no! You cannot continue any type of relationship with this poor woman!
I have a friend who had relationship with a man who didn't want children. She was in her 20's and ambivalent so they stayed together. She changed her mind and he didn't. They split over it after over 10 years together, she got pregnant by someone else, but they got back together. He lives with the little girl and adores her. He seems to prefer it to having his own child. I suppose he does not have the ultimate responsibility for her, and her father is very much involved in her life. He said he doesn't regret refusing to have a child (he had a vasectomy) even though he is virtually doing the day to day parenting. How would you feel if she had a child by someone else?

Please can we all stop indulging this.

you all keep saying " finish this now " , " walk away"

Which i the right thing to do, i know and i will but please understand how heart wrenching it is to have to do that for me.

It wouldn't just be a newborn, it would be your newborn. Don't you have any friends or family with kids? What's your own family relationships like? Your experience of living in a family home?

Nothing anyone can say can give you the cast iron guarantee you seem to need.

No one can predict your feelings for you. You seem terrified of change of any kind.

Do you not think plenty of others have fears and trepidation over life changing?

It is simple. Either you see a future and a family with this lady or you don't. You need to put her out of her misery either way.

Even if you did want s child, I think it's foolhardy to try for one with a person you've never spent longer than 3 days with! You don't even know if your relationship will work full time, let alone if you could parent together.

raised - i have actually said to her before, that if she has a child with someone else and splits from him, i would see her again and could be a step parent.

But she got hurt and said well why dont you want your own with me then? And i was stumped again.

Crying at work ?

Get a grip, for christ's sake. And yes, I would say that to a woman. You have known her for a fortieth of your life.

You want to know about newborns? Okay. I'm a mum, mind you, not a dad, but my DH found our beautiful, newborn DSs, very hard work. They didn't want him - they wanted me. All the time. All they wanted was to feel my warmth, hear my voice, feed from my breast. A newborn doesn't recognise his/her dad really. The voice, the body, the smell, the taste they have in-built is of their mother. It takes a dedicated dad to be able to overlook that and just get stuck in anyway. Many dads manage this very well, but they're dads that really want to be dads and know that this is a brief stage that passes and that eventually that tiny, screaming infant will become a little person who toddles about and says 'Dada'. But a baby really just wants his/her mama and no-one else will really do.

Its your lack of history and the horrible rush she's in that's the problem. You don't have any good stuff to fall back on when the going gets tough. You know this. You just need to do the right thing. Wish her well in her efforts to have a baby and then leave her to it. Your relationship is nowhere near ready for a baby. As you said yourself, you've never even been on holiday together!

No , i have no neices or nephews. I have very rarely been around babies or toddlers. I have never worked with kids.

I am also not close to my dad at all. my mum yes but my dad no.

Yes me and her have not lived in each others pockets for longer than 3 days, yet she still wants me to father her child. Yes , our relationship has barely been road tested, and tested in general, to even warrant becoming parents together.

So, you'd bring up another man's baby with her, but not your own?

There's something deep seated here that you need to address.

What was your childhood like? What are your family relationships like?

Just talk about yourself a little bit more, op

We haven't heard enough yet about how hard this is for you

So why is that SHE cant seem to REALISE that we barely have a solid relationship foundation or history, and she keeps asking me to have a baby with her?

Does that mean I am just the guy who happened to be there when baby fever hit?

Can she not also see that we barely have the solid base to even THINK about trying for a baby this year? Is she not afraid of a fallout?

I am baffled

Would you call yourself reasonably responsible, OP? I have read many times on the relationships about women having to deal with all the childcare because the man wants EXACTLY the life he had before they had children. For example before they had children both the husband and the wife would get plastered every Friday or more often. It seems quite the norm for young people nowadays. But when you have a child this is CERTAINLY NOT possible as the child will need conscious parents to look after it. The mother had changed her ways but he still thought that it was ok for her to look after a newborn, other older ill children with D&V etc because we was unconscious or sleeping heavily. Or if not drunk another husband would still feel entitled to get a "break from working hard all day" watching football at the pub or simply meeting mates or playing sports with them etc on his day off as if the woman was resting all day doing all the childcare by herself

How do you see yourself OP?

Equally, even if there are not children involved many couples start living together to see how they get along. There have been BF/GF who had been dating for at least 5 years and they broke it off within a month once they started to live together and see what it would be like if they got married. I have heard of people in RL having experienced this. But according to most people on here the OP should have impregnated her as soon as he met her because getting to know her was time wasting for her

Everybody seems to be getting on and on and on about a woman needing a baby but very few seem to care about the OP's feelings. They have both been honest which is very refreshing to hear. He loves her and is still trying to get her HIS way and she loves him and still tries to get him HER way.

OP, you're over-thinking this. It's very simple: she wants a child, you don't. End of. Time for you both to move on. Don't waste any more of her time by faffing about in the grey area. When it's really black & white.

music is medicine,

If she becomes a single mum, and im still single, I would like to meet with her again. In terms of becoming a full on stepdad, i am now unsure.

I wish i knew or had a cure for why i have such a block to not want my own child.

My father was very emotionally distant and i have never really spoken to him. my mum is nice but she should have married a better man. my dad was a crap husband and father, but he did stick around and not walk out.

Holidays and days together prove nothing.

There is never a right time to have a baby.

Have you ever discussed your values and beliefs? Shared values for parenting? Political beliefs? What's your future with or without kids? What you want out of life?

The baby stage isn't forever.

Is it commitment you fear really? Or a few nappies and some crying? I think you fear commitment and you would selfishly cling onto this woman and deny her a baby because you want everything on your terms.

Relationships that last are about compromise.

Let her go.

user what has your relationship history been like? Have you had longer serious relationships in the past or is she your first 'love'?

I might be totally wrong but think the reason you 'love' her so much is because it is safe to do so - if she leaves it's not because of YOU it is the baby issue.

You seem scared to put yourself on the line and scared of commitment. You are playing out 'love' and the pain of a break-up with someone who will reject you based on something you have decided you can't control (i.e: your lack of paternal instinct).

Many men and women have parent hood just happen by accident and come around to the idea
And it makes them happy even when they aren't into babies before they arrive

OP, I have been supportive of you on this thread. You have clearly tried really hard to imagine being a father and give the whole issue the kind of thought that many more people should. You still have close to 0% (as you described it) interest in becoming a parent and that is FINE. Like I and others have said a million times on here, parenting is not for everyone, not should it be.

But seriously OP - enough. This relationship is over, you want different things, completely different things. It hurts, of course it does, and you will feel sad for a while. Back off, leave her alone, allow her to get on with her life, take some time to feel the pain and then get on with your own life. You need to start accepting that this relationship is no good for either of you.

exactly chocorabbit.

Even if i wanted a child with this woman, i would want one after enjoying time as a couple first. I would want the holidays, the weekend breaks. And then to move in an then once we were solid, get married and try for a baby.

NO MAN, even if he wanted kids with this woman, would want to impregnate her asap without at least some of the above. And you have to question any man that did.

Yes I know she has no time left and all that, but then she is asking to be impregnated by a virtual stranger isnt she, if her rush is this severe?

Does that mean I am just the guy who happened to be there when baby fever hit?

Yes. Sorry, but yes. I suspect she's been looking for a potential dad for a while, but you're the guy who she's with now when she's in the last chance saloon. She's probably terrified of having a baby alone (I know I would be), and the thought of doing it with you, who she's been with for a year is, for her, a much better prospect than doing it alone. She would also have a higher chance of getting pregnant in a relationship, because regular sex is more likely to result in a pregnancy than artificial insemination, which is a bugger to get the timing right for.

What you can't fully appreciate OP is how desperate she is right now to get pregnant. I suspect that she is not really focused on whether your relationship will survive long-term. Her main aim is just to get pregnant and you're right there, in her bed, so you're her best hope for that. If the relationship works out too, then great, but that would be a bonus.

'My father was very emotionally distant and i have never really spoken to him. my mum is nice but she should have married a better man. my dad was a crap husband and father, but he did stick around and not walk out.'

I suspected as much.

That, right there, is the reason for your fear. I know, because I didn't want kids for years myself and after exploring it, I realised it was fear of being a crap parent, like mine were.

Totally understandable.

I think you'd really benefit from exploring this angle further. I had to do a lot of work on myself to overcome this and understand my earlier lack of maternal instinct.

There is no reason that you will be like your father. You have the capacity to love - and to be loved.

It can make you feel like there's something wrong with YOU when a parent is emotionally absent. There isn't and it isn't your fault.