BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Husband wants kids

Hi! I have been married 6 wonderful years (I am 29) and recently had a miscarraige. I was never sure I wanted kids, and when I found out I was pregnant, I freaked out bad. Then, when I lost it, I was a wreck and wanted nothing more but to have children and couldn't wait to try. Now, 3 months later, I am starting to think I don't want them again. The catch is that my husband really wants them and I don't want to lose him. I feel like I will be unhappy denying him this, but possibly unhappy with children too. I know you should not have them for someone else, or thinking it will all be okay, but I am really confused. He says I will regret not having them someday, but I know this means that he will. I want to do this for him, he is wonderful with children and really deserves them, but I don't want to lose him either. I am just so confused. I don't know if I will ever be ready, and I am making myself sick over it. I always said if I got pregnant, it would have to be a mistake, which happened. Now, I feel like I need to decide one way or the other, and I just can't. Both decisions make me unhappy. How can I be happy again? Thanks.

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you have a lot of thinking to do. right now, you're still in a very vulnerable state after a miscarriage (i've had 2 of them). your hormones take a while to get back to normal, and it takes even longer for your heart to get back to normal. when my husband and i got married, neither of us really knew how we felt about kids. we decided we'd cross that bridge when we came to it. a few years into the marriage, he felt it was time to start trying. i freaked out and asked to wait. then a year later, i was more than ready to have kiddos. now that we've tried about 10 years with just losses to show for it, we're both about ready to move on (well, he's moved on already; i'm still struggling). your feelings change throughout the years. it is part of who you are. right now, it might be a good idea to wait on making any decisions. you are still dealing with the emotions that follow a loss, and it can take a lot of time to get through that. so for now, don't decide on anything. just take some time to get through this and be a couple. your heart will tell you what is the right thing to do.

i don't know if i'm making much sense to you or not. i'm really just speaking from my heart and from my experiences. but right now, you need time to heal.

(((((hugs)))))

I think that you do still have time to make this decision...you are 29! I feel for you...

If the should I/shouldn't I question is making you miserable, maybe you can agree to not talk about it for a year. That will give you some time to heal, and think without any pressure from him.

You might not be ready at 30 either...I can see saying to someone 'you might regret it' if they have not made a decision to have or to not have, and they are approaching 40, but you could still wait for years and be all right! If you are worried about that, talk to your doctor about waiting, and the risks/benefits of that choice.

Oh I'm sorry you're going through this. I lurk here sometimes because I was anti-kids for so long. Having kids is a tough decision and one which you need to make for yourself - NOT to please someone else.
Is it not the right time or do you never want kids? I know if I had gotten pregnant in my 20's I would have considered abortion. I DID NOT WANT KIDS!! But in my thirties I thought OK I can get over my fears and now have 2. I am so HAPPY - it's hard to believe I have kids! This is me, I am not saying everyone would be blissfully happy with kids later on in life.
But I made sure to do all the traveling and partying and all that stuff before I settled down. The responsibility of kids usually falls heavily on the women so you must be of the mind set that you are indeed ready to take on this challenge. It is not easy - yet it is for me hugely rewarding.
So it could be that you're not ready - you're 29 and have years to think about it. BUT if you never want kids you should be honest and talk about this openly. I would never advise having kids that are unwanted and cause of resentment.
Best of luck to you.
If you ever need some real answers on what pregnancy and Motherhood is really like you can ask me. Perhaps shed some light on your decision. You could either decide "Hey maybe I do want kids someday OR run as fast as you can for the birth control! Ha ha!

I agree with jvo: Perhaps waiting and just giving it a rest for a while will do you a world of good. When you think too long and hard about something it can drive you insane and encourage decisions that perhaps are not what is ultimately in your best interest. A lot of good advice here from everyone.

Just wait, don't force yourself to get pregnant again because of pressure from your husband. Now this I have experience with: My first husband knew I didn't want children, I was only 20 when we married [he was 6 months older]. Two years later he changes his mind and assumes he can re-work my young, vulnerable in-love mind (via advice from his mother, of course ). He thought wrong. I said no kids and I meant no kids, not then, not now and not ever.

He divorced me one year later when his feeble attempts to persuade me yielded no fruit. I am now happily married to a man who knows there are no children in our future; I'm fixed lol!!!
Take your time hon, no rushing and stick to your gut, it never lies to you - mine has never let me down.
Fire

Reviewing my post I just wanted to add a little something. It was not easy!! I made it sound simple but there's no point in highlighting useless details everyone knows is involved in divorce. I went through a tremendous amount of pain and criticism. It almost broke me but I refused to give in to something I felt extremely passionate about, even at that young, moldable age.
Nothing in life such as this is easy, but there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Fire

One other thing which I don't think has been mentioned:

If you don't have kids and you do regret it later (which I suppose is a possibility, although I certainly don't see it happening in my life ), you've only short-changed yourself and your husband.

If you do have kids and then regret it later (and may I remind people of the anonymous Anne Landers survey: 70% of respondents said "If I knew then what I know now about parenting, I would have said "no"), then you've also involved an innocent third party: the child. Children can sense when they're not wanted and it can be extremely harmful to them. Growing up is tough enough already.

As a high school music teacher, the parents of the kids I work with are very supportive of me. Many know that I don't have kids --- by design. It's the parents of younger children who seem to be the huge evangelists (often to the point of obnoxiousness) for parenting. Parents of teens know what it's like to have a child who questions your authority, cusses you out, wrecks your car, and drains your bank account with orthodontia bills. Younger children, by comparison, are relatively inexpensive and (while time-consuming, for CERTAIN) trouble-free, unless there's a health problem involved.

I have ten advisees (students for whom I'm particularly responsible; advising them on college applications, etc.). I have seen them scream and shoot daggers at their parents, then turn around and be perfect sweetness-and-light angels with me. They are in the throes of separating their identities from that of their parents, and it is SO ugly much of the time. The parents tell me that, at this point, it's teachers like me who get the vast majority of the kids' "Kodak moments" (and particularly so for me, since in my case, I'm a music teacher and all of my students take my classes only on a purely elective basis)

Talk to parents of OLDER children too --- not just parents of infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers.

Elise

Hi Bonsai

It is so refreshing to hear the true about teenagers and
raising children from someone like you since you are around them all the time.

Thank you
Geri

Hi there- I just joined this site because I have been searching for a way to work through my thoughts and feelings about possibly not wanting children even though my husband does. I myself am 27 and have been married for 5 years. My husband and I didn't talk much about kids before getting married because we knew we weren't going to try for some time and I just assumed they were a progressive part of our relationship that would come about later. Well... now that I have gotten older and settled more into who I am and what I want, I am leaning more towards the idea that I don't want kids. However, my husband loves kids and has always known that he wanted kids, and now that we have hit the 5 year marker in our marriage he thinks it is time to really start trying. So far, we haven't been using any birth control for almost a year now and I have been tempting fate, but this recent step up to monitoring fertility and scheduling sex has sent me into a panic. I've been very distant with him and depressed because I also don't know what to do. I love him very much but don't know how to talk him about this because I don't want to lose him. I know if I do truly decide that I don't want kids my marriage might end because his desire for children could be more than what we have without. However, I wouldn't want my husband to stay married to me if he wasn't totally acceptable of a childfree lifestyle, because this would only make him unhappy and regretful of his life. On the other hand though, I am afraid that if I go ahead and give in to having children I might resent him for forcing my hand and also possibly resent the child and regret my life. With all this pressure to have kids from my husband, mother-in-law, family, and friends, I feel like there must be something wrong with me and am trying to work through the root cause of me not wanting children. I have a hard time talking to people about my deep personal thoughts and feeling but am contemplating talking to some kind of a counselor to help resolve my feelings and come to a decision. I am just glad to know though, that someone else out there feels that same as I do and is in a similar situation. As I said, I am new to this site and these forums but I would like to talk more to you about our situation. Please get back to me if you are interested. Thanks.