Been in a relationship for 10 years. Is it worth continuing?

[Miss2009]

My partner and I have been in a relationship for over 10 years. We love eachother very much. We want to get married some day. However, I really want children. I'm 33 and very aware or my biologic clock. When we talk about kids, one minute he says he wants them and the next he says he definitely doesn't. We don't want to break up. What shall I do?

I think it's important for you to decide on your own whether you'd be happy to compromise your desire for children. If you value having children more than the relationship and can't see yourself happy without them then I think you need to have a serious honest talk and ask him what his timelines would be on children. If you're so in love and happy and you think children would be a lovely bonus but you wouldn't want to sacrifice your relationship to have them then you're all good. The choice really lies with you and he is uncertain and in my opinion when it comes to parenthood, especially fatherhood uncertainty is a NO and id hate for him to feel pressured and resent you down the line!

If you want kids and he doesn't i'm assuming that he is taking full responsibility for birth control then?

At this stage if he doesn’t know I doubt he ever will, and it’s very unfair of him to keep dallying if he knows you want them. I wonder if he’s trying to stall so long you won’t have a choice.
If having kids so essential to you he either needs to say a definite yes with a timeframe, or be honest with you and let you find someone who shares the same goals. Having children was a non negotiable for me, I wouldn’t have stayed with my DH if he didn’t want them too.

He needs to realise that you're on a shorter deadline than he is and that he risks losing you altogether. "Play the movie to the end" is something I've heard on here and think it's a really good idea. You should think what will happen if you stay with him and he continues with his belief that he doesn't want a child. You'll be too old for children, you'll be increasingly resentful, the relationship will end, he'll meet someone else and it's very, very likely he'd have a child with that person. Imagine how you'd feel then.

I imagine you feel a bit out of control as you're trying to make your own desires tie in with his and he's 'winning' at the moment. I'd want to claw back control, even if that meant giving him a deadline (don't make it too long) or telling him it's over, in the hope it would shock him into action.

Not everyone feels the same but for me 10 years is a long time to be with someone without having progressed to marriage/civil partnership (now available to everyone) and children (if there are plans to have a family) so I find the statement that you want to get married "some day" a bit confusing. What are you waiting for? Or is it him causing the waiting? If it is, then it sounds like he is keeping his options open. You don't have to have a big expensive wedding - it's very cheap to get married.

Whether or not that is the case, the disparity between the female and male body clock means that you need to press on with having children whereas most likely he could comfortably father them during his 40s and 50s also and even later. So you are under a pressure which he isn't. But most men accept that and have children at a time which suits their partner rather than just leaving her dangling. Certainly with DH and me (he was DP then), we agreed that we wanted to have children, realised that we would never quite feel ready and one morning I said we needed to start and he accepted that. I was mid-30s when DD1 was born and late 30s when DD2 was born - we had been together 4 years when we began TTC.

I was certain I wanted children and had been for many years so for me this would be shaping up to be a deal-breaker. As PP said - play this movie to the end (fabulous phrase): how will you feel 10 years from now if you're still with this man and childless and have almost certainly lost your opportunity to have children? No matter how much you love him now, I don't believe the love for and of a partner can make up for that partner having voluntarily caused you to forego the chance to have children (of course it's different where it's not possible for that partner to father children - then different considerations do apply, but in that case you could be looking at other means of becoming parents). But where it is simply the partner resisting becoming a father, you can't be sure that he won't abandon you at a future date and go on to have children with someone else: on threads such as these, posters have often cited cases where the woman has foregone children to suit the man and after her fertility window has closed the man has upped and left for a younger woman with whom he has proceeded to have children and I know of a few such cases.

Remember the current situation works for him and will continue to work for him for years. It's going to stop working for you really soon so you can't pussyfoot about this discussion: you need to pin him down. Yes, you don’t want to foist fatherhood on an unwilling partner but I’m guessing you don’t want to forego motherhood either so you need to get this nailed down. And if he continues to waiver, you may need to move on and look for someone else who is ready to commit to having children or - if you are sufficiently determined to have children - consider whether you want to go it alone.

Which do you want more - to have children or to not break up with him?

10 years and no commitment.
Back and forth about kids.
If kids is a must then this relationship is at deal-breaker stage.
At 33 you have time to get out, work on 'you' then get back out there and find someone who has the same goals as you.
This guy will actually never commit.
He will dangle the carrot then move it away again.
If you want DC then you know what you need to do.
Don't waste any more of your valuable 30's on him.

What hells bells melons wrote.

If you do want marriage and children then it will not be with this man. You want marriage and children, he wants neither at this time or perhaps at all.