Husband Doesn't Want Me to Be Late Getting Home With the Baby
Dearest Therapist: My Hubby Doesn't Want Another Kid, so I'm Considering Divorce
I don't know that I would ever be able to forgive him for taking this away from me.
Editor's Notation: Every Mon, Lori Gottlieb answers questions from readers about their problems, large and modest. Have a question? Email her at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com.
Dearest Therapist,
My married man and I have been together for nearly iv years and are struggling to make up one's mind whether to have some other baby. When nosotros met, he had a 3-yr-one-time son, and after a messy custody battle, he got primary custody of his son, my stepson.
I constitute out I was pregnant shortly after we started dating. When nosotros decided to live together, I made sure to take a talk with him in which I was completely open about my wishes to eventually accept another infant. I did this in large role because he is 14 years older than me. I have always wanted three children, and despite my early unexpected pregnancy, I was not willing to enter into a deeper relationship where having more children was not an option. Not only did he enthusiastically agree at the time, but he jokingly said he wouldn't mind having another ten children.
Only at present he's decided he doesn't want any more kids, because he thinks he'southward too old. I should mention that I am the primary caregiver to both my stepson and our son, and I am fully aware that I will retain the majority of the late-night/early-morning/diaper-changing/kid-chauffeuring duties that he claims to be dreading due to his age. The last fight nigh this has put us on the brink of divorce. I truly love him, and there are obviously many other reasons nosotros are married, but in my mind those reasons would never have developed without the initial agreement to have another babe.
I take told him that if he really decides to not accept any more children, I remember it would be in both of our best interests if I exit, because I don't know that I would always be able to forgive him for taking this abroad from me. He's told me that if he were in my position, he would go over it, and he thinks I'm existence ridiculous.
If he thinks that I could just "get over information technology," then this decision means more to me than information technology does him, and I don't understand why he's so adamant to both stay in a relationship with me and get his style to not have another baby. I don't want to get divorced, but I besides can't accept his determination. Am I irrational for considering divorce over this?
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
The biggest challenge here isn't the decision itself—though it's clearly a hard one—but the style you've set the state of affairs. In your mind, there are only two possibilities: If you have the tertiary child, y'all'll be happy and your husband will be resentful. If y'all don't take the tertiary child, your husband will be happy and yous'll be resentful. Simply there's a grab: Because you believe that having this child means more to yous than non having this kid means to your hubby—and because he had originally agreed to three kids—your suffering trumps his.
A marriage, however, isn't the Pain Olympics. As yous've seen, this line of thinking keeps yous stuck. Pain is not a contest, and suffering shouldn't be ranked. Spouses often forget this, upping the dues on their suffering—I had the kids all 24-hour interval. My job is more demanding than yours. I'k lonelier than yous are. Whose pain wins? In this kind of setup, both people inevitably lose. If your hubby gives you a child and information technology destroys your marriage, is he really giving you a souvenir? If you give up on having a baby merely resent your husband for life, did he really get what he wants?
What volition help y'all move frontward is to recollect of yourselves as teammates rather than opponents. This ways that instead of trying to get your partner to agree with your perspective, you should work together to empathise yourselves and each other better. Just then tin you lot make a thoughtful decision about the path forward.
Allow'due south accept your view first, and meet if we can augment it a bit. You lot say that y'all love your husband and that there are many reasons y'all enjoy being married to him. You lot also say that when you got pregnant soon after meeting, you would take ended the relationship had he not agreed to having a third child. I want y'all to imagine your life had he said no to a tertiary child at that betoken. Perhaps you lot would take ended the human relationship, simply in that location would accept been no guarantee that you would have found someone you loved as much who as well wanted three children during the window in which you were able to have them. Maybe you would have shared custody with the child'southward father, who, instead of becoming your married man, might have met someone else and been happily married to her instead of y'all. Yous would have seen less of what would have been your showtime and peradventure only child than y'all exercise now—once more, with no guarantee of your having more children afterward with a different partner.
Accept a moment to contemplate that scenario. Would you really prefer that to what you have now? You say that had your husband not agreed to the three kids back then, you never would take fallen in beloved with him—but the fact is, you did fall in love with him, and what you're missing is that he's the aforementioned person at present that he was back and so. People tin can modify their minds without changing who they are.
This is a distinction yous'll demand to brand in order to open yourself up to your husband's experience. Information technology makes sense that your husband feels differently now—as the remarried, aging begetter of two young children—than he did while going through a messy custody boxing with his son'south mother and falling in beloved with a pregnant new girlfriend who may accept represented hope for the future when he needed it nearly. I have a feeling that when he tries to tell you how he feels at present, you shut him downwards with logistics: I'll take care of the kids. You're non too old. Nothing will modify for you lot. And he feels so shut downwardly that all he can say to you is You need to get over this. But what if instead yous got curious most how he feels so that he, in turn, can exist more open up to how you feel?
If you exercise, you might learn that he's worried almost any number of things. Maybe he's feeling trapped financially—that he volition take to work harder or retire later if you have some other child. Or peradventure he'south concerned that he'll have less (or no) time to travel, to pursue hobbies, to see friends, to read a volume or accept a nap on weekends—all of which may be of import at this stage of his life. Perhaps he's worried that he won't have the bandwidth to exist the kind of father he wants to be to the two children he has already, or the energy and patience required to be a good father to a third. Perhaps he feels that he'll miss out on spending more time with y'all simply as the kids are becoming more independent. He could likewise exist afraid that the pregnancy volition get badly, or that because he'south older, the child is at hazard for complications or long-term health issues he doesn't feel he could handle. And and so there's the possibility that he believes having another child with you lot might make your stepson feel left out or outnumbered in a mode that he doesn't with just the one one-half-sibling.
As y'all notice more nearly your husband's fears and desires, y'all tin can besides examine yours more closely. Why have you lot always wanted iii children? Is at that place something from your childhood—a sense of loneliness, of not having a tribe—that informs the intensity of your feelings? As a total-fourth dimension mom, exercise you worry on some level that as the two older children grow up, you won't know what your purpose is, or what to do with your time?
Once yous tease out what's underneath your respective positions, here are two exercises you can try. Starting time, switch sides with each other and argue the other person's perspective out loud, really getting into that frame of mind. Doing so will create a deeper level of understanding and pity for what the other person is experiencing and add much more nuance to the chat. 2nd, instead of imagining a dismal time to come without (or, in your hubby's case, with) a third child, I'd like each of you to write a full page in which you imagine your happiest day equally a family with 2 kids (for yous) or three kids (for him). Make sure you both include the joy of the mean solar day in keen detail. This feel will move you past the false binary of your preferred situation as being all practiced and the other situation as beingness all bad and help you both consider each scenario with more emotional flexibility.
You may also desire to call back that you don't know how you'll feel in a situation until you're actually in information technology. For instance, some people say they "simply know" that they would rather die than go through something that sounds devastating to them—become severely disabled, undergo another round of chemo, never find a partner—and then they experience differently as they actually feel it. Neither of y'all will know what information technology would have been like if the other path were taken. Whatever you imagine would be but that—imaginary.
You can't live both lives, then inevitably there will be grief and maybe an ache that lives on in each of you for the road not taken. Either path tin can make both of you happy—if you permit it. Either path can also make both of you miserable—if yous allow it. The indicate is, whichever path yous have, your happiness will depend far more on how you brand this decision together than what the ultimate outcome is.
Dearest Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not plant medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or handling. Always seek the advice of your dr., mental-health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may accept regarding a medical status. By submitting a alphabetic character, you lot are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it—in role or in full—and we may edit information technology for length and/or clarity.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07/my-husband-doesnt-want-another-kid-so-im-considering-divorce/614524/
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