Reply to Conflict around family size

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^^^ I really don't understand this bitterness.  Yes, your husband changed his stance, but maybe having the first was harder than he anticipated.  Do you really want to have a kid with someone who does not want to be a parent?  Do you think your life will be better as a divorced, single parent?   Sometimes, you need to grateful for what you have and maximize that experience instead spending so much of your energy thinking of what could have been.  [/quote]
You don't understand it because perhaps your dreams haven't been abruptly shattered by someone who is supposed to make you happy, and promised you he wanted the same things.  Yes, go ahead and betray your husband and then tell him to suck it up and be grateful to even be married.  That's an awesome recipe.  I am grateful for my healthy son but I am not grateful to my husband. If he told me before marriage he only wanted one and done, I would not have married him.  He is flushing my last fertile years down the toilet and you are telling me I have to suck it up and be grateful he even exists.  Forgive me if this doesn't appeal.

And yes, actually, if we had a second child together and got divorced, it wouldn't be so bad. I'd have my children. Husbands come and go. Kids are forever.[/quote]

Well, my dreams of a second child were shattered by infertility.  Sometimes life throws you a curve ball.  I understand that you are in pain but you really need to work with someone to discover why having another child is so important to you - more important apparently than your relationship with your husband.  What I'm reading suggests that you've lost the ability to think rationally about this.  You're considering breaking up your family, and you talk about husbands as a throwaway when IMO you have it all backwards - your relationship with your spouse should always be primary.  Children can succeed with only one dedicated parent, but there is no developmental expert alive who would suggest that anything trumps two committed and loving parents.  I speak from experience as a child of divorce.

You need to be calm when speaking to your husband about this and ask him if he would consider therapy so you can both work through your feelings on this issue and try to come to a conclusion that satisfies you both.  He probably cannot "help" how he feels about it anymore than you can.  But in your pain and anger you are only seeing your side of it, and you need someone to blame.[/quote]

I understand what you're saying but I don't understand why you say that the relationship with the spouse is a primary value REGARDLESS of what the spouse does.  Would you say the same thing if the spouse cheated? Abused drugs? Stole money? Separated the other spouse from friends and family? You're acting as if reneging on the promise of a second child is a value-free, consequence-free choice, like rye or whole wheat. It isn't. When someone causes you pain, you don't look at them with the same eyes any more. You begin to love them less.  You wonder why they can be so blind to your pain. You wonder why the promise they made means so little. You wonder where else they would turn out to be not who they promised.  So you see, it's not quite as easy as "husband is more important than anything else, sit down, shut up and be grateful you're married, and don't forget to kiss his feet while you're at it.  You owe your child an intact family, even with the husband you despise and have no respect for."   So I don't know why you think it's irrational to think that the husband is not quite the man you thought he was. I don't know why you insist the wife is in the wrong for resenting her husband for this. Not only is she wrong to want a second child, she's wrong to feel pain when she's kept from it.  [/quote]

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