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

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Okay, I’m going to respond to the respectful criticisms now. Please understand I am not anywhere near feeling normal right now. Today in this household has been alternate crying, yelling, long jags of silence and lots of just holding one another. Stressful times, okay? So bear with me if I sound a little defensive. My life has felt like an all-out emotional assault lately.

I know you care, but that’s not exactly the case. See below.

I considered your words very seriously. I know those of you who have voiced concerns are doing it out of real compassion, and I appreciate it. I’m not going to claim my motivations are always 100% pure and that I always understand exactly what I want all the time, but I feel the situation isn’t totally being grasped here.

I have always wanted to adopt. For the last 5 years or so, my husband and I have had periodic conversations about adoption and we’ve bought adoption books. In 2007 we set a goal to look into this more seriously 2-3 years in the future. 2009 we had a conversation about adoption, and we planned, this summer, to hook up with an agency and get the ball rolling, a process that we estimated would take a couple of years. This was agreed to last year before I even started grad school.

Grad school hit me like a ton of bricks. The demand on time is absolutely insane. The stress is incredible. I went back and forth and back and forth on what I should do following my MSW. MSSP? Ph.D? Just try my luck with the work force? There is absolutely nothing atypical about that. I have always been indecisive about my career, though I’ve also been very focused about what I did set my mind on. Grad school was also very exciting. I discovered passions I didn’t know I had. I began to develop a professional identity. It was also demoralizing. I discovered flaws I didn’t know I had, and felt inferior to all my classmates.

So, September through April. I’ve been devoting 70+ hours a week to social work. I’ve been working every day with people who are sick and dying and suffering from dementia. I’ve been reading hundreds of pages a week about what’s wrong with the world and how it’s basically impossible to fix. And I’m feeling like, not really that great at what I do.

Do you think I want to think about that stuff during summer break? Heck no. This could be the last summer break of my life, I want to enjoy it. Does it mean I’m abandoning it completely? No. It means I’m tired and I want to think about other ways my life has meaning. I have tried to define myself by my career goals my entire life. I just wanted to shed that skin, you know? Get in touch with what’s lying underneath. The irony, I guess, is that by focusing on the baby thing, I was trying to get away from making my life all one thing, by emphasizing the things that I truly love instead of the things that give me status, or whatever. Another very real reason I was trying to get it all taken care of now is because I am going to be back in grad school starting in September and I will have enough going on without having to worry about the budget and insurance (the insurance had to be done anyway as my husband is losing a TAship and gaining a fellowship; we had a deadline) and all that crap. I was just trying to make things easier on myself when I was student, because being pregnant would be hard enough.

As far as the adoption goes, I explained what happened in the other thread. I had already been thinking about how much I wanted to be a Mom and having a baby offered to me just magnified that feeling by a thousand. When I brought it up to my husband, he was the one who suddenly had doubts about starting the adoption process as quickly as we had discussed. So if anyone at all has been ‘‘all over the map’’ about this, it’s him. HE is the one who suddenly asked me to conceive for our first child because adoption adds layers of stress he did not feel he could deal with. I did not change the plan; he did.

I agreed to do this because I want a child. I want to adopt. Nothing is really going to change that desire. But my desire for a child is stronger than my desire to adopt. That’s it. It’s that simple. We talked about being a SAHM for at least the first year, not for the child’s entire life. We talked about part-time, we’ve talked about me taking on a serious volunteer role, we’ve talked about me doing free-lance writing, something I have also always been interested in doing. I agree there has been less emphasis on my career this summer, but that doesn’t mean I am trying to abandon it. I just got so stressed out last year that my life needs to be about more than one thing.

I agree I need a better balance. Balance is something I have always struggled with. Your post indicates you know I’m an incredibly persevering person, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get knocked down from time to time. I always get up. Always.

In the other thread I posted, someone told me that I probably wasn’t ready for a child because I wasn’t willing to quit graduate school immediately with $50k of debt and no degree to raise a baby. And others have expressed that I’m too excited about conceiving and am investing way too much energy into it. People have a lot of different ideas about how enthusiastic you should or shouldn’t be about having a baby. I’m a passionate person. My norm for anything I care about is definitely on the enthusiastic side.

I wish I wanted a kitten! But they grow into cats. I love my cat, but he’s definitely a loner.

I get it, and as much as I have defensive in this thread about it, there is probably some truth to it. I am trying to listen, it is really hard right now over the roaring feelings in head, but I am trying.

I appreciate everyone who’s taken the time to share their input.

22

I am very sorry for your sadness. I went through many miserable years of infertility and know well the grief that came from not having the children you so strongly want (I now have 2 adopted children). But I’m also coming from a position of being a lot older now and can see your situation from a distance. I don’t think your husband deceived you. He changed his mind when the reality of the situation sank in. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the moment before having a chance to sort through all the logistics. Be sad, but also be grateful that he was wise enough to figure out the ramifications. I’m not sure either of you were in the right position for that decision in the first place; quitting your education and giving up having the career you always wanted for a child is not a good life decision. Get your ducks in a row before you have your children if you possibly can.

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here.

How were you going to support your baby? Would your husband have to take on a job/2nd job in addition to his Ph.D? I’d be stressed to pieces in his shoes at the prospect of how much he’d be taking on in the baby situation.

You say you only want to be a parent, but what will you do in 18 years? If you put off your Ph.D., you will not be in a good position to go back later. You will have to work either during their childhood or after, and you will not be able to do what you wanted in your career if you forsake that now. What happens if something happens to your husband or your marriage and you are thrust back into the workforce? Unless leaving school after your Masters is what you want to do, then don’t give up your goal of the Ph.D.

I had these questions when I read your earlier thread. Having babies before you both are in a good position career-wise or finance-wise is a really risky road to go down. If you were advising somebody else, I think you would suggest to them they wait just until one of is in a more secure position. Your husband, from what you’ve described, sounds like the kind of guy who truly does want to start a family, just now this minute. I believe he will come around when he feels more secure in his career. Supporting a family is a tremendous weight to bear, especially since he’s not in a position to do it right now.

I’m not trying to be a downer here. I really feel bad for you right now. I just think that maybe you made your decision a bit too impetuously for the life plan you and your husband already had made. But now you have a clearer idea of what you want for your future and you two can plan it together this time.

Edited to add: I wrote this before you typed your last post. If I read the whole thing to see if it contradicts what I’m writing, I won’t have time to edit. So this post may already be obsolete!

23

A quick question: how many years of grad school do you have left to go? (3, if I’m reading correctly, right?) So do you plan on continuing with grad school for the pregnancy and first couple of years of the baby’s life? Or take a year off to be a SAHM and then return?

Given the amount of pressure and stress you experienced the past year, adding a baby into the mix would bring it up to an insane level. I would highly *highly *recommend you not do that to yourself/your husband/your marriage.

Also, it seems to me that women who leave school to have a child generally don’t end up returning despite their intentions before the child was born. I imagine this is because having a kid can be overwhelming on its own and grad school on top of that is just too much. I really think you need to sort out your education before having children.

Just as an anecdote: my mom returned to school to get her phd when we kids were old enough to go to school and look after ourselves to a certain extent and found it very stressful, and this was with my dad having a steady job whereas yours would being going through grad school too. I imagine very young children would only make everything that much more difficult.

Another also: I’m just throwing this out there as a possibility for you to consider. I tend to throw myself into things as an avoidance mechanism and that gives my, for lack of a better word, diversion an urgency and importance in my mind that it wouldn’t ordinarily have if I weren’t using it as a distraction of sorts. The hardest ones to sort out are the ones that already are important, like having a kid is for you. Is it possible part of your focus on having a child is an avoidance of having to deal with grad school? I know this is a tricky area because you also very understandably need a break from all of that. It could just be clouding the situation, you know?

Good luck. I hope however things go, they work out for the best.

24

Wow. I’m really sorry you’re so upset about this. It must be very upsetting to have your heart set on something and then feel like it’s been ripped away.

However, I must say that your posts on this matter are REALLY intense. I want to say this as gently as possible - I think you’re putting an awful lot of pressure on a little baby. It seems like you’re counting on this tiny little person to fill a gap in your life, when really I kinda think it should be more about you filling a gap in theirs. Your posts seem a touch focused on what you want to get out of motherhood but they don’t seem to address what you will bring to the table in that regard.

Really, from the child’s point of view, having an enthusiastic mom is great, but if dad is a stress-ball, resenting the child, resenting the mom, feeling like he’s being pulled in 20 different directions, that doesn’t seem like an ideal start for a baby.

Anyhow - as you know, I’m pregnant out to here. I’m also more than 10 years older than you are. FWIW, my husband is the one who was really gung-ho for us to have a baby, and now with less than 4 weeks to go he’s freaking out, worried about being ready, etc.

I know that you feel like the rug has been ripped out from under you and you’re very upset. However, try to give hubby a break - I really do think these things are harder on men than women. And please try to remember, even if it’s not happening now, a baby WILL happen for you, and every extra day you wait gives you one more day of experience, wisdom and knowledge to pass on to Junior when he or she arrives.

Hang in there - this too shall pass.

25

I’m so sorry. It must have felt like you were gut-punched by the one you love. It sounds like you need and deserve some time to grieve and simply to digest this.

For what it’s worth, it sounds to me like your husband is incredibly overburdened by stress, and that he loves you desperately. The two combined created a bad situation - he convinced himself he was up for something you want, until enough reality piled on to make him realize he really wasn’t up for it right now.

I don’t know if it will make you feel better, but let me share a little of my experience. My husband and I were together for six years before getting pregnant. We decided to try after I got fired from my job - it seemed like the perfect time. We made sure to discuss ahead of time how we would deal if we had fertility problems - how far would we go to have a child, and when would we let go? But when I had a miscarriage, it was incredibly difficult. I wondered if this meant I would never be able to have children.

I got pregnant again and had my first baby at the age of 30. I think it’s a good age to have a baby - experienced and mature enough to deal with that burden, but young enough to have the energy required! I now have a 7 year old and a 2 year old, and they are wonderful. SAHM-ing has been wonderful, but I think I’m reaching the end of feeling fulfilled just with that. Anyway, things worked out well. We are happy.

I do want to caution you that in my experience, having a baby tends to bring up a lot of crap from your own upbringing. While it is a chance to have a good parent-child relationship if you didn’t get one with your own parents, it is also incredibly trying as you attempt to maneuver around your own baggage, and try to do better by your own kid, without overcompensating and causing damage from a different direction. And kids have a way of efficiently fraying us to the point that we automatically react with something we hated about our own parents. Be cautious about hoping your baby will release you from your painful childhood. I think you would be a wonderful mother, but I don’t want you to expect magical levels of psychological healing from it.

Take care of yourself, and if you are sad, be sad. But maybe try to avoid ruminating too much about the future. Hugs to you!

26

First of all, I absolutely do not mean to be critical. I certainly think you have every right to be feeling what you are feeling. Do you think you are angrier because there will be a delay in having a baby or because your husband broke his word?

It took a few years of negotiation between me and my wife before we started trying. There were a lot of changes I wanted to make in my life when she first wanted to to try for a baby. But we agreed what those changes would be, and when they finally came to pass, I was out of excuses. I’m not ready, per se, but I know I’m never going to be any readier. Perhaps your husband is requiring a higher level of readiness of himself than he will ever reasonably attain. Has he talked to new fathers and fathers-to-be about it at all?

In your defense, I think the PhD issue is a non-starter. Everyone told me how crazy it would be to have a baby in the first year of my PhD. I think they’re wrong. The recent Mellon Foundation study agrees with me: men are more likely to finish their degrees if they have children. Life will be much more stressful after my PhD. After my degree I will probably have to do a year or three of crappy postdocs, requiring me to go to a new university (or country) every nine months or so. Then maybe I’ll find an adjunct position for a year or two, and then, if I am lucky, I’ll get a full time TT offer somewhere. Given the choice, I’d rather drag a five year old around than a pregnant wife or an infant. At least by the time my boy is 5, my wife and I should have a clue what we are doing.

The market is a shitload more stressful than the PhD. Hopefully he knows this. With any luck, you will have an easier time resetting your timeline. At least you are young. Some friends of mine are going through a similar situation a few years ahead of you. He just finished his degree and has shit job prospects, so he is dragging his feet though he originally kinda-sorta agreed to try after the degree was done. She’s 41.

I wish you the best of luck. If you were still in NY, I’d gladly take you out to lunch. Have some wine while you still can!

27

I’m sorry you have to deal with.

In my totally unqualified opinion, I think there is a good chance that things will smooth out fairly quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if your husband’s cold feet are more a reaction to your intensity about having a baby than the baby itself. You’ve undergone a pretty big change that didn’t really include him, and now it’s become your singular obsession. That probably scared him a bit. I think he may have been prepared to have a baby, but not prepared to handle how big of a deal it has become. He seems like he is a fairly rational and emotionally even man, and he is probably wasn’t ready to handle this much pure emotion.

I know you are feeling hurt, but I think you should do your best to keep your emotions in check and the lines of communication open. If this becomes a tense and highly emotional situation, that will only contribute to his fears that having a baby will introduce too much stress and tension into his life.

If I were you, I’d try to get an agreement to put having a baby on the shelf for now, but to discuss the idea again in six months, when some of these emotions have cooled down a bit. At that point, you may be a bit more balanced and he may be ready to rethink the idea.

28

I wonder about this, too - not only avoiding grad school, but avoiding the whole career issue. I’m truly sorry that you feel your husband let you down and misled you, though. You changed your mind on this issue; unfortunately, it sounds like he did, too. He does have the right to do that, regardless of what he promised you - it’s his parenthood you’re discussing, too. I agree with sven, also - your intensity may have scared him. Putting the whole issue on the shelf for a few months sounds like a good idea to me, too.

29

First, to provide some much-needed clarification: I am going to graduate with a terminal professional Master’s degree in 9 months. My education will be complete next Spring. There is no abandoning of education or career aspirations going on, just abandoning of the decision to get a Ph.D. in a degree where almost nobody gets a Ph.D. in that field. <bitter, deeply cynical rant about academia omitted>

My husband will get his Masters in the Spring of next year and then will be ABD. If it goes according to plan he’ll be taking internship in 2012, at which point I hope to god we can move to Chicago and be near friends and family we trust. He will then look for permanent work in that area. It’s a total crapshoot. We could end up in freakin’ Omaha for all I know. (see above for bitter, deeply cynical rant about academia.)

Because he broke his word. Because he keeps agreeing to timelines and later setting them further back. Because he changed his mind and doesn’t know what he needs to be ready. Because he won’t give me a straight answer and he won’t be honest with himself about the issues he needs to work out. And he does have issues, not just with the baby. And I don’t know how to help him. I’ve tried for three years to give him the support he needs, he won’t reach out to anyone but me, so what little time we spend together is discussing how miserable and insecure he feels. Which is great for me, considering I’m not particularly thrilled with having uprooted my entire life so that he could chase his nightmare. And I’m absolutely terrified that he’ll expect things to be easier once he graduates. I keep telling him over and over, this is it, this is academia, either you accept it and learn to deal with it or you get out. But I don’t think he hears me.

I absolutely fucking hate his program. I hate it for what it’s doing to him and I’m terrified it’s never going to end. I hate that it’s currently keeping us from settling down, having a home in a city where we don’t plan to move away a year later and that it keeps us from just living a normal stable life. All I have really ever wanted out of my life is a place where I can live permanently and a daily routine and a family full of love. These are things I have never had. I moved 15 times as a child and I’ve moved 6 times as an adult, about to move away again next year so we can be closer to his university. The players and scenery are always changing.

I can’t build anything here but a family, because the only good thing, real thing, permanent thing in my life is this safe and loving space between my husband and I. There is so much love here it’s ridiculous. If you’d been in this house over the last 48 hours, and seen how lovingly we dealt with this unbelievably painful issue, you would see what kind of love we have to give to a child. It’s just in my nature to want to expand what we have into a family. Maybe it’s not the best possible time, but it’s not a totally irrational time, either - the kid would be 1 or 2 when we finally settled down. People raise loving families with far fewer resources than we have. I’m not crazy and impulsive, I’m just human and tired of waiting for life to begin.

As you can see, this is about so much more than a baby. It’s about this whole purgatory we are in right now and how much it sucks. You have to understand, we fell in love when we were 19. For 8 years it’s been school and work and more school and school and more school and just waiting forever to settle down. There’s only so many times you can have hypothetical conversations about some imaginary life in the future before you start to go insane.

As far as the baby delay, I’m mostly over it. I can see that a lot of my sudden intense feeling of need for a child has been related to other issues–which is NOT the same as saying I am not ready for a child. But there is a difference between being ready and feeling an intense desire for immediate gratification, and I concede that line has been blurred for me lately. But whatever, I’m letting it go. One advantage of having constant unexpected changes in your life is that you adjust to them.

Okay, he’s not ready. My concern now is about how we deal with the issue moving forward. I cannot be the one to keep bringing it up year after year. If it’s something he truly wants, he’s going to have to take some initiative too. I have no intention of bringing it up unless he does.

30

I can’t seem to sleep tonight, either, for some reason.

I’m so sorry. Yeah, the degree is the easy part. The rest really takes the work. I’d blame his advisors for not telling him the real deal about academic life from the beginning.

IIRC he is studying psychology, yet he seems to be resistant to getting some professional help on these issues. Why do you think that is? Do you think couples therapy would be an option?

I understand this completely. When I met my wife, I was working terrible hours in worse jobs and she was chronically ill. Her career aspirations were falling apart, and I was just getting farther and farther away from what I really wanted to be doing in my life.

It took years before we could get our shit together well enough to get married. We’ve been together for eight years (married for five) and only in this past year have we both managed to achieve the lives we wanted. We did feel like the instability and the waiting were wearing us both down. We wondered if it was even worth it to keep trying. I have no doubt that you guys will make it, too.

Fair enough. But will you resent him if you stay quiet and no one brings it up for awhile?

31

As others have said, no one is ready to have a baby. His back and forth happiness and anxiety is normal, it’s a huge responsibility. It’s possible all the talk of the baby is making him more anxious.

Once he does again find himself ready just stop trying not to have a baby and don’t focus on it so much. Birth control is great but I do think it’s led to couples overthinking the timing of having children. If you’re in a good marriage and at least one person has a stable career things will work out no matter when the baby comes.

32

He feels that lately things have been getting better. He said the last two or three months have been stressful but not miserable, which is why he initially agreed to have the baby because he really felt he was gaining control of his life again. I have noticed a difference in him too. It is something we were working on together. But recently he was in a more negative place, briefly, and he began to feel that he has a more tentative grasp on things than he originally thought. This began to frighten him. He needs time to feel like he has mastery over the stress.

He says he knows it’s normal not to feel ready for a child, but he feels like there is a difference between not being ready in some ways and not feeling ready at all. So it’s not that he’s falling apart right now, but more that the thought of a baby puts added pressure on him at a time when he is just starting to get it together.

He also agreed that he needs to start seeking support in other places, be they friends, his advisor (who is a great guy, but tends to be really hands-off) or a trusted family member, because it is diminishing the quality of our relationship to focus on his stress all the time. He e-mailed someone yesterday and told her he needed a friend and would appreciate if she made some time for him this week, which is a big step for him. We are both pretty isolated socially, he living an hour and a half from his campus and me living forty-five minutes from mine. (Yes, he has a three-hour daily commute which does not help his stress. That’s a bullet he took for me so I could go to my school of choice. This will change next year after I graduate.)

I’m not claiming I’m great at reaching out to people either, but I made a dinner date with a friend tonight, so I’m trying too. I think part of my unhappiness with our current situation is that I have difficulty trusting other people and relying on them for support. I’ve been focusing on that in therapy lately because it’s about wounds that go back years, just unresolved junk that is making my life unnecessarily difficult. I think if I can work on forming good relationships where I’m at and not worrying so much about the future, I can learn to be happier in the moment.

Thank you for your compassion. I recognize I’m not coming off as the most together person in the world here. This is all new territory for me. I’ve never been here. We’ve talked about having children, but I never really felt like I was quite ready. So when I reached that point, I got excited and I just didn’t think about the fact that just because I feel ready doesn’t mean he should.

And I didn’t realize that just because I can have a child doesn’t necessarily mean it has to happen this instant or that there wouldn’t be a better time for it to happen.

I’m beginning to understand that now.

I don’t think so. We’ve talked about it, and I understand better what happened and what’s been happening with him psychologically. It’s not a total disaster, it only felt like one. I believe he is making these issues a priority in his life, and that given time he will figure it out. I’m comfortable with waiting at least until I graduate to have that discussion again. I have a feeling once he realizes I am finished with my education it may bring him a greater sense of stability.

33

Oh, honey. You have to stop thinking like this. You have to. You cannot afford to treat this as something to be got through before your life can start instead of your actual life. That kind of thinking will drive you right round the bend no matter kind of other issues you have singly or as a couple. I know because I’ve been there–we’re 34 and just within the past year got to the point where we could pick up and go where we want to go instead of where we need to go for school, more school, or work to pay for school. And we got together at the same age as you guys.

This is your life. Your real life. Don’t waste it by just marking time until other stuff can happen. Live it. It’s the only way to make it through with your heart and your sanity intact.

34

You’re right. You’re so right. I guess it took all this drama to realize it. That’s what we’ve been talking about mostly today – how to start living life right now, how to feel like we’re home no matter where we are. We both require some work in this department. But we do have a good foundation to start.

35

Your husband is an asshole for doing this to you. The totality of your posting about him (not just here) suggests to me that you are way too eager to see him as perfect and yourself as unworthy of him. You talk like you think you have no emotional rights in the marriage and that nothing he does should ever be held against him. You have to learn to be able to tell him he’s just fucking wrong sometimes, and this is a big one of those time. He’s being a complete shithead to you and you should tell him that he is - not that you’re disappointe, not that “you’ll get through it,” but that he was an absolute bastard for doing this to you and he can’t just fix it with a fucking kitten like you’re a little girl who didn’t get a pony. He’s being a selfish prick. Don’t feel so afraid to TELL him he’s a selfish prick. He’s not perfect. He’s not that fucking wonderful, and you have every right to tell him so. You shouldn’t have to just sublimate this, and forgive and forget about it while he has no consequences of his own. You planned for this, he agreed to it, and you should tell him that you won’t just passively accept his betrayal – and that’s what it is, a betrayal.

36

Nomadic academic couple checking in. This is perspective is critical, regardless of whether you have children now or later. Home has to be where you are, wherever that is. You cannot keep life on hold until you get “settled” or to your “real” job or “real” place. Hell, my first child was conceived in Pittsburgh, born and toddled in St. Louis, raised briefly in San Diego and spent all his school years so far (ages 5-15) in Connecticut. My second child was conceived in St. Louis, born and toddled in San Diego and has spent most of her life (1-12) now in Connecticut. It was a lot of moving and uprooting for our little family.

Home is here. Life is now. I know it sounds trite, but for those of us who follow this academic path, it’s a simple mantra that bears repeating.

37

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
-John Lennon

38

Just make sure he knows this too. Hopefully you have better communication skills than this (and it sounds like you do) but if he views pushing the baby issue as your role, he may assume that you not doing it means you’ve changed your mind or want to wait longer for now or something. (My father would take it further and not be willing to put himself out there or make a major decision like that and just leave it for my mother to bring up because that’s safer/easier, but your husband sounds much more mature/self-confident than that. Writing it out just in case, though.)

Also, it sounded like you might be thinking this a bit, so I just wanted to say this too (even though it’s unnecessary now that the baby thing is delayed): children are an absolute joy and ray of sunshine in your life, but there is so much stress and adjustment and work involved that my understanding is that it’s always, *always *a mistake to have a child thinking it will fix things or make them better. It will make things harder, however worthwhile it may be.

39

I’d be more inclined to agree with you if we weren’t talking about a child here. It is absolutely not in the kid’s best interest to be a forced issue. If he isn’t ready (and he has the right to not be ready, regardless of whether or not he thought he could be - it’s his life too and a very stressful one as it is, if I’m reading correctly) and we’re talking truly not ready, not just anxious and having some doubts like anyone in that situation would be, then it’s in everyone’s best interest to wait, because **olives **and the baby would suffer for it otherwise right along with him.

40

I’ll bet that, once his graduate school routine is more firmly in place, he’ll make the jump. He’s close to “almost ready” to be a father…but he MUST come to the discovery that no one gets any further than “almost ready”. It’s when you’re “almost ready” that you HAVE to jump that narrow (but deep) chasm and just do it. Things will start to come together just after he jumps over that chasm (with you holding his hand).

– Two months from fatherhood…and seven months from finishing grad school