Military wife feels extra pressure to have children

Today I am passing the microphone to Kam, who wrote about a topic we have not discussed here at Childless by Marriage: the pressure for military wives to have children. If you can relate, I’d love to hear what you have to say about this.

Kam said...

What a great site and I am thrilled to bits to have stumbled upon you. I'm soon to be 37 and my 39 year old husband is closing in on the last four years of his 20-year military career. We are also childfree by marriage. I was always kind of ambivalent, he changed his mind after we married 7 years ago. Yikes. Let me say that the military is not just defense machine but also a baby-making machine. Trust me, we are freaking unicorns around these parts.

The topic of married and childfree in the military is rarely discussed. I have plowed through your blog hungry for a salve for all that I've experienced being a lifetime military brat and now spouse. There are babies left and right. I've lost most friends to babies except a few rare jewels. I've been told to keep my opinions to myself because "we don't need to hear from a woman without kids." The list is long and seems to be ramping up with my shriveling fertility. What we do have are three dogs and that has become our couple identity. Well, they don't have kids, but they have dogs. Huh? I've found I am constantly defending myself. I am still a MOTHER. I am a woman, maternal and I am a daughter and have a mother. Seems like I've got some qualification to speak but I am reminded daily, I don't. Weird.

Sometimes it's been a bumpy road to navigate. I've literally given up my religion (converted from Jew to Catholic), job security, stability and now children to be with a man who is without a doubt, the love of my life. That doesn't mean that it's always easy for me or us. As a man, he gets high fives for dodging the baby bullet and I get a button jar assortment of judgments. The sacrifices have been and continue to be huge with no real dangling carrot. Martyr? Sadist? Who knows? The psychology here is a bunch of clowns in a tiny car for sure.

I wish I knew where more of us military spouse types without children were getting our coffee at. I'd love to sit at that table sometime.

So there is a topic that could use a spotlight if you can make sense of my ramblings.

Kam posted an additional comment:

Thanks Sue. It can be so isolating and lonely. It also seems to make the whole Pinterest mommy/milspouse/woman cattiness go into overdrive if that makes sense. Motherhood is also another tool to harm in some cases–another weapon to wield against other women. It's the weirdest thing to watch. I'd like to say I'm above it all, but I can't tell you how many times my husband and I armchair parent after a night out with friends with kids.

My blessing is that I am Aunty KA to a few of my friends’ kids and I love that, but . . . it's not my own cute, fat, little pudge of a baby. It's a hard decision to accept. I go back and forth. My husband goes back and forth. So, WE end up going nowhere. We feel the pressure, but he really doesn't want or like kids. He loves dogs.

While I would not have minded having kids, I am a back seat driver. I'm a limp handshake on the topic and that hurts as well. Why don't I have the baby burn? What is wrong with me? I've never felt it as much as I do now. The military lifestyle is so tough, too. People like to say, well you knew what you were getting into. It's so much more than you can imagine. I see a lot of unhappy families and moms that feel so stressed out. Some of them are really stressed out. I have a young, fit friend who is my age, a mother of 4 and she just had a heart attack! Because we move every 2-3 years, we are isolated from our own families, suffer career-wise, and it seems that having kids is just the filler for that (not all of them, but some). I've tried to carve out a different life, but finding civilian friends can be tough too. I wonder if any of your readers are military childfree or know of any sites out there that tackle this topic? Thanks for posting my comments!

Thank you, Kam. God bless you for sharing this. Stay safe.

Childless journey begins: the revelation

In your search for a mate, you think you have found THE ONE. After years of bad dates, maybe even bad marriages, this man or woman is a keeper. And then, one day, after you've given him or her your heart, they drop the bomb. They can't or don't want to have children with you. He tells you he's had a vasectomy. She tells you of problems that will keep her from getting pregnant. He keeps telling you he's not ready for children. She shares that she never felt the urge to be a mother. He says the kids from his first marriage are more than enough. Gradually--or suddenly--you realize that if you stay with this person, you will never have children. Now what do you do?
This week I want to talk about that revelation. How do we find out that our partner isn't going to have kids with us?

I was married twice to men who didn't give me children. My first husband, Jim, seemed like he would be a great father. I watched him play with other people's kids and assumed that he would welcome our own. In our Catholic marriage prep, we both signed a paper saying we would welcome children and raise them in the faith. But once we were married, he kept wanting to put off pregnancy. Not till we get good jobs, he said. Not till we get a house. The years were passing by. My friends and relatives were having babies, and I wanted one, too.

When I started taking care of the neighbors' baby, I saw a different side of Jim. He couldn't stand its crying, its smells, its needs. And then, when I thought, despite rigorous use of birth control, that I might be pregnant, he dropped the bomb. If  I was pregnant, he was leaving.

Would he really have done that? I'll never know. It turned out I wasn't pregnant. Soon after that, our marriage fell apart for other reasons. I do know that he did not have kids with his next wife either.

In my next post, I'll talk about the revelation in my second marriage. But today, I'm asking you. How did you find out children might not be in your future? Did they tell you straight out, did something happen, did you guess? Did you believe them?  Let's talk about it.