staying childfree for spouse

[tinroofer]

Doug, it wasn't a lack of honesty with him. It was not making up my mind for myself. I fully understand my situation and was not looking for your understanding. I was simply commenting on the topic at hand. The hubster knows that if he wants out because of this issue then he just has to say the word. Will it last? Maybe not, but he's choosing to stay for now.

[ld]

BUT WHY would you leave someone you love for a possibility of a kid that does not even exist yet? Leaving this person may leave you (and your spouse) more unhappy than staying childfree. There are millions of things that people can share and enjoy or that they may have a disagreement upon. Why making this particular issue and absolute criteria for leaving someone?

[preraph]

I understand the sentiment, but the reality is people can love again, and for most parents, their greatest love will be the child.

[lulu]

ld said:

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....

ld- Thank you for your words. I am in the same situation. I appreciate your outlook on this. This has helped me tonight.

[cnu5000]

I think some of this will be people's sense of priorities. I have always felt I would rather have a husband than a child. I know some never married women who have children and they would say being a mother was the most important thing.

I find interesting that where I work there are a lot of never married/divorced mothers. They will say for them parenting is great-what they don't understand and are scared of is marriage.

For me parenting has always scared me(my mother was a very nervous mother). I don't know if if I could be called staying child-free for spouse. I have always felt highly conflicted about parenting and felt it was not a must in my life and that having a child for me could be a terrible disaster but I was never completely closed to the idea either. My husband was always hard-core no children person.

[happy2bchildfree]

Maybe like you, those who chose to be childfree to please a spouse (and are ultimately happy with that choice) are those who didn't have strong feelings about it either way to begin with. I have known people who said they could have been happy either having children or not having them. Some people are truly undecided and maybe meeting the childfree partner becomes the deciding factor. Perhaps these same undecided people would choose to have children if they met someone who felt strongly about having them.

I can't imagine anyone who truly feels strongly about wanting children being OK in the long term with giving that up for a partner. I think that no matter how much they loved the person, they would ultimately grow to resent them for denying them something they really wanted.

People really need to be on the same page about this issue.

Personally, I think it's just as wrong for someone to give up having a child they really want to please a partner as it is for someone to have a child they don't want in order to please a partner.

[chaigirl]

I've been with my husband for 14 years and I've never wanted kids. Neither has he--until this year. He has admitted that he has changed his mind and would like one child. We are both in our 30s....and sadly, I thought we'd already made the decision, as a couple, to be childfree, years ago.

In all fairness, it's not like he knew he'd change his mind. I'm firm in not wanting to be a parent and although I love him and he's been the most important person in my life, I will not change my mind. It's very clear to me that it's wrong to have a child that you do not want. Every single thing about having a child, as far as I'm concerned, is negative. I like my life and I see no reason to change it, ever. If he ends up deciding he wants a child more than his relationship with me then so be it. What that would tell me is that I never mattered to him as much as I thought I did, and that an idea, or phantom (i.e. kid that doesn't even exist) is more significant to him that I am. I met with my doctor earlier this month to discuss sterilization, because I've considered it for at least 10 years now and there's no reason not to move forward, especially now. I don't want my husband thinking he can somehow change my mind, when I know full well that won't happen. At least when I'm sterilized, any possibilities of having a child with me that he has in his head will disappear. That will leave him with the choice of remaining with me or dropping me for some stranger to impregnate.

If one person wants to be a parent and the other doesn't, it's a tough spot.....because there's no safe compromise. One person will lose, if the two people remain in the relationship on different sides of the kids' issue.

[kentuckykimmie]

chaigirl,

After 14 years and he has recently changed his mind, i would bet he is going through a phase. Much like the biological clock thing for some women, perhaps some men have similar experiences. Has someone he works with or perhaps an old friend just had a first baby? Something or someone had to plant this idea in his head. Keep him away from all romantic comedies that glorify kids and parenting, and rent every movie you can find where kids have been a huge disappointment or have had tragic lives like drug abuse, alcoholism, or suicide. I hope he passes on through this phase because once he leaves you, breeds, and wants things back like they were, you will likely be long gone. How sad that would be.

[chaigirl]

kimmie: You're quite right. Actually he went back to school in 2007 to become, of all things, an elementary school teacher. He'd been a computer programmer for years prior to this. His most recent student placement was with a Grade 1 class. It's likely that's where all this is coming from. The fact he's turning 33 soon is also prime clock time right? So between suddenly being exposed to cute kids all day (well some of them must be cute) and hitting the mid-30s.....

Actually, he's at an interview with the school board for a job right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He'd make an amazing teacher and I'm nervous as hell right now, because he's been at the interview for an hour and a half. Yikes.

I don't need to use the movie thing as a trick--I work in social services (child welfare specifically) and 5 days a week I come home with stories about plenty of nasty stuff. He gets to hear it all.....

[happy2bchildfree]

Maybe after he teaches for a while and sees how nice it is to not have to deal with kids once his work day is done, he might just change his mind right back to not wanting any of his own.

I've known several elementary school teachers who decided to be childfree after teaching elementary school for a while. They loved their work, but decided that going home and dealing with their own children after dealing with children all day in the classroom wasn't something they wanted to do.

[athena]

Firstly, how LONG has he been an elementary teacher because for ME it made me even MORE childfree!! but it didn't happen overnight.

[athena]

Um, I'm the opposite I am the childfree one who knew for a long time (well consciously since my mid teens) I didn't want kids whereas hubby thought that when he married kids came with the terrority but like someone said he didn't have strong feelings for or against them and at one point he was like "Maybe in five years time" then the next year "Maybe in five years time" Last Summer he was like what if he regrets not having kids when he is older (he said he is VERY happy not having them now) and we talked about it but then later I gave him an ulitmatum in a way by saying, in a nice even-toned way "You can have kids [of your own] or you can have me but you CAN'T have both." And straight away he
replied he chooses me 100%
So yeah HE is childfree for his spouse - ME - but unlike some of the men I've dated he was never very eagar to have kids. When we spent
time with our nephew and neice in Egypt (who are lovely etc) and they were crying at 3am he said to me at the table the next day after their parents mentioned the late night crying (their parents - brother and sister in law - were there) "Hum Du LAY! You know what I mean?" Looking at me and looking relieved. Hum Du Lay means THANK GOD! And I KNOW he meant Thank God WE don't have any!! Kids seem to beat him up
anyway. One through bread at him - a random kid in Austria, another stomped on his foot while running around in a store here in the UK and his own nephew head butted him (in fun, but he said it HURT!) in Egypt so I think
he should QUIT while he's ahead already!!
AND he came to my school ONCE to fix a toy and ONE boy talked to him and quite a quiet boy and later hubby said "They are SO NOISY!!" AND he wanted to go the zoo here.
I said "My class is going if you want to come. We need helpers" and he was like "NO WAY!" Could it be I'm actually
kinda doing him a FAVOUR?!!

[preraph]

Your nice husband is a brat magnet!

[cnu5000]

In regarding teachers seeing children and wanting one of their own....Many parents will say their children are much better behaved in school then they are at home.

For example my brother-in-laws first grade teacher to my mother-in-law that he was an angel-my mother-in-law had no idea what she was talking about. I had temper tantrums with my parents that I did NOT with teachers. My aunt had a child whose kindergarden teacher called him "sunny" while he cried all the time at home.

I think for both adults and children families can see their more difficult side that others don't.

Also my mother was telling me of a friend of hers who wanted a child while her husband did not want one. The friend did have a child but the husband never got used to her and would say in front of the child how much better things were before the child was born and that he wanted to put her in foster care.

I am not sure what happened do them(the child was not put up for adoption). But my mother just gave it as an example of people sometimes not changing about children after the child is born.

[preraph]

I know my friend's kid was the worst brat until he started school, because she made him that way never saying no.

[mar]

I know for a fact that one big reason kids are such brats now-a- days is because from day 1 the parents are afraid of "hurting their feelings", therefore they don't make them do a damn thing the brat doesn't want to.

That includes behaving properly when are visiting in someone elses home. GRRRR! After they leave you have to clean up the mess, and repair the damage.

WHY OH WHY can't they see what they're doing

Another problem is the parents give the kids every thing they want without having to earn it by doing household chores like cleaning up their room, etc., etc.

(tells self - " be damn glad you never had a kid ~ yeah, yeah, yeah" !!!!!)

[ana]

Jul 18, 2008 9:47:05 GMT -5 preraph said:

I know my friend's kid was the worst brat until he started school, because she made him that way never saying no.

Ha ha ha. When my older sister had her first child I remember saying "NO" to my niece when she started to touch sometime I knew was delicate in my home. My sister told me they don't use the "N" word.

Boy, does she use it now!

[horrificat]

I was 25 when I began dating my husband and 27 when we got married. At that time, we both agreed we wanted children eventually. However, beginning about 3 years ago, I began to have serious doubts. At 32, I'm not sure when, if ever, I will want children but I refuse to live my life under a timeline. Right now, I am childfree and that is all I can commit to. I don't think people can ever predict how they will feel or what they will want 2, 5, 10 yrs down the road. I feel like it's normal to change your mind as you grow up. The test of a marriage is, can the partners grow and evolve together? My husband still says he'd like to have children at some point but how can I know if he won't change his mind in 2 yrs? If he doesn't, well then he has a choice to make. I agree with what another poster said that if he decides to leave, then I will feel like our marriage wasn't worth much to begin with but that is something that I can only wait and see on. Who knows what will happen. I will cross these bridges as I come to them.

[athena]

"In regarding teachers seeing children and wanting one of their own....Many parents will say their children are much better behaved in school then they are at home."

While I have seen BOTH sides of kids (the good the bad the lovely and the ugly!) I have also had parents say to me why is my child so GOOD at school they are a NIGHTMARE at home! about some of my best behaved children.

[mar]

"their children are so good at school and a nightmare at home.

DUH!!! Because he/she can get away with murder at home and knows he/she can't at school. SPOILED, SPOILED, SPOILED. Makes my blood boil......