staying childfree for spouse

[starling78]

I guess I'll come clean a little bit here...

I never really thought about not having kids when I was growing up. I just assumed that I would, although I have never been that fond of kids. The main reason that I have chosen not to is because my husband has always been adamant about it. He's always been very honest about it so I never thought that he would change his mind or anything, but the fact that he is having a vasectomy tomorrow does bother me a little. I can definately see many good points to not having kids. I love to travel, my dog is probably the most that I can handle right now with all of the time I have to spend working, and with the extra cash not being spent on college educations in 18 years, I hope to retire as early as possible. Despite all that, I am still a little worried about the future. I guess I am not quite sure what my 40s, 50s and 60s will look like without kids, because I never really knew any couples who chose the childfree lifestyle.

I guess what I was curious about was..Is there anyone else here that is childfree mainly because of a spouse and not necessarily because you just always knew that you didn't want to have kids?

[ana]

I started out that way, but it's my choice now.

I didn't really analyze whether on not I wanted kids when I was younger. Before marriage, my husband and I had all sorts of talks, regarding children, finances and future hopes and dreams. As well as what we wanted for ourselves, each other and our relationship.

I have to say, looking at all our friends, we are by the far the happiest couple we know.

I made sure that the choice to not have children was truly my own because I didn't want to resent my husband later on. We've been married for 10+ years now and I have to say I don't regret a moment of our marriage.

[preraph]

Starling, just keep in mind that by the time they're 50, the kids are out of the house anyway and half the time they only see them once a year on holidays. The other scenario being they're in the same town and you have been designated as the full-time chauffeur and babysitter. So IMO, life in your later years, which I am in now, will not be that much different than someone with children, except you won't be sitting around weepy because you haven't heard from Junior this week. You still like to do the same things in your later years as you do when you're young. Nothing changes about that unless you do have children and become focused on their lives rather than your own. The only difference is you're not as driven to do it all at once and content to just be a bit more leisurely. If you feel a void in your retirement years, it will likely be from not working, and I have felt that void when I got out of my primary career. But you can always find a new passion to devote time to if you have the time and aren't stuck being focused on just making ends meet. There are so many things to do if only I had a bit more money, like volunteer work and lobbying and traveling.

[happy2bchildfree]

preraph said:

by the time they're 50, the kids are out of the house anyway

It used to be that way, but now with people starting with babies so late in life, more than a few will be dealing with young children in their 50s and teens in their 60s.

The thought of that makes the childfree life even more appealing, doesn't it?

[cnu5000]

Me and my husband got married when I was 35 and he was 40. We had gone out ten years before we got married. I think I would have run away from a man who pushed children and always felt highly conflicted about having children. My husband had always maitained that he did not want children and I always felt "children were not a must for me".

We have been married for twelve years and are a solid couple. I think marriages with children have more stress and have more role change than marriages without children. Before I got married, I thought marriages without children would be more prone do divorce because it is easier to make a clean break but I am finding that the divorce rate actually is higher among people with children. I also wonder if in marriages where people strongly want children they pick different things in a spouse than marriages where children aren't the goal.

In reading posts here and it is also true for me and my husband, I think often in child-free couples the woman has more mixed feelings about her child-free status.

[happy2bchildfree]

cemoses said:

I also wonder if in marriages where people strongly want children they pick different things in a spouse than marriages where children aren't the goal.

I think there is something to that, particularly in the case of who men choose as partners.

[preraph]

I've seen men pick women who are not even the kind of women they like in order to marry a good mother.

[cnu5000]

happy2bchildfree-Since you have raised the question, I know of childfree people who married and who have had children but I don't know these people well.

However, again I have noticed that often these "unchilded" marriages even if one spouse has had a child often seem more solid than the marriages with children.

[sveeder]

I'm not child free because of a spouse...but, I do have the same concerns about my later years. My family is getting smaller and smaller and I haven't added to the younger generation.
Where will I go when I (if I) can't live on my own? One spouse will pass on before the other and one will be alone.

[preraph]

Don't you have any friends? Even if you have family, you'd likely end up in a nursing home. I mean, kids aren't obligated to move you in and usually don't have a spare room unless the family has lots of money. And if the family has lots of money, you just hire in-home private help. Since you're already thinking about it, maybe you can start putting money away for that. Most people end up in nursing homes anyway because I mean, who has time to be by someone's bedside 24/7 these days? And if you are incontinent or crippled, that is what it takes, and one family member can't handle that alone and make a living. It's just a harsh reality that usually once you are that infirm, a nursing home is usually where you will end up. If you can keep from breaking something, you can take care of yourself for a long time. I'm not married or anything, but I certainly wouldn't recommend to someone they have a kid on the off-chance that kid could be persuaded to stay in the area and keep their schedule open for when I'm old!

[cnu5000]

Even people who have children joke they will help you choose a nursing home......I know some child-free people who really relax during their old age because they don't have to worry about handing money down to the next generation.

[fencesitter]

Preraph, you are brilliant! You decidedly have some of the wisest input and I enjoy reading your posts. What you wrote here is excellent.

Also, one thing folks often don't consider is that most of us don't want to be a "burden" to anyone, much less a child. Who wants to have to be taken care of? No one. Unfortunately, it's a reality that many of us will face in our later years, and children will be unlikely to lessen the pain of that.

I hate to add a pessimistic note here, but I know of an elderly man whose two sons took him away from a full time, very devoted caretaker (of over 10 years!!) and placed him in a horrible nursing home (where the staff took his glasses and his hearing aids away because it was too difficult to keep track of them). He died within a couple of months, which is obviously what the sons were hoping for. They actively precipitated his demise. By the way, the sons lived in Mass. and the father was in a nursing home in Florida...they disallowed any visits from the caretaker and lied to her, saying he was in a nursing home in Mass. The caretaker soon discovered his whereabouts when the poor old man managed to escape briefly from the nursing home and called her. She was the only visitor he received until he died shortly thereafter.

PLEASE, PLEASE don't have kids to look after you when you're old; some may be only to happy to oblige (but not in the idealistic way you're hoping).

[preraph]

Fencesitter, thank you for the nice words. That's very sweet of you.

And I agree with what you said. Kids are just about as likely to make your old age more bothersome as they are to relieve it, unfortunately. And I've never been in a nursing home I like. My mom was in a private home that only had about 5 old people, and that seemed pretty nice. In seeing all these depositions I do, I see ones about nursing homes, too, and it is really not a great place to be, but then neither is being in your own home once the neighborhood sharks find out you're there and easy to con and steal from. Really, it amounts to the same thing. Just be aware that each nursing home only has to have one nurse on shift and the rest of close to minimum wage employees that are often either stupid or dishonest. Some of the smarmiest people I've come across in depositions were only able to find employment as an aide at a nursing home, because most people don't want to do that work.

I plan on setting it up where 2 or more of my friends have to agree on what to do with me when the time comes. And I do have a couple of younger friends, so that's good. I could go on and on on this subject because I've been through all this elderly care, but in general, you can get some free home care, but the drawback is once you accept the free home care, you are on Adult Protective Services' radar, and I can tell you from personal experience, they can really screw up your plans. They find it easiest to put you in a home, and they have the power to do it. So I would keep that in mind. If you have the means to not accept free home care, don't, or you will find your life ruined by interfering social workers. My mother had enough money we could have kept her in her home with private care forever, but when I decided to get rid of the free help she wasn't happy with and hire our own, the free help put in an order to forcibly move her to a home. So remember that what happens to you in your old age is often taken out of both your and your children's hands by social workers. My mother also had sisters locally who were helping out. It was simply retaliation that they did that to us. I wrote letters about it but didn't even get a response. Because at that point, you're basically fighting city hall. I hope I have enough money to afford to hire movers and up and move if people start trying to interfere in my old age.

[fencesitter]

That's so horrible what happened to your mother. Not until I heard the story of the elderly man I mentioned earlier did I have ANY IDEA that the state could intervene against your will when you are elderly (as when you are a child). Your mother's case takes the cake.

Thanks for the warning on the nursing homes. I have a friend who says the only defense for horrible treatment in old age is money, but I have a strong feeling that there is no amount of money that will guarantee us protection in old age. You wouldn't believe the number of people who bilked my grandfather out of thousands and thousands of dollars. He must have been on several lists of people--including people in Canada!!...and mind you, my grandfather was coherent and not noticeably impaired in any way, except that he kept writing check after check to these creeps who were preying on him.

We have to hope that the friendships we've been forging in lieu of raising children will be a strong support in our later years (supposing we're not the last to depart . I just wish our society were genuinely committed to protecting those most vulnerable.

[ld]

I am also staying childfree because of my spouse. I see many positive aspects of childfree life (especially since my health is far from ideal and pregnancy/babies would be very hard for me). However I have realized that I genuinely would want to have kids and deal with all these things IF my husband wanted to do it and share that life with me. But he does not. He used to be a lot more positive about having kids, but I respect his "right" to change his views. Being with him is very nice and very important to me and in no way I would want to quit. But I am still dealing with my emotions to try to reconcile the fact that he does not want kids. Too bad these decisions seem to be kind of one-sided in these kind of situations - either one person is "happy" or the other. Except I would NOT be happy bringing a kid into this world if his dad does not want this life for himself....

[Tabetha]

ld said:

Too bad these decisions seem to be kind of one-sided in these kind of situations - either one person is "happy" or the other. Except I would NOT be happy bringing a kid into this world if his dad does not want this life for himself....

What a noble and rational way to approach fencesitting, ld! Every child deserves both of their parents' full emotional commitment, whenever possible.

Welcome to the board!

[happy2bchildfree]

ld said:

Too bad these decisions seem to be kind of one-sided in these kind of situations - either one person is "happy" or the other.

I wouldn't have had a child I didn't want to please a spouse, no matter what By the same token, if I had wanted a child and my spouse didn't, I wouldn't have agreed to remain childfree to please him. In either of these instances I would have walked because knowing myself, I would have ultimately resented my partner in either of these scenarios.

[tinroofer]

My hubby wants kids, I don't. I wish it was something I had been honest with myself about when we met but I was a fencesitter. I thought that perhaps this mythical clock would start ticking or I would love him SOOOOO much that it would seem right. It has never happened.
I thought for a while that maybe I'd just give him one...but it wasn't that *I* wanted to have the kid or was looking forward to it.....and I realized I just didn't want any part of it.

He doesn't really want to talk about it and I think he's praying for an 'oops' kid while I am seriously thinking of getting fixed.

[Doug]

As much as I feel for your situation, I can't help but say that this is clearly your mess, and you got yourself into it. This issue should have been covered WAY before the wedding. A guy who marries a fencesitter clearly thinks he can 'win her over,' and if you never voiced any opposition to the idea of kids before, what ELSE is he supposed to think???

If you have any sense, you'll get out of this mess (divorce, counseling, etc.) before there IS an 'oops' and you're stuck resenting your husband and new child for the rest of your life. The whole 'having a kid for the spouse' idea is just plain foolish. You CANNOT compromise on this issue. If you're not both in agreement, it's time to part ways.

While getting yourself fixed right now may seem like a great idea, it's not exactly fair to your husband either. What I mean by that is if he really wants kids and you do not, he will come to resent you. Is that kind of marriage even worth saving?? I would think it would make much more sense to let him find someone who wants kids, and let yourself find someone who doesn't. Unless of course, you both come to an understanding on this issue, but I don't think that will happen. And be HONEST about this issue with the next guy!!! This world does NOT need any more unwanted children.

PLEASE see my post titled, 'Need to understand this.'

[happy2bchildfree]

doug said:

The whole 'having a kid for the spouse' idea is just plain foolish. You CANNOT compromise on this issue. If you're not both in agreement, it's time to part ways.

I so agree with you, and I speak from experience. Before I married my first husband, I made it clear that I never wanted children, and he said he was fine with that. Turned out that he really did want children and wasn't honest about it, and thought that I would change my mind. I didn't change my mind and there was NO WAY I was going to have a kid to please him. No one is worth that.

You are so right. This is no compromise on this issue. Personally, I don't think anyone should consider marriage until they are sure about the kid issue, and they need to be upfront and honest about their choice with potential partners. Both partners MUST be on the same page about this issue or they are guaranteed to have problems.

If couples discuss the kid issue before the relationship gets too serious, they will save themselves a lot of problems and heartache in the future.

A marriage where only one partner gets what he/she wants doesn't sound like a good deal to me.