Husband refusing 2nd child

[Whatisthisallabout1]

My husband swings between absolutely not having another child and maybe we can have another. Our daughter is nearly 7, I have been firmly on the need another child band wagon for 3/4 years. I feel like he said not just now for a while then this changed. I had a miscarriage in feb last year, he said we could try again but has since back tracked. I’m so unhappy and depressed over it I’m in therapy - he refuses to attend. He has lots of reasons, money, mental health (says wants an easy life) aging parents ect as to why no more children. My heart aches and I cry most days. I can’t help feel that he is ruining my life, my child’s life with no siblings. I’m 38 soon and really want to leave, but I’m scared I don’t find someone in time- but if I’d left sooner I might be happy and settled by now. He refuses couples counselling. I am starting to hate his existence. Do I just leave and try and be happy?

Walk away, selfishly break up your Childs family, all because what you want he doesn't - he has his reasons, you have your stance - go, give the poor chap a break.

yes, a massive contradiction here. Your daughter that you care so much about is not getting the best of her mom because she is more focused on the desperation to have another baby rather than prioritizing what she has in her life.
I believe counselling might not be appropriate for you OP, I would seek an experienced trauma therapist.
When there is what feels like a hole in your life, it's easiest to think another child or something else will make you happy. It doesn't work that way.
I see these way too often, women obsessed with having kids for the wrong reasons (not saying necessarily this is you btw) and then being miserable, either not coping with raising the kids on their own or having to make massive compromises. This guarantess raising traumatised children that will have their lives limited. I speak from experience.
Maybe your husband has another perspective on this, that you might not be able to see as you are too wrapped up in your story.
Misscariages are hard, you need time and support to heal, another child will not replace the one lost.
When you don't feel good within yourself nobody and nothing will fix it for you, it is just a temporary fix.
If you were to give 100% to your wellbeing and the family you have, if you made the effort to be happy and enjoy what you have what would that look like? If you cannot do that you are not in a good place to bring another child into the world and your husband has good reasons to refuse. the "need another baby" is a big red flag. I hope you find the right support.

You have contempt for your husband, the marriage is over.

You now have 2 options; to have a child with a man you barely know because time is running out so you will need to leave, find someone else pretty quickly, persuade him to have a child with you and hope there is no delay in conception. Hopefully you won't be posting here in a decade complaining about how your new partner's family don't treat your first child as family and only include your second child in family events. It may also be hit and miss whether the second relationship survives.

Second option is donor insemination. Hopefully you will also organise counselling for the child so they don't have any issues with their sibling having a father and paternal family when they don't.

In the midst of this will be your existing child whose family will have been torn apart and who will know they were never enough. Of course this will be entirely the fault of their father and you will have your longed for second child.

People change and evolve throughout the course of relationships. Plans change especially after the birth of the first child, some people realise then that a second isn't for them. No-one has a right to have children. It's awful for children to be born to parents who actively do not want them, parenting is hard enough.

I honestly have no idea why you want a baby with a man you hate so much. You - not him - need therapy. You need to decide if you want to destroy your child's life as it is at the moment because you want something you may not be able to have. What will your life look like, if you leave, take your child away from her father - and then don't find another sperminator/can't get pregnant even if you do/find out the grass is not greener. Take a long hard look at yourself, count your blessings, and recognise there is no problem at all in being an only child.

You can't bridge a gap like this when only 1 of you wants to. You're terribly unhappy and he's completely unphased by that from your post.

Leaving is hard. It's definitely harder than staying.
Like you say there's no guarantee you'll end up with another child, no matter whether you stay or go. What you can gain by leaving is not feeling trapped, with seething resentment, for the person causing you to feel that way.

Staying isn't what's best for everyone. It's not best for you. Therefore also unlikely it's best for your child.

Jesus, he sounds horrible. If you can afford to leave then I'd seriously consider it. Mocking your tears? How vile.

So sorry OP.
There is no compromise over this and which ever one of you sacrifices what you want the other one will be unhappy and resentful.
There is no point trying to make someone have a child with you if they don't want to.
Only you know OP if this is something you are prepared to sacrifice your marriage over.

There is no solution. They have a child. OP wants another one. Her husband does not so the only solution is to split up and her to try and have a baby. She doesn't sound like she likes him anyway.

Really bad idea. You're financially independent. Go live your best life @Whatisthisallabout1

@Bonmot57 stick with the evidence. OP hasn’t said anything that could lead to this assumption:

Having gone through the pain and trauma of losing a child he has decided no, actually, he doesn’t want to go through that again.

You will always mind that he put you through this by the frequent changing stance on children. To change his mind again after you had a miscarriage and to mock you for finding that distressing is cruel. Tbh even if he was to come around to the idea today and agreed to TTC you will always resent what he put you through.

If you leave you've no guarantee you’ll get pregnant again but you won’t be with someone you resent.

If you leave and he meets someone else and has another family he’s just reinforcing it was you he didn’t want to have another baby with not that you somehow made a mistake in leaving.

Being a single parent is tough and you’ll have to share your current child with him.

There’s no easy answer as there’s no perfect option, if you write down list of pros and cons what is the least bad choice?

Exact same with me. Only child, always longing for a sibling. I would feel so sad when I left a friend's house and they still had their siblings but I just went home alone. On a larger scale it felt like I wasn't really essential to anyone, and when I went through struggles with friends or family it was me against the world. And the focus on only me was very stressful and suffocating at times...every issue or misbehaviour was magnified or treated like the end of the world because my parents had no other children to compare to, or to divide their attention.

Obviously everyone has a different experience, but whenever someone confidently dismisses the issue of only children being lonely, it does frustrate me.

I was clear about what I wanted with DH...multiple DCs were non negotiable for me

His hard stance arose after the miscarriage so, ergo, it’s reasonable to conclude that event influenced matters.

I was an only child. When I left friends' houses I used to feel incredibly relieved I didn't have siblings. It seemed awful!

This marriage is over. Just imagine not having the opportunity to have a 2nd child. You already have hatred towards him imagine you are going through the menopause and you know your time is up but his isn’t. I can’t imagine what that will do to you

Whether you divorce today tomorrow or in 10 or 20 years it is going to happen
Better to do it sooner and give you self choices than not do it at all with a man who I suspect just sees you as a walking payslip.

How is your husband mocking you, exactly? How do you know he was relieved? Are these factual events that have happened/happen, or is it your perception because you’re so consumed with the obsession of having a second child?

His reasons are perfectly valid. Just like I’d never wish for a woman to have children against her will, no man should have another child that they don’t want. It’s a lifelong commitment.

You hate your husband, but only because he’s not on board. If you really hated him, shouldn’t you have divorced by now? Why go for a second child with someone you dislike?

My mother went through a phase of wanting more children, it was obsessive and very upsetting for us to have to hear about it 24/7. Something else was the source of her unhappiness and in her mind it would all be fixed with a brand new child.

There's nothing wrong with being an only child either. DD loves it, so do several of my only child friends.

I would leave honestly.

I went through the hell of infertility for over a decade and miscarriage in that journey (so not my DH fault) and people just cannot comprehend the sheer mental health toll it takes wanting something so badly and having it ripped away, its a deep grief that the world doesn't seem to understand or respect. It was FAR harder on my MH than my cancer journey.

It would be an absolute deal breaker for me if it was my husband deciding for me 'no more children', it would be 'no more husband'. I would not have been with him if those had been the terms from the start so wouldn't stay if he changed them on me as I would resent him.

I would go and be a single mother. Several of my friends have now gone down the sperm donor route so its not even that unusual anymore some because they never found the one and others due to being lesbians + many who where in relationships have ended up single mothers anyway.

I always wanted a large family and dreamed of my children long before I ever met my husband. It was my life's dream and truthfully a part of that was because I grew up as an only child and wanted the family I never got to have and a house full of kids (I did eventually get siblings but not until I was grown up and past childhood and left home so we didn't grow up together).

I was raised by a single mother and she was fantastic, I never ached for my deadbeat father and as an adult completely cut him out of my life (made no difference losing the twice a year he showed up and acted like an ass). I did wish (and even beg my mam at times) for siblings but never for a father. Being with just one loving parent is plenty (actually far better than some of my friends who had 2 parents who 'stayed together for the kids' but hated and resented each other, kids pick up on the ill feelings).

I've read your responses OP. I would leave. Do it on your own. He sounds awful and you aren't happy. Be happy and build an amazing life for yourself. You wont ever regret a second child, but you would regret staying with him.

I don't know who or what has been feeding this obsession that being an only child is such a terrible fate but it's done such a number on so many women. Although I have to think it's more just an excuse for the woman to get a second child and very little to do with their existing child.

You would be monumentally selfish to break up a family because you can't get over your silly fantasy of a second child. But have at it-a lot of women here will tell you to go for it because the only person's feelings that matter are yours.

Any other man would run a mile from someone so desperate.

It sounds to me like the problem is in fact his flip-flopping and indecisiveness, which is holding you in limbo. He’s stringing you along and you need some clarity so that you can decide what to do next.

I think you’re confusing your frustration at this uncertainty with thinking a second child will somehow cure all your problems. It won’t. It won’t suddenly make you happier or resolve your relationship communication issues.

So you’d break up your daughter’s existing family for the sake of an imaginary second child who might never exist.

And from you.

@Whatisthisallabout1

I’m not sure either if you is wrong to want what you want- it’s just that your wants are not compatible and there is no compromise possible. Either you have a baby or you don’t. It’s ok to feel you can only cope with one child and it’s perfectly acceptable to want more than one. I can understand that his indecision has been very hard for you- do you think it has been a genuine change of mind/realisation that he does not feel able to cope with a second child (maybe the miscarriage upset him more than you think), or do you think he has always been against a second but too cowardly to say so because he knew how you would feel about that? The former is forgivable, in my view.

All that said, if you actually do hate him then your relationship is over really, isn’t it? I don’t understand why you would want to have another child with a man you say you hate. Why would you choose to put any of you through that?

If you seriously hate him, I think you would be very unwise to bring a baby into that mess, even if you could persuade him to try. It wouldn’t be fair on your DD or the baby- babies can put a strain on any relationship, one rife with anger and conflict is much more likely to fail, and if that happens your DD has to adjust to her family breaking up and a new younger sibling. If you are deeply unhappy and no longer want to be married, you should end it. His refusal to have another baby may be the catalyst, but it’s not the only reason.

I suspect the marriage cannot be a good one in other aspects of you have ended up here. If everything else in your marriage was the same, and the only difference was that he agreed to another child, would you be (largely) happily married to a man you love? If the answer to that question is no, then I think you need to think long and hard about whether you should be in this relationship. If the answer is yes, then I think you need to honestly consider whether this is a grass is greener situation- what you have is actually valuable, even if it is not 100% what you want.

I think you need to decide what you want out of the options you actually have rather than the thing you would want to happen.

As I see it, you have 3 options:

1. If you genuinely hate your DH then you should end the marriage before it becomes acrimonious, for your daughter’s sake if nothing else. Whether you meet another partner and have more children is almost a moot point. You should not stay in a marriage with someone you hate. It’s not healthy for you, your husband or your existing child.

2. If you don’t actually hate him, and do love him and want to remained married to him (not because he can give you a baby, but because you love him), then you need to find a way to come to terms with the fact he does not want another child.

3. you love him but actually you want another child more than you want your current marriage and the family you have created. You sit down and lay your cards on the table, and you end your relationship with dignity so that your daughter has the stability she needs to adjust to the family break up. You will have to be careful about jumping into relationships and trying to fast-track to the “having a baby stage” for your daughter sake. She should not be the casualty of your desire for another baby.

The final thing I think you need to consider is the practicalities of moving on to have further children with a new partner. There is no guarantee you would find another relationship with a man who wants to start a family. Nor any guarantee that you would be able to have a child with this man. Additionally, realistically you would have to be moving on to a very serious relationship pretty quickly after leaving your DH. And you’d have to be introducing your DD to another man, moving in etc rather fast- faster than I think would be healthy for your DD. Is it really fair to hurt her to try to have another child? Leave if you are unhappy, but be careful about how you go about achieving that second child.

I cannot believe the people suggesting that you should leave to find a new bf to have a baby. You’d completely upset your daughters life for the idea of another baby. You need to pull yourself together. You are ruining your daughters childhood with your desperation. Crying and miserable every day, arguing with her dad. I understand you have a biological for a a baby but it doesn’t exist yet and your daughter does.

You say your DH would move on and leave your daughter behind but it’s you that’s planning to do that. You want to leave and have a baby with some imaginary man, you’d lose custody of your daughter for 50% of the time. Your daughter would no longer feel like a core member of your family as she would have two homes and you’d be in the trenches with a new born. She’d likely hate your new bf, because she’d be mourning the break up of your family and the 8 year age gap between them would mean that they may never be close because by the time your new dc is 10 your DD will be off to uni. So you pinning your want for a new child on your DD is ridiculously unreasonable.

If you want to leave go, but don’t kid yourself that it’s for your DD