A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:Hi I am at a crisis point with my boyfriend. I am 38 (very soon 39) and he is 34. I have never been particularly interested in having children - not like many women who feel the desire to be a mother very strongly. I have been seeing my boyfriend for 5 years and we are serious. At the start of the relationship he was like me - not bothered either way - just not at that point in his life to consider kids and it never got discussed. However yesterday he suddenly said that he wants children within the next 4 - 5 years. I said that if I was gonna have children at all then my clock is really ticking and there was no way in any case I would wait 4-5 years the risk is too high - but said again how I felt about it all - pretty indifferent. I said to him that if he really truly wants children then maybe I was not the woman for him (amid some tears!!) and he would regret it if he didn't and would resent me if we stayed together and it never happened. I feel a huge sense of responsibility to do the right thing for this guy - so that he does not regret the decisions he makes - but he told me that he'd rather have a relationship with me without kids than not have the relationship at all. Whilst I realise the guy must love me I feel he is not thinking straight and in some ways I don't believe him. I fear this is a deal breaker but just don't know what to do. I don't feel I can move forward with this relationship knowing what he said - its also a lot of pressure on me to be 'more' than just a relationship (i.e. to make up for not having children) or try for a baby pretty much straight away despite not really wanting to. Any advice please help!
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 January 2011): I think you definitely shouldn't have kids now just because your boyfriend wants it.
Unless your genuinely starting to feel more desire to be a parent, wait 4 - 5 years and if your mind has changed then and you're by then wanting to have kids, then adopt.
If your mind hasn't budged in 4- 5 years, then you're OK you know this is the right thing. You haven't destroyed your life. And the door would still be open for him to break up with you and find someone else if he still did feel strongly that he wants kids.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 January 2011): Men have much more time to be pressed about children and can father children up until they are in their seventies so he is not sacrificing as much as you may believe! Put yourself first because you are the one who is risking the most with a younger man who has many many many years to decide what he ultimately wants. Twenty years from now it won't be difficlut for him to start over and find a woman to bear his children who is younger than you are now. I'm not trying to bring about fear but one must think of their own future more than someone elses who isn't giving up as much? What do you want? A man his age has too many options to worry about the same thing you do. A fifty five year old man is more in the same place with a forty year old woman facing the kid decision...not a man your boyfriends age. your responsibility is to yourself.
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A
female
reader, chocoholicforever  +, writes (7 January 2011):
oh wow this is a very difficult situation. it sounds like your boyfriend of 5 years suddenly blindsided you yesterday. Do you have any idea why he suddenly decided he wants kids, when up til now he's never given any hint of that possibility? How long has he felt this way? Is this just a passing fancy for him - is it due to peer pressure cos all his friends have kids? Has he really thought about this and done a lot of soul searching? It just seems strange that after being together 5 years, that he would announce suddenly that he wants kids, without ever having mentioned gradually that he was starting to lean towards that or to gradually show an increasing interest over a period of time.How about you - how strongly do you feel about not wanting kids? Are you simply indifferent as in, you just don't have the urge to have kids? Or are you actually strongly opposed to the idea of having kids?that said. You're right this IS a deal breaker and it should be. the costs are simply too high if one partner really doesn't want kids and the other does. It could really ruin the relationship.I think it's quite common for relationships and marriages to have this dynamic - usually it's the woman who wants kids and the man doesn't. And yet the common outcome is that they end up having kids anyway because that seems to be the 'default' in our society, and the men are not allowed to exercise their right to not have kids because even though they actually don't desire to, or flat out do not want to, society conditions us that to be normal means you must have kids at some point in your life. I have some very close friends who admitted to me secretly that they regret having kids but would never dare say it out loud to their spouse or family or less-close friends because in our society it's considered heresy to say you don't want kids or that you regret becoming a parent (even if the pregnancy it was purely accidental and unplanned you're not "allowed" to say you regret having the kid).thus I think you're doing the right thing of not caving into this sudden pressure and going along blindly.I think it ultimately depends on how much your boyfriend wants kids versus how much you do NOT want them. If you are to stay together obviously one of you will get their way and the other won't. This is one area where there is no meeting each other half way. so whoever is giving up on what they want has to make sure it's something they can live with/without for the rest of their life and is not such a big deal that it will cause future resentment and relationship deterioration.there's another part to this which is the time frame. He says he wants kids in a few years' time, not right now. You said that, given your age, if you two are gonna have kids it has to be now or never. Is this time pressure driving your decision about whether to have kids AT ALL?is it the case that you're just not wanting to have kids now, or are you pretty set against having kids AT ALL? Have you considered adoption? There are a couple advantages that I can see:If it's only an issue of the timing, then obviously adoption allows you to wait longer for when you are both mentally ready, not just when one of you is ready or when neither of you are acutally ready.And it allows you more time to make a decision about whether to even have kids at all or not. Whereas if you're dead set on having either your own biological kids or no kids at all, then you'll probably lean towards having kids simply because you "have no choice"...but is this really making an authentic decision?You don't want to rush into a pregnancy now, just because it has to be now or never due to your biological clock, when you haven't yet reconciled completely that having kids is the right thing for you. I have friends who did just this - the wife was in her late 30s and suddenly decided she wanted kids after all, the husband was blindsided but had no choice but to go along because there was no time to reconsider due to her age...when in actual fact they already had supposedly thought about it for the previous 10 years and had decided against it just that the wife now suddenly changed her mind and they had no time to reconsider so they went ahead and had a kid and their marriage is extremely unhappy and unstable now....well she's happy, he's not.....so then he makes her unhappy cos he's not feeling the way she believes he should, stuff like that...I have several relatives in my extended family who have no biological kids instead they adopted children when in their 40s...because they waited until they knew they were ready for children and didn't let their biological clocks push them to make a premature decision.But you are right the issue of whether to have kids or not should be a deal breaker. So many marriages are broken because it was not admitted to be a deal breaker until after one partner got their way and the other couldnt' live with it and by then there is more to lose....So you have to decide where you each stand on the issue and how strongly it matters to you, and it's better to not feel under a lot of pressure to decide this quickly due to the biological clock ticking.thus I would suggest that you consider the subject of adoption, since this way you don't have to make a decision right now and you and your boyfriend can discuss it more and do your individual soul searching.Don't derail your life simply because of the fear of missing a boat which you may not actually want to be on in the first place if you weren't feeling pressured to decide now.
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A
female
reader, sammi star +, writes (7 January 2011):
 Well whatever you do don't have a baby that you don't want just to please your boyfriend. I'm not sure what other advice I can offer you as it's a pretty horrible sitution to be in but he's a grown man and if he's made his decision that he'd rather be with you and not have children then you have to trust that he's thought about it and accept that it's what he wants to do.
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