BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Decisions About Kids

I've read some posts on here from women who are in a relationship where from the start the man had pretty much just assumed she wanted children. Or the woman had started out wanting children and changed her mind later. I wanted to make some comments on this and see if anyone replies to it. First of all, I just want to say that I think it's really ignorant for someone to just assume that their partner will want children. It's a sensitive issue from the start, so instead of making assumptions, this is something that you should talk to your partner about early on in the relationship. I can't really speak from personal experience on this matter, considering that the relationship I am in started out long distance. We were good friends first and had the opportunity to talk about such things without fear of being ridiculed or judged. Anyway, even if he/she looks like the type who wants kids, or even if they're good with kids and like them, you should never just assume the other person is going to want them. I am great with my older sister's kids and love them when she's not there to make them behave badly, but I've never wanted any of my own. People often tell me that I'd make a good mother, even while I know for a fact that I won't be able to tolerate having a child around all the time. It goes to show that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. Next I want to address the later situation, where the woman changes her mind later in the relationship. Okay, so I can surely understand why the man would feel betrayed. He wanted kids and he thought they had been on the same page about the subject, so he had assumed that the situation had been fine. However, the woman had brought up the subject many times, by asking if her husband still wanted children. Men, usually when something is on your woman's mind, she'll bring it up a lot. Whether the topic is brought up subtly or not depends on her personality, but she'll still try to get you to talk about it. So, if the she's been asking a lot about children, chances are there's something really weighing on her mind concerning that topic. No one can be expected to be a mind reader, because that's hardly fair, however if you're in a relationship like marriage and have been together for a while(talking in a time period of 10 or more years here), you probably should be able to read her needs fairly more often than when the relationship was new. It's unfair to still expect someone to have kids when they don't want them or they are not sure if they want them. You shouldn't try to change your partner's mind about this, especially when this isn't a conclusion they came to over night. If you are a woman who doesn't want kids while your husband does, this difference can tear apart even the strongest marriage. When the man continues to try and pressure his female partner into having kids when she isn't sure or doesn't want them, it makes her feel guilty and resent him. I can imagine she'd probably be mad because it's her body that is utterly destroyed by pregnancy, not the man's. I can imagine that she'd feel as though that's all her husband wanted her for from the start. I can imagine she'd feel like her husband no longer loved her for a personal choice that she has the right to make. The same could also be true of a man who no longer wished to have any kids, while the wife could think of nothing more fulfilling. I can imagine she'll constantly be talking about kids in his presence, or make him go to all the family events where all anyone wants to talk about is their kids. I'm sure he'd grow weary of the situation and want to get away, even resenting or disliking the person that their difference in opinion on the matter has made her into. I know one thing for certain: It'd be horrible to feel like that's all your spouse wanted you for from the beginning -someone to produce offspring. It'd be horrible to realize every morning that you and the person you love with all your heart would grow apart over something like not wanting to have children. Children are a huge decision and they take an exorbitant amount of time, care and money. All financial and other freedom you had goes out the window, as does having sex as much, if at all. Then you have to consider the child's health. Is the baby going to be born healthy or will it have problems? Is he/she going to be a problem child? What about when they start dating? What if they get bullied/become a bully? Not to mention the cost of school to begin with. And so on and so forth. The point there was to illustrate the importance of talking about this decision early and making sure your desires are clear from the beginning. It's a huge physical, emotional and financial strain on two people to bring children into this world. If one partner needs more time or doesn't want kids, for god's sake, there's no reason to do it. You wouldn't be hurting anyone but yourself to have kids when you're not sure you want them. Anyway, I just had to get that out there. Tell me what you guys think.

Hi Sam. I am going to unload a bit here because you brought this topic up. I have told my story many times on this forum. I am one of the women who decided a little later in the relationship that I did not want to have children.

I had intended early on to have kids some day, but I was in no rush. Then one day at age 26 it just became extremely clear that raising children was not for me, for many reasons. My husband and I had just married 2 weeks prior to this decision after a 3 year courtship. I never intended to hurt him, and it hurt me to do it. How could I have known that this decision would come to me at the time that it did? I could not help it.....it just happened that way.

Sure, my husband was shocked and felt betrayed. I felt horrible hurting him, and I cried many tears over it. I was afraid to lose him then, but I prayed that he'd see things my way some day. A couple years later we had arguments over the issue. In the spring of two years in a row (spring....the season of rebirth and growth) he and I went around and around about the issue. I would not budge on my decision though. I couldn't. And this came up two years in a row. I told him to please leave me if he had to have children in his life. As much as I loved him I would not hold him back from being happy. He chose to stay, and I didn't realize that he thought I'd change my mind some day.

I thought he loved me for who I was as a person. For years after that I knew he wanted kids but was willing to stay with me anyway. I tried not to think about it but sometimes I would, feeling guilty and helpless because I know it would have meant the world to him, and yet hearing the inner voice in me screaming NO!!! No kids.....

My husband became busy with other things....painting, a band, 8 years of school, etc. Eventually he agreed with me that not having children was fine as long as he could do some other things in life, and it was nice to have the peace every night at home. Both of us agreed that it was nice to have a quiet life where we could choose what we wanted to do every day and not have to worry about anyone else. I thought we were ok....

Then around age 39 he has a mid life crisis. He lost his job and his grandfather died (a family man with lots of kids). All of a sudden my husband's need for kids became everything to him. He landed a great job and then he wanted out of the relationship with me. He had maintained a connection with a female friend for several years that I did not know about, a woman 7 years his senior who already had kids pretty much grown. This is the woman he wanted now and she promised him a baby.

After a 16 year marriage and 19 years together, my marriage was over. A marriage that was difficult for me because of my husband's shortcomings, but I had accepted him for all his flaws and I was willing to live with them, all because I loved him so much. I truly believe he was my soulmate because he knew me and understood me so well, and I was the same for him. Often we would comment on how our marriage just seemed better than most people's we knew because we did not fight over petty things. We had lots of affection for each other and a good friendship.

Besides my inner voice guiding me that having kids was not for me, other reasons had come into play through the years as to why I refused to have kids. My mental state which was not always stable, my husband's emotional instability, his immaturity to the point where there were times of porn addiction, blowing money on unnecessary things just to get instant gratification, his selfishness and irresponsibility. He cheated on me a few times as well, and still I stayed with him. And finances were another issue altogether. Poor choices made for a poor financial outlook, at least for many years. Why would I ever bring a child into this environment? Although he and I are no longer together, he is who he is and always will be, and he thinks he is ready for raising kids.

Less than a year before we split, he came home after a 3 week separation and cried all over me, telling me that he did not know what he was doing. He said he loved me and that I was always there for him....through everything. Yet somehow his relationship with this female friend won out, and a few months later I could feel him moving away from me emotionally. I am sure she saw a meal ticket in him as well, because he finally had landed the dream job he wanted.

I supported him through all the years he went to school, running the house and making sure he had a hot meal on the table every night. I encouraged him and I was proud of him. Now he makes decent money and I am at poverty level looking for work because I had lost my job before our divorce. It has been almost two years now since he told me he wanted to divorce me. I am still reeling from it. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that I was dumped because he wanted kids and not me, the woman he loved. I guess he is more happy now, remarried and living the high life.

I am in a new relationship that is a year and a half old. My new man is a good person, kind and gentle, but he does not love like I do, deeply and with much emotion. I had that once with my ex-husband. It saddens me to lose that kind of relationship. I am still in the grieving process over it all. It has been a year and a half since our divorce, and my grieving does affect my new relationship. If I hadn't met my boyfriend by slim chance when I was going through hell, I never would have gotten involved with another man so soon. In a way I think he saved me from losing my mind when I was losing everything, and for that I am grateful.

To be honest, I am still trying to get my life back together, and it is not easy at all. I miss my ex-husband greatly, not to mention the times we spent together, the stimulating conversations, and his sense of humor. Our lives were far from perfect, but there was always hope and always room for working on things. I am disappointed that he gave up, but I should have expected it with his immaturity.

Now I have to accept what happened and go on. I lost the love of my life, my home, my financial security. I invested all I had in the man I loved, and I lost it all. At age 44 I have no savings, no retirement, no fancy education, and no job. I struggle like a lot of people these days, just trying to get from month to month. I had a brighter outlook for my future once. That is gone. For all the promises my husband made to ensure that we had a good future together, there is now someone else in his life, enjoying what was rightfully mine.

Nowhere did I promise in my marriage vows that I would have children. Yet he told me that I broke the marriage vows and the agreement I had with him to have a family. People get together because they love each other. If anyone was betrayed here it was me, because I stuck by him through everything for many years, and yet he did not value me in the end as a woman and as his wife. For years I was honest with him in my decision and I did not go back and forth on it. I offered him a way out if he wanted it and he did not take it.

He told me that the relationship you have with a child is more important and has more value than the relationship you have with a partner. It is a bit twisted I think, to have this point of view. It makes no sense to me, because if a couple decides together to have a family I would hope that they are utterly devoted to each other, first and foremost.

To confirm your thoughts.......yes, it is horrible to be dumped like trash because you won't produce offspring. When I took my vows there were no kids involved. We were marrying each other for better or for worse. He was the one who walked away, while I stayed committed until the end. I just wish it hadn't taken him 16 years to get the balls to leave.

I, _____, take you ______, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness. To have and to hold? For better, for worse? To love and to cherish? I'm still reading, looking for it...looking for it... Hmmm...forgive me, I must have also missed the "must have children" clause in this vow. Men who say women break the marriage vows when they make a choice not to have kids are spewing a crock of bull. I'm very sorry that you went through all of this Cassie, and I did not really know about any of this since I am pretty new to the forum. To have someone tell me after 16 years of marriage, during which time I had done nothing but love and support that person, that I was selfish and that I was breaking some kind of contract...well that probably wouldn't have ended well for him. However, you're quite a bit more mature than myself, so you handled it the right way. I can only hope that as I get older and if I encounter that situation, that I can and will handle it with as much courage and poise as you did. Women like you are heroes to me for being the ones who didn't give up despite everything that stood in the way. You really inspire 20-somethings like myself to give it my all. I sincerely hope the relationship you are in now turns out better than the first. You really deserve to be happy. Thanks for replying to my post, I was kind of afraid that no one would.

Sam.....Thank you for your kind words. I have found so much support on this forum. I would be so much worse off if I didn't have an outlet for some of my pain over what happened to my marriage. Some things you just can't say to your friends over and over again or they will get tired of hearing it. To have this sounding board available to me has been a blessing.

You can log in and click on my name and you can read any or all of my past posts. I joined bella and began posting just before I got divorced, when everything was really bad. I can't thank enough all of the wonderful ladies who expressed their kindness and support during that time, and all of the months since then.

In a past thread some of us discussed the total disregard for marriage vows by some men when they want something bad enough, like having children. It does not matter what they have pledged to their wives. All of that means nothing but their own selfish needs. It is not about the partnership or about considering how such a thing would affect their spouse, especially if the spouse does not want children. It is always a good idea to get the issue of children straight before a marriage ever takes place, but sometimes like in my case one person changes their mind after the wedding date. It does not make them a horrible person because of it.

All I ever wanted, like many people, is to be loved for who I am. And I was for a time, until I decided that children were not for me. Then my husband took me off the pedestal he had me on and he became more focused on his own needs instead of our needs as a couple. In hindsight I do see that now, but back then through the years I always focused on the good in him, the survival of our marriage, and doing the best I could to ensure his happiness. I guess I was indeed blind, because I persevered even though there were some very tough years for us due to health issues, money problems, family problems, etc. But I also believed that good days would come, and it was my job to stay the course and be a supportive wife.

People on here say I am strong, but I really don't feel that way a lot of the time. I have had years of struggling in many ways and it has taken its toll on me. The only thing I was strong on is standing by my decision not to have kids. I would not have been able to personally handle it, and I was not married to a man who was mature enough to pull his weight in that regard.

As an example, he wanted dogs and for years I put him off because of the huge responsibility. He had let me get all kinds of pets through the years and so I finally gave in, believing I should in order to be a good wife. He had a long commute to work and he worked long hours, so I sacrificed my time and raised two puppies pretty much on my own. He got to enjoy the fun times while I did most of the work. When we divorced he got the dogs, which broke my heart, but I had intentions of moving out of state and I could not take them (at the time my boyfriend and I were just starting out), and besides, they were supposed to be my husband's dogs and I could not in good conscience take just one dog and separate a sister and brother.

Ten months after our divorce he gives me the dogs, the dogs he HAD to have. He said he and his fiance had too much going on (planning for a wedding), there were space contraints (she brought in two dogs of her own into my small house and added a new puppy this year....making 5 dogs), and the stress of the visitation I had with the dogs once a month was too much of an interruption in their lives. Now understand this......he just "had to have" these dogs to be happy, yet with a new woman in his life he gives up the two dogs who loved him, and they were now three years old.

It still makes me sick to think about it, even though I do love the dogs and I am glad to have them back permanently. This man shows total disregard for feeling animals, and he never really had responsibility for them. If I had gone ahead and had children with him he would have enjoyed all the fun times while I busted my @ss. I would like to know how he is going to handle having a baby, if his now 47 year old wife ever does give him one, when times get tough. He can't just give away a child when things become inconvenient.

I made the right decision about having kids, especially when considering the man I was married to. I sometimes think that had I married someone years ago who was more strong and responsible, saved for the future, and treated me like gold, I may have been comfortable enough to have a child or two with the man I love. Who knows? They say things happen for a reason. I think now and then that it would have been nice to have a child, but that notion quickly disappears when I consider who I am as a person and what I can personally handle, and also what is involved in raising a child from birth to adulthood and beyond.

But back to the issue of wedding vows, I know I kept my end of the bargain for better or for worse. And believe me, there were some really bad days. He thought marriage and a relationship should be so much easier. He is living in his own fantasy land. Marriage takes work every day, and I did work at it to the point of exhaustion sometimes. He chose to live for himself and to hell with the vows he took or any promises he made to me. It is really disgusting.

Well, Sam B. I completely share your feelings on kids. Also, there are liberal Christians, they're just a smaller group.

Yeah, I've looked into liberal groups and have been considering attending when I'm not at work or volunteering. Also, I didn't mean to make that sound like all Christians are bad either. I have been baptized and I don't think of myself as a bad person. I also know many Christians who are very kind and wonderful people. I was only trying to illustrate the situation with that specific congregation. They even went so far as being racist at times, and operate under the illusion that white people don't commit crimes as much as black people because all white people are hard-working, loving Christian folk and all black people are heathens or something (by the way, I am not very politically correct when it comes to race cause it sometimes feels like I'm saying the wrong thing even when I try to be politically correct. So when I say "black people" I'm really not trying to offend anyone. Besides, being white or black isn't what you're trying to be , it's what you are.) It made me very sad to know that people I loved and respected believed such things. But anyway, I don't hate Christians or think poorly of religion. I just disagree with the way they think back in my hometown.

Wow Sam B! Kudos to you for standing up for what you believe in even though everyone else tried to convince you you were wrong. I'm very happy to hear that a young woman such as yourself has stuck to her guns so strongly. I too heard the load of crock that "one day I'll change my mind" or "you just wait", but my problem was, I believed them. I figured I must be an idiot who doesn't know what she's feeling because everyone made me feel that way. So I went on, got married to man who feels strongly about family, figuring I would change my mind because everybody said I would. Well guess what? I didn't. 5 years of being together, (I was 22-27) and I felt the same way as I did when I was 12, which was that kids were not for me. I went through sheer misery the latter part of our marriage as my husband tried to convince me I was crazy and "broken." Six months of therapy and guess what? I STILL DON'T WANT KIDS. Our marriage finally dissolved when he said if he had known I didn't want kids, he never would have married me. It's been hard to pick up the pieces and move on. But I'm making it. Anyway, don't back down. YOU are the only one who knows how YOU really feel. I knew and was so brainwashed into thinking I was psycho, it took me several years and a lost marriage to stand up for it. Be glad you figured it out at 21!! And come here for support anytime.

Most of the reason that I was able to stick to my guns through that whole situation was because of my mother. Even though she played a little at being the antagonist when I was younger, she taught me to always stand up for myself. No matter what I was taught in church, no matter what I was told, I always believed in myself after I hit 13 or 14 (or what I like to call 'my year-long enlightenment') I was opinionated, well-rounded, smart and kind of bratty. I guess a little like most teenagers. The other part of the reason why I never let any of the opinions of others sway me is because I had something most of you guys probably didn't: Women like yourselves, all of whom were and are a great example to me. Because of the mistakes they made, because of the choices they all made, because of the challenges they all faced, and mostly because of their successes, I had the courage to hold my head up in the face of adversity. It kinda sounds to me like I'm just saying a bunch of pretty words, but these are my honest feelings. I'm glad I have always had other, more mature and experienced women to look to for guidance and advice. I'm probably one of the few youths in this world that listened when my parents told me to watch them and learn from their mistakes and triumphs. It's great to hear from both you and Cassie about your stories. I really respect everyone here so much, just for the support offered in the short time since I've joined. Oh, and far as your ex-husband goes, I'm going to say the same thing I said in response to Cassie's story: I, _____, take you ______, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness. To have and to hold...okay, looks good so far... For better, for worse...yeah, still looking fine...To love and to cherish? Okay, I'm still reading, looking for it...looking for it... Hmmm...forgive me, I must have also missed the "must have children" clause in this vow. Are there two lines here that I'm supposed to be reading in-between? Is it some kind of coded message hidden in the letters? The word "child" is brought up nowhere in these few lines, as far as I can read. I don't know what others say about me, but I consider myself to be of average intelligence. At least, smart enough to be able to read those two lines and understand what they mean. Men who say women break the marriage vows when they make a choice not to have kids are spewing a crock of bull.

"There's this thing called friendship you see. It's kind of like therapy -but for poor people." -Unknown I've always thought there was a lot of truth in that quote, though I've got no clue where I first heard it.