Honey, I Changed My Mind About Having Kids

In Carolyn Hax's July 20 advice column, a reader asks what a lot of folks ask here. She and her husband originally agreed not to have children. Now she's having second thoughts. She has a whole script worked out to discuss this with her guy, hoping maybe he has changed his mind, too, but what if he says he still doesn't want kids?

Hax asks the reader if she can accept it if her husband sticks to his no-kids decision. She offers comments from other readers who have experienced this situation. And one of them mentions this blog. Whoever you are, thank you. Tell your friends.

So, people do change their minds. They think they're okay with not having children, but then everyone around them is having babies, they are aware that they're running out of time, or they realize they agreed to a childless marriage just to keep the relationship going. Maybe they thought stepchildren would fill the space where their own children would be, but they don't. Am I ringing any bells for people?

Maybe you're not the one changing your mind. Maybe it's your partner, who suddenly says he wants kids or that he (or she) has decided he does not want them. He/she cites money, freedom, jobs, age, bla bla bla.

Where once you thought you agreed on this huge decision, you don't anymore. You had an agreement. You knew what you wanted and were living your life counting on that agreement staying the same. Now what do you do? Do you leave? Do you urge your partner to leave? Do you get counseling to help you accept the unacceptable? This is the heart of the whole childless by marriage concept.

As longtime readers know, this is what happened to me. I stayed. I didn't have children. I cried where my husband couldn't see me. I wrote a book about it. He didn't change his mind. Now I'm a childless widow living with my dog. It's not as tragic as it sounds. I have a good life, but I still wish I had found a way to become a mother and grandmother and great-grandmother.
I want to share some comments posted at my old Blogger site that you might not otherwise see:

On July 20, Anonymous said...
In my fourth year of marriage, during marriage counseling, my husband told me he never wanted me to have children because of my auto immune disease. I divorced him because we had agreed on children, we had picked out names. One unsuccessful relationship after another led to me missing my window. I never did get to have a child. But I have a stepson who lost his mother at a young age. We love each other so much. Jumping in as a parent of a teenager is very hard. But to hear him wish me my first happy mothers day was priceless, absolutely priceless. My ex has been married twice after me and he plans on having children. Sometimes I hate him for what he did to me. But now I have my wonderful stepson who I never would have met if it wasn't for my ex. My husband now is pretty awesome too. I love my boys like crazy. So, happy ending!

Yesterday, Anonymous commented:
I feel like I am the only woman in the world who started out not wanting children, grew to change my mind, and had my husband on several occasions scream at me that I can't change my mind. He expects me to be around and support all of his friends families and everytime, I die a little more inside. I am scared for my future in aging, lonely, and just sad I married someone like this.

On July 21, another Anonymous wrote:
I was lucky enough to fall in love in my mid-twenties with a man who, like me, was somewhat leaning against having children. I was pretty sure I didn't want children, having had, since childhood, a feeling that motherhood probably wasn't for me. But after we married, I wanted to wait a few years before making a final decision to see if my feelings, or his, would change. They didn't. What happened next was a series of vivid dreams in which I would inexplicably find myself six or seven months pregnant, too late to change my mind, horrified and terrified, and trying desperately to convince myself that having a baby would be okay while knowing it would not. At least twice I woke up clutching my belly. Husband and self are now in our sixties, happily married and childless. I know that by not having children, we gave up some wonderful things. And I know my sisters will have the support of their children as they age, and I won't have that special kind of support. But I remain convinced that I made the right decision for me, and my husband feels the same way. My childhood was happy, my mother is warm and wonderful, and I really can't explain why I knew I didn't want to become a mother while my sisters wanted to be, and are, great mothers. I do know that especially after those dreams, anyone who might have tried to persuade me to have a baby would not have been successful. To the list of reasons why some people don't want children, I'd have to add "Unexplainable but extremely strong gut-level knowledge that having children would be a huge mistake."

Everybody's different. I thank you all for your comments. Keep them coming. This is one of the few places we can discuss this stuff without judgment, and I appreciate every one of you.


I have been in the process of transitioning from one blog host to another. This month, I'm posting the same posts here and at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. After Aug. 25, the old site will remain online, but new material will only be posted here.

I apologize for not posting yesterday, my usual day. I work as a music director at our local Catholic church and we have a new pastor whose changes kept us occupied and mind-blown all day. Basically he thinks this is a cathedral, not a little coastal church, and he thinks it's 1950, not 2015. Think Gregorian chant. In Latin. Last Sunday, he gave a little speech on the importance of family that let me know he's going to make it hard on us childless folks because we failed to reproduce. I can't wait for Mother's Day. Don't share this blog with him! I need my job. :-)

Why Wouldn’t He/She Want to Have Children?

Here at Childless by Marriage, one reader after another reports the same problem: One partner wants kids and the other does not. Period. End of discussion. If infertility is an issue, there are ways to work around it, such as in vitro, surrogates, donors, or adoption, but no. They don’t want to talk about it. I always encourage readers to keep the conversation going, but I had a tight-lipped first husband who wouldn’t discuss it either, so I understand if you keep running into a dead end.

Why are some people so sure they don’t want children? Let’s look at possible reasons:

1. ·They hate children--Kids are needy, whiny and sticky. 
2.  Money--Raising children is too darned expensive.
3. Conflicts with existing kids--They already have children from a previous relationship. Between child support, dealing with the ex and taking care of these kids, they can’t imagine bringing more children into their lives.
4. Fear--of pain, conflicts, cost, life changes, and passing on physical or emotional problems.
5. Age—They don’t want to be the oldest parent on the soccer field.
6. Career—Having kids will totally screw it up.
7. Freedom—They want to do whatever they please whenever they please.
8. Marriage—Will having children ruin their relationship? Will the wife focus all her attention on the kids? Will they fight over how to raise them? Will they never have sex again?
9. Inadequacy—They’d be a lousy father or mother.
10. Responsibility—Don’t want it.
11. Overpopulation—The world has too many people already.
12. Messed up world—Why subject a child to wars, terrorism, climate change and a culture gone to hell?

Do any of these sound familiar? Can you add anything to the list? Do you think it’s possible to change their minds? I’d love to read your comments.

When hormones outtalk common sense

I've been thinking about Monday's "Bachelorette" TV show. Did you see it? Kaitlyn, the bachelorette, and Nick, one of her suitors, made out all over Dublin, even in a church. It was embarrassing to watch. I kept yelling at the screen, "Nick get your hands out of her dress!" but he didn't hear me. Then they went back to her hotel suite and had sex. We didn't see it, but we heard the sound effects, and it was all over the news on Tuesday. Shooting in Charleston, Kaitlyn does Nick. It could all have been staged, but clearly those two were in that zone where common sense goes out the window. I've been there. Have you?

In her voiceovers, Kaitlin kept saying that when she gets together with Nick, she forgets the cameras, the other guys and everything else. I know the feeling. Maybe you do, too. You have just discovered this person. Your hormones are going crazy. Suddenly nothing else matters. You will do or say anything to keep the relationship going. You'll move, you'll quit your job, you'll shut out the advice of everyone in your world, and you'll ignore that little voice in your head that says, "Hey, wait a minute."

Then the initial fire cools. You look around and think, wait, I don't want to change my whole life. I like my job. I like my home. He's not as cute as I thought he was. Suddenly he or she says, "About those babies . . . I'm not so sure." Now you're committed and in a jam.

That's where most of the folks here, including me, end up. I hear it over and over. Yesterday, an anonymous writer sent a four-part comment about her situation. She's 38, he's 40. She's sure he's the love of her life. She moved in with him a while ago. He was okay with baby thing before, but now he's saying he doesn't want to have a baby. She's freaking out, she's starting counseling, she's not sure if they can stay together. What do I think she should do?

I never know what to tell people in this situation. The old lady in me misses the days when people didn't jump into bed or move in together so quickly, when you had to commit to marriage before doing the horizontal polka. Or maybe people were just sneakier about it. We all do it. I slept with Fred early on and moved in with him before we got married. Luckily, I got a good man and I have no regrets, except for not having children, but it doesn't always work out that well. I could have skipped my whole first marriage if I had listened to the wiser woman in my head.

Don't ignore that little voice. It's like when I quit my excellent job and gave up my apartment in 1983 to sing with a band that had a contract to tour the U.S. All I ever wanted was to sing in a band, and here was my chance. We were going to be rich and famous. Our sponsors went bankrupt in two months. There I was with no home and no job. I moved back in with my parents and started over. Wiser members of the band had kept their jobs and had something to go back to, but me, I jumped headfirst.

It's the same with relationships. I know how it feels to be crazy in love. The rest of the world just disappears, but don't let it. Do whatever you can to get a clear head, whether it's prayer, a hiking trip, or a long talk with a friend. Listen to your loved ones, listen to that voice in your head. Don't burn any bridges until you're sure it's going to work because sometimes it's perfect, and sometimes it turns into a disaster.

Have you been in similar situations? Have you dumped everything for a man or woman and then regretted it? I would love to hear your comments.

Are you fooling yourself about the baby thing?

In Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, the book I reviewed here last week, Tim Kreider, one of the few male authors in the book, says that he makes a point of telling the women he dates early on that he does not intend to have children and that he will not change his mind. “In my experience,” he writes, “people have a bottomless capacity to delude themselves that their partners will eventually change.”

I think this statement is so important to our Childless by Marriage discussion. We do delude ourselves. I know I did. With my first husband, I told myself we would have babies eventually. Maybe we would have if our marriage hadn’t died. My ex didn’t want kids, but he often buckled to pressure from his parents on other subjects and his mother couldn’t wait to be a grandmother. So, maybe. But the evidence doesn’t support that. Now 66 years old, he has been married three times, and he never had any children. Surely at least one of those other wives wanted them, too. But no babies. Dogs yes, children no.

My second husband, Fred, told me he didn’t want any more children. He already had three kids, the oldest already in their late teens. He’d had a vasectomy after his youngest son was born. And yet for years, I did exactly what Tim Kreider said. I deluded myself that somehow something would change and at least one of his sperm would hook up with at least one of my eggs and we’d make babies. Hello, there’s only one Virgin Mary. It did not happen. I menopaused, he died, game over. I’m living alone with a dog.

If you read back through the comments for past posts, there are hundreds, mostly from women, that talk about partners who say they don’t want children. What should I do, they ask. Will he change his mind? He says he might be ready in a few years. He said we’d do it right after X, and now he says no. He won’t talk about it. Etc.

You can’t blame people for hoping. Sometimes their partners are not clear about what they want. Maybe they don’t even know. Sometimes things happen and people change their minds. But when a person says flat out that he or she does not want to have babies with you and they’re not going to change their minds, I think we have to believe that they mean it and that being with them means you will not have children. If that is not acceptable, don’t delude yourself into thinking things will change. Either accept it or move on.

It’s a harsh reality, but it’s the truth. What do you think about this? I welcome your comments.

If You're Not Sure, Don't Get Married

Last night I received a comment on an old post titled "Should You Stay with the Guy Who Doesn't Want Kids?" that details six years of a couple repeatedly breaking up and getting back together. The guy had decided he didn't want kids. He even scheduled a vasectomy. But she was still hoping he'd change his mind. Now she's thinking she'll give up on kids--she's 39, so maybe it's too late anyway--but he's having doubts because he thinks she'll resent him for not giving her children . . .

As advice columnist Ann Landers used to say, wake up and smell the coffee. It's not going to work.
I get comments like this all the time from people who can't decide whether to stay together or break up with their boyfriends/girlfriends, fiances, or spouses. In their comments, they usually focus on the baby issue. Their mate can't have them, doesn't want them, isn't sure, keeps changing his/her mind. But usually that is not the only problem with the relationship. The writer is jealous of the loved one's children from previous relationships, the couple can't seem to communicate, there are issues with family, money or jobs, they're already in counseling  and they're thinking about splitting up.

I admit to being grouchy this morning, but if you're already thinking about leaving, go! I can tell you from experience that if the relationship is troubled before the marriage, it is not going to magically improve after you say "I do." If you're having doubts, walk away.

When I married my first husband, I was a very young 22. I knew things weren't right. We didn't actually talk about having children. I just assumed we would. But there were other things, problems I ignored because I thought we had gone too far to break up. I felt like we had to get married, like he was the only one for me. Turns out I was not the only one for him, but my point is that in a good relationship, you don't doubt that you want to be together.

Finding a solution when you don't agree about having children is hard. It takes a lot of love to sacrifice the life you had expected to have. If you start out unable to work together, it's not going to get better. I don't know you and your situations, but I do know that if you're already considering looking for someone else, this is not going to work. Your partner is not going to change, and neither are you. If your love is real, you won't be considering other options. You'll face life's problems, including the issue of having children, together as a unit.

Do you agree? Do you want to yell at me. I'd love to read your comments.

How do you begin to heal from childless grief?

Grief. My 2007 post about childless grief has been the most clicked and commented on over the last seven years. Readers continue to pour out heartbreaking stories about being denied the chance to have children and finding the loss unbearable. They write, "I don't know what to do." "I can't go on." "My heart is breaking." I tell them I'm sorry. I tell them I'm praying for them. I urge them to find someone to talk to, whether it's a friend, family member, or therapist. I tell them to keep talking with their spouse; don't hurt in silence.

The pain is real. The loss is real. You are trying to figure out how to live without the family and the life you thought you would have. It's not just the children. It's not just grandchildren and descendants through the ages. It's also a way of life, an identity as a mother or father, an experience that most people have and you never will.

How do you begin to heal? What do you do with this pain? A reader recently suggested that I write about this. In the next few posts, we will look at ways to heal. Even if you do eventually have children, you won't forget the years when you thought you never would, so healing is needed.

The stages of grief outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross can be applied here: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Denial: He'll change his mind. We'll do IVF. I'll get pregnant by accident. She's 43, but it's not too late. We all do this. We think a miracle will happen, and we will have a baby. While we're waiting for that miracle, our lives are passing us by.

Anger: It's his/her/God's fault, and I am so pissed. He cheated me out of my chance to be a mother. She's too selfish to give me the children I always wanted. I never should have married this @#$%. I'm an idiot. And God, you suck.

Bargaining: I'll let him get his degree/sports car/trip to Europe, and then we'll get pregnant. If I get a second job, she'll change her mind. If we move to Cleveland, which I hate, he'll let us have a baby.

Depression: I am so sad I can't go on. I want to have babies. I want them so bad I die every time I hear about somebody else having a baby. My friends and my sisters are all having kids, and I feel so left out. They just don't understand. Nobody understands. I'm never going to have children, and my life is ruined.

Acceptance: They say you have to hit bottom before you can start working your way out of your troubles. One day, you will begin to see that although you don't have children, life has many other good things to offer: a partner who loves you., great food, blue skies and green trees, work you enjoy, a house you love, hobbies. friends, God. You realize lots of other people do not have children and live happy, successful lives, and you can, too. You still wish you had children, but life goes on whether you're a parent or not.

As anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one knows, we don't progress through the stages of grief in a straight line. One day you're feeling acceptance; the next day you're back at depression or anger or denial. I still feel sad sometimes, and sometimes I cry and punch things because I'm furious at how my life worked out. But the acceptance grows with time until it becomes your usual mood.

In coming posts, we will look at alternate life plans,  ceremonies and rituals to let go of grief, and more steps to take toward healing.

Please forgive me if my posts are not quite on time this month. I've been in California taking care of my father, who broke his hip, and there is no Wi-Fi at his house. But I will not desert you. You are all in my thoughts and prayers as we heal together.




Copyright 2014 Sue Fagalde Lick

What do the men say about being childless by marriage?

Is Childless by Marriage just for women? No, definitely not. Sometimes it seems as if this is an all-girls site, but I welcome men as well as women. Both men and women struggle with the same issues about children. One wants them and the other doesn’t. One can’t have them, and the other can’t imagine life without them. The relationship, the engagement, or the marriage is in danger. Should they go? Should they stay? Sometimes I wish we were back in the olden days when everybody who got married had kids, and if they didn’t want children, they didn’t get married.

Of course men are not the ones who get pregnant, and they are not the ones whose fertility ends in their 40s, so that part is different, but their comments sound pretty similar to the ones I get from women.

Let me share a few of the men’s comments I have received lately. I encourage you readers to respond to each other. I don’t have all the words of wisdom. You can find all of these comments under the post, If You Disagree About Children, is Your Relationship Doomed? 

Anonymous said...

Hello, I don't know if this post is strictly for women but I'm a 37 year old male with 45 year old gf. We've been friends since I was 27 but began dating at 30. I've never been married and I have no kids, she has been married and has 2 kids which both are now married. She has 2 grandkids, a 2 year old and a newborn. I didn't begin to think about kids until her first grandson was born but she was 42 at the time. Now at 45 it would be a high risk. Friends and co workers around us are having kids left and right and I can't deny that it is eating me inside. She said that it's written all over my face when we see a baby and or her grandkids. She wants me to be happy and is willing to sacrifice by losing me, I just don't know if I'm willing to lose her for the chance of having a child. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Anonymous:

Hi, My wife is leaving me because I don't want a second child and it's killing me. I feel I am being punished for that decision. She says she always wanted two but she never talked to me about it, so now I face becoming a part time dad and I don't know what to do .

Anonymous said...

Hello everyone, I am going through a terrible situation with my girlfriend. We have been together for 7 years now. We are both immigrants (she is from Russia and I am from Brazil) who live in Los Angeles. I am 32 and she is 35. Her mother passed away in 2010 due to a brain tumor. Since then she has become addicted to the idea of having a child. At the moment I do not feel that crazy desire to be a father. I moved to the U.S. kind of late in life at 25 and I am just now transferring to a four-year university to get a degree in business. I have a degree in Physical Education from Brazil, but the hassle to get it validated here was so time consuming that I decided to do something else. I am also not happy with my career because my work is unstable and the pay is very low. On the other hand, she moved here when she was 13 and had her whole education in the U.S. She is very successful in her career and she is stable financially. Four years ago I asked her to help me to pay for school so I could finish faster but she said she was not interested to spend her money like that.

It made me concerned because if she wants a family with me, how is going to be when the kid arrives? I have no financial means to provide for a kid. Not even half of the bills for a child. It really scares me that I may find myself in a situation where I won't be able to support my son/daughter. I am feeling terrible because I cannot make her happy. I can see that she resents me because she picks up fights all the time for silly reasons. The other night she said that is better for us to go apart. I just cried for the whole day and I am feeling lonely and worthless. It kills me that I am not enough for her and that I cannot make her happy. She said that she wants me to be a stay in dad, but I am very independent and I believe that I must have a career. It would be better for both of us if I have one. I fear that once the baby arrives she will just break up with me and leave in a difficult situation. I would not be able to abandon a child.

I moved here on my own and I have no family in the states. Our relationship was one of the main reasons that made me stay in the country. I also understand that she is coming close to 40 and that it might become harder to become pregnant, but she does not want to wait any longer. Am I being a jerk or too selfish? It is just killing me that the whole focus of my adult life is coming to an end. I just want her to be happy and she deserves all the best. It just hurts that I am not good enough. I believe that the best should be to leave her alone and not interfere on her life. I want her dreams to come true. I wish I could have a normal job so I could help and give her what she wants. I struggled financially since I got here. It took me 7 years to get a green card and now (after 9 years) things are getting better. I just don’t want to struggle right now and I want to get my college degree before a kid. What should I do? 

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Well, dear readers, what do you think? I welcome your comments.