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He Wants Kids, You Don’t. Now What?
Advice: I want a family. She doesn't. Do I end the marriage?
by Susan King
If you do choose to stay in the marriage, you must accept your wife’s decision—and this acceptance must be absolute (this may require some outside help). Choosing this option means dropping the subject, bearing no resentment, and placing no blame.
However, if you know this will never be enough for you, or if you cannot give up the urge to change your wife’s mind, staying in your marriage will probably lead to resentment and dissatisfaction for you both. The fact that you have doubts about your future says that you have some serious soul-searching to do. In your letter, you ponder if you will be happy forfeiting your chance to be a father by staying in your marriage. Here’s another way to look at it: You would be forfeiting a known good thing for an unknown chance at parenthood.
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1 Shadow // Nov 4, 2008 at 11:24 pm
This is the very best advice on this subject I have ever read. A vast majority of help I have read blame the woman for being unnatural or selfish for daring to deny her partner children. You’re advice, I feel, was spot-on, and very unbiased. I am personally facing this same dilemma with my partner - I am the female who doesn’t want children, and he is the man who wants them. I may send him this and let him read it sometime so maybe he can get a clearer understanding of his own thoughts and find out if he actually wants children or just thinks it’s the only thing he could accomplish in life that is bragworthy.
I do agree that the guy is naive for thinking his wife would change her mind on such a groundbreaking level just for him. So, really, he brought this upon himself. And I think he would be insane to give up a woman he knows he loves in order to have someone in his life whom he might love (as we all know, a child being your own biological offspring is no guarantee you will love it).
Thank you for providing this superb advice. I hope more men in this guys situation read this.
2 Sasha // Jun 23, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I don’t think the blame lies just on the husband. It lies with BOTH of them.
As Sara mentioned, this is something that should be worked out BEFORE getting married. The reason being, this is definitely a relationship dealbreaker.
I don’t think he should just accept her choice and give up having children of his own. Likewise, I don’t think she should be coerced to change her mind about having kids. Someone is going to have to wholeheartedly change their position for this marriage to continue.
The desire to have children is a fundamental right. Whether naturally or by adoption, the pull to nurture the next generation is strong in most of us as we get older. If the writer was a 38 year old woman whose husband decided not to have kids, people wouldn’t think twice about her divorcing her partner. This is also a valid reason for divorce for men (see Brad Pitt).
3 Sara // Apr 1, 2008 at 4:19 am
I don’t know why couples don’t work this out BEFORE getting married! I have friends that just started dscussing this and they’re engaged. I don’t get it, when my husband and I got serious about each other we worked it all out, we’ll either have one or two. And that’s it! That decision was made years ago!
It’s both the husband and the wife’s fault that this isn’t working for them. The husband wanted kids but figured she would change. He’s crass to get rid of her for it. But the wife knew that he wanted them and didn’t speak up, either! Dumb.
4 Terry // Jan 17, 2008 at 5:45 pm
This guy needs to apologize to his wife. He knew right from the beginning that she might never want children — he should only have married her if he was willing to accept that. Now it’s years later, and maybe she’s not as OK with the idea of “starting over” as he is. Maybe she thinks she’s found someone who loves her for who she is, someone who will be there forever. Now she gets to find out not only that she is disposable, but also that her husband had so little respect for her clearly voiced doubts on parenthood, that he gave himself in married assuming she would change her mind. That’s a pretty serious assumption. Next time he should think about premarital counseling, where things like this are nailed down. There is no compromise on having a baby — you have one or you don’t.