# He's Not Ready For A Child, And I'm Sad.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hes-not-ready-for-a-child-and-im-sad/547846>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [July 24, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hes-not-ready-for-a-child-and-im-sad/547846 "2010-07-24T16:22:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 168

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hes-not-ready-for-a-child-and-im-sad/547846/168 "2010-08-01T04:10:13Z")

</div>

> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> He’s just really overwhelmed right now, feels like he can barely manage what he’s got on his plate, \*\*I don’t think he honestly knows when he will feel like he has things under control \*\*and so gave the longest estimate possible.

This keeps coming up in this thread…when does he think/know that X will happen? When will he feel in control? When will he feel ready? When, when when?

Honestly, can you answer that about any of the things that you are dealing with personally? Could you have ever answered that? To use a cruel example, and I apologize for this, but when will you be over the intimacy issues you mentioned? If he asked you that - and it seems to me that intimacy is easier to deal with than a child - how would you answer? Could you?

I think, if you are going to go the counselling route, that it’s something you two might want to look at. You are both planners and like to have some sense of control over your lives, but this when? when? when? isn’t doing anyone any good. It’s unreasonable to ask someone what the future will bring - how can he possibly know?

> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> This is a pretty long-term goal I’ve had, I just got tired of waiting.

This isn’t fair. Your long-term goal, which your husband was in agreement with, suddenly became _now_, and you’re _tired of waiting_ for something that you’d both agreed wouldn’t even be happening for some time to come.

You’ve made comments about having waiting a long time, about waiting for life to begin, and apparently to you that means (in part) having a child.

Which makes me wonder what you’ve been doing for the past 8 years?

Life isn’t a child. Life isn’t what you’ll do an a day-to-day basis once you move to Chicago. Life isn’t what comes after a MSW, or after a PhD. Life isn’t spreadsheets and planning what you’ll do 4.356 years from now.

THIS IS LIFE. Learn, laugh, cry, shop, eat, fuck…that’s life.

It is what you make of it, and I know you’ve made a lot more of your life than your history suggests you should have - and I’m so amazed and impressed by you and I give you a bazillion credits for that. I can understand your impatience and your frustration and your sadness, but I feel like you’re so wrapped up in the future that you aren’t even able to appreciate where you are now. When you first moved to start grad school you loved the town, you loved the jogging trail behind your place, and I seem to recall a great little market, or maybe I’m confusing you with someone else, but either way, there is LIFE to be lived right where you are.

And this is coming from a bit of a hermit watching football, drinking beer and posting to the SDMB on a Saturday night! This is my life…and I’m ok with that! 😉

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hes-not-ready-for-a-child-and-im-sad/547846)._
