When you can’t agree on having another child

[Anonymous]

I think your situation is different since you have health problems. Having a child to share the burden of caring for you sounds like a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would he be open to hiring a full time nanny? I think that is the solution for the very labor intensive early years, he can kind of check out and you can get your second kid.

Will the nanny pay for all the extra costs for a 2nd child? Didn't think so. The person who does not want another child wins and if a woman gets pregnant deliberately, then it is all on her.

[Anonymous]

My magic 8 ball says OP's husband will divorce her if they have 2 kids and maybe even with this 1 kid he's already done. So, OP I'd say you should consider divorce. He's not happy, he is telling you this.

[Anonymous]

This is OP. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses.

A couple things to clear up - my health is fine now thanks to medication that should work for many years to come. However, things could decline when I get into my 60s which is the natural progression of the disease. But there could also be more medical advancements over the next 20 years, who knows. I certainly hope so.

I am not looking for my child to take care of me, its more that I don’t want her to be alone or feel burdened. I do have excellent long term care so that isn’t a an issue. It’s more the emotional toll she could have to bear alone.

Maybe seeking out therapy for myself is my best option. As I mentioned, I have no interest in forcing or tricking him into having another.

In terms of what is so much work for him - he comes from a very old school family where his mom did everything related to him and his brother and I think he truly never realized that in today’s society co-parenting is expected.

[Anonymous]

In the relationship forum there was a woman who wanted another child and her husband didn’t, and everyone said the husband got his way. Shortly thereafter there was a woman who didn’t want another child but her husband did, and people told her she was being unfair on her child to have an only. I feel like the DCUM consensus is not that the “no” win but that the man wins.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP upthread who says that when one partner wants to stop the other partner has the right to push, because both deserve to be heard (particularly when the one who wants to stop is changing their mind from a previous agreement).

But in your case, you have pushed. You guys have been to counseling about this on multiple occasions. He means it, and he has heard you. You're at the point where you can either grieve the family you imagined and move on, or divorce and try to find someone to have a second kid with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the relationship forum there was a woman who wanted another child and her husband didn’t, and everyone said the husband got his way. Shortly thereafter there was a woman who didn’t want another child but her husband did, and people told her she was being unfair on her child to have an only. I feel like the DCUM consensus is not that the “no” win but that the man wins.

Of course. When men communicate what they want, they are "requesting" and advocating for their interests; when women do the same thing, they are nagging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses.

A couple things to clear up - my health is fine now thanks to medication that should work for many years to come. However, things could decline when I get into my 60s which is the natural progression of the disease. But there could also be more medical advancements over the next 20 years, who knows. I certainly hope so.

I am not looking for my child to take care of me, its more that I don’t want her to be alone or feel burdened. I do have excellent long term care so that isn’t a an issue. It’s more the emotional toll she could have to bear alone.

Maybe seeking out therapy for myself is my best option. As I mentioned, I have no interest in forcing or tricking him into having another.

In terms of what is so much work for him - he comes from a very old school family where his mom did everything related to him and his brother and I think he truly never realized that in today’s society co-parenting is expected.

Oh so he’s lazy. That’s not a valid reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When DH and I married we agreed that we wanted 2-3 kids, but after we had our first, who is now 4, DH decided that it was more work than he anticipated and he does not want another. He is great with our daughter overall, but does not want to do it again. We both have siblings we are close to, and what makes this even harder for me is that I have a chronic illness that will mean I need care when I am older, and possibly won’t live as long as I could without this illness - so I really hate our DD to not have a sibling to help deal with all of this, even if there is no guarantee that they are close. DH is also 8 years older than I am.

We have already seen a couples therapist twice but DH thought it was a total waste and having another child isn’t something you do for someone else when it’s really not what you want. At this point it seems like I have no other choice than to let it go and be happy with our one, since I won’t just get pregnant and see what happens.

Has anyone else been in this situation and have any advice to offer? How did you cope with not having another child and letting go of it?

The bolded part seems to have been largely ignored in this thread, but I think it's a significant issue (albeit more of a relationship issue than a parenting issue). The point of marriage counseling for an impasse like this isn't just to help the couple make a decision, it's to help them make the decision in a way that lets both spouses communicate and process their emotions about the issue so that it does not turn into a source of long-term resentment in the marriage. It sounds like OP's DH dug in from the start that he wasn't changing his mind and therefore was not willing to engage in the marriage counseling, and as a result OP did not get that opportunity to be heard and to work through those emotions because her DH was not willing to hear it. That's a far deeper level of selfishness than anything about the decision on whether or not to have another child.

OP, since your DH doesn't seem willing to engage with you in marriage counseling, I would highly recommend individual counseling for you to help work through your feelings about not having anymore children and about your husband's behavior toward you through all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses.

A couple things to clear up - my health is fine now thanks to medication that should work for many years to come. However, things could decline when I get into my 60s which is the natural progression of the disease. But there could also be more medical advancements over the next 20 years, who knows. I certainly hope so.

I am not looking for my child to take care of me, its more that I don’t want her to be alone or feel burdened. I do have excellent long term care so that isn’t a an issue. It’s more the emotional toll she could have to bear alone.

Maybe seeking out therapy for myself is my best option. As I mentioned, I have no interest in forcing or tricking him into having another.

In terms of what is so much work for him - he comes from a very old school family where his mom did everything related to him and his brother and I think he truly never realized that in today’s society co-parenting is expected.

Oh so he’s lazy. That’s not a valid reason.

You don’t need a “valid” reason not to want a (or another) kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the PP upthread who says that when one partner wants to stop the other partner has the right to push, because both deserve to be heard (particularly when the one who wants to stop is changing their mind from a previous agreement).

But in your case, you have pushed. You guys have been to counseling about this on multiple occasions. He means it, and he has heard you. You're at the point where you can either grieve the family you imagined and move on, or divorce and try to find someone to have a second kid with.

DCUM is almost always against the OP. Most OP’s are women.

[Anonymous]

OP, my husband and I faced this issue as well, though my husband's reasons were not related to how much work kids are. I wanted a second child. He would say that he felt ambivalent, but I think the truth is more than he actually really just didn't want another kid. He is a GREAT dad and our daughter was the light of his life, but he did not want children for most of his life (believes that it is selfish and potentially cruel to bring a being into a world of suffering any pain). DD1 was planned, but we didn't have a concrete plan about "how many children we wanted" so much as we loved DD and talked about having another in the future. I got pregnant by accident when DD was about 4 and miscarried, which was how we started talking about our feelings about a second child. I wanted a second child, but I truly didn't want one so much I was willing to divorce over it. He didn't want a second child, but he wanted me to be happy and as I said, he loves our DD and enjoys parenting in general. We talked about it for 2 solid years, and ultimately we ended up agreeing to try to have another and if it worked easily, we would stop for sure after that, but that if fertility became an issue, we would not pursue any assisted fertility stuff. It felt like a really reasonable compromise based on both of us valuing our marriage and each other's happiness. I thought that he had really worked through his feelings and come to a place of peace about the ethical side.

We had a second daughter when our oldest was 7, and she is now almost 5. DH is still a great dad, and arguably he is closer to our second daughter than our first, but he is actually not at peace with his decision and struggles constantly with the reality that he did not actually want to do this and feels immense guilt about it. His feelings are complicated by his love for our daughters, because obviously once the baby is there, it's hard not to love them. It's not ALL resentment, but the resentment is definitely there. It is not something that comes up frequently, but for example, he has mentioned a couple of times how much easier it would have been for us to weather the pandemic with only one older child instead of a younger one who requires more care. When we have had major arguments over the past 2 years, his resentment about having another child comes out. He usually stops short of blaming me for "trapping him" or whatever and blames himself. He says that he was cowardly and afraid that he would ruin our marriage if he really refused to have another child. When I counter with the years we spent processing about it, in and out of therapy, he admits that he was not being as honest with himself as he should have been. For what it's worth, I would never have trapped him or forced him ultimately. I truly thought that we were engaged in a process of working through his feelings together, and I thought that's exactly what had happened. It is possible that my husband is revising history to suit his current feelings, but one way or another, I would strongly recommend that you guys talk about this issue and really get to the root of your husband's reluctance as well as your enthusiasm because it sounds like both of those things are not fully explored.