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

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I agree with **supergoose **- you can’t make your spouse “contractually obligated” to make a baby. If one partner isn’t ready, you don’t make a baby, period. It doesn’t make you an asshole to admit that you’re not ready to be a parent, even if you once thought you were. It would be far more unfortunate for everyone involved if one partner caved to pressure when they didn’t really want to become a parent.

I also agree with the various sentiments that having a baby will never make things better. (Unless maybe you’re incredibly bored and feel like you’re getting too much sleep and leisure time.) Having a baby is incredibly fulfilling, but it is like a bomb going off in your life. You need a really good foundation between the partners before weathering it.

42

You guys are a good couple. IMHO, it’s cool that he opened up to you and told you how he felt: in a lot of couples, one or the other would keep their opinions to themselves. You have a good, honest, open marriage.

I was older than you when I had my first. I’m a much better mom for waiting until I was older. You’d be an amazing mom now: but a couple of years will make you even more amazing. Some things are so worth the wait.

I’ll be praying for this particular situation in your life: considering how much you mean to me (you helped me change my life, after all!) I pray for you both anyway.

43

One person’s betrayal is another person’s wake-up call. It is all a matter of how you choose to view it.

It is trivially true that you can’t plan everything, but you can plan some things. If you have the luxury of planning the timing for your first child, it’s probably a good thing.

44

What does “ready” really even mean? All it really means is he just doesn’t want to, which is fine, but he should have said so in the first place. Of course he is not obligated to go through with it anyway, but he shouldn’t just get off scott free for jerking her around like that either. He needs to know he caused a wound that isn’t just going to heal. He sounds kind of self-absorbed to me.

45

Yep, this is basically true. That’s what I meant when I said it changed the way I view him, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. He was about one step away from sainthood in my eyes and this weekend has been terribly enlightening. While I have been gaining in my understanding that I have just as much to contribute to this relationship, this was one thunderbolt out of the blue, ‘‘holy shit, I am truly this man’s equal’’ moment.

It’s true that nobody is contractually obligated to have a child once they agree to it, it’s true that I was getting a little too intense and weird about the whole thing, and it’s true that an issue as significant as parenthood should never be forced, but it’s also true that it’s a shitty thing to commit to something with your spouse and then change your mind at the last minute, especially something this important to the person you’re committing to. Yes, it’s shitty. What he did was shitty. He violated my trust. He knows that and I told him that. And I think people want to be understanding of him because truly, he is a great guy, but he fucked up. If he wasn’t in absolute agony over the pain he caused me, I’d probably be a little more grudgy about it, but he loves me, I know he didn’t do it on purpose, and that’s it.

If you think it’s been all rainbows and kittens around here and I’ve been telling him how it’s really no big deal, you’d be wrong. I have reamed his ass out at least twice in the last two days and he has thanked me for holding back 90% of the things I really wanted to say, in the sense that he felt he deserved all of it. If you want to know how I really felt about this when it first hit the fan, it was this short of infidelity. It was a total sucker-punch ‘‘Who the hell have I been married to all this time?’’ moment. And I communicated that loud and clear.

The kitten thing was a joke, and I misrepresented the situation in the interest of brevity. What he actually said was that he wishes (to mirror a situation we recently saw on TV) that he could make me feel better about this huge betrayal by buying me something, but he knows it’s something that can’t be fixed so easily and it’s going to take some time to do right by me. I was the one who joked, ‘‘This would probably be a good time to ask for a kitten?’’

He’s a fucking awesome guy, but you’re right. I do need to stand up for what I want more, and I need to stop acting like he’s so much better than me, because he’s not. We’re good together because we’re both good, and I need to have more respect for my own needs.

46

olives, I’ve seen how kind and compassionate you are as a person and as a poster. I hope you never forget to include yourself and to your husband among those who get that kindness and that compassion.

47

Have you considered short-term fostering? It’s not the same as having a baby, of course, but if you’ve planned around having the next year off anyway it could go a long way toward filling that time, giving you a focus for your maternal feelings, and making your own wait go that much faster.
Regardless, I’m sorry you’re sad and I hope you feel better soon.

48

You have to be realistic when things like this happen.

Whatever your feelings on this subject are, I think the one thing everyone will agree on is this:

There are many reasons to have a child, but because you were pressured into it isn’t one of them.

Whether or not the OP did this isn’t the issue. The fact is the husband felt pressured. Again whether or not he actually was isn’t relevant. He felt pressured.

You had a bad deal. It won’t the be last one you’ve got. When situations like this happen in life you can whine and moan and bitch about it or you can DO SOMETHING about it.

What can you do?

That is for the OP to decide.

Too many times we see movies and TV where “The husband isn’t ready to have a child, but the wife gets pregnant and he then falls in love with the idea and all is right.”

Well that’s well and good for the plot of a TV show or movie but in real life it’s not apt to work like that.

If you think the husband is a jerk for backing out before the baby is even conceived, think of how much bigger of a jerk he’ll be for leaving the wife after the baby is born.

This is a GOOD thing this happened. Because now the OP knows exactly where she stands. You can’t make an informed choice without all the facts. Before the husband wasn’t giving you the facts.

I would recommend a great book by Dale Carnegie called “How To Stop Worrying and Start Living.” You can probably get it at your library.

Finally remember there are people out there with REAL PROBLEMS. This is the worst economy since the Great Depression. There are people that can’t get their teeth fixed, can’t pay their bills and are getting tossed out of their houses. And that’s just to start.

Do you have any of those? Then you’re pretty lucky.

Now this doesn’t mean your pain don’t count, but it does help you shed some light on it called perspective. The thing to remember is perspective doesn’t SOLVE your problem but it helps you cope with it.

Kind of like a hammer falling on your foot. It hurts. Now if you purposely drop the hammer on your foot it doesn’t hurt any less than if it accidently fell on it. But the two situations aren’t quite the same.

Lastly, you’re probably upset and mad, and there’s one thing in life I’ve learned. You’ll make a lot of decisions in your life. Some will be right, some will be wrong, but you will NEVER be happy with a decision you make out of anger or grief.

This was a good thing this happened. There’s a lot in life to get upset about, but this isn’t one of them.

49

The “thing that happened” is not that he decided he doesn’t want to have a baby, but that he led her on and told her he was on board and let her get her hopes up. That’s not a good thing. It was a dick move. It sounds like Olives recognized this herself, so didn’t really need me to tell her, but the issue is not that he doesn’t want a baby, but that he totally jerked her around. You don’t do that to a woman with baby fever.

50

You don’t think he really did want a baby and changed his mind after the reality sank in? It’s easy to get caught up in the joy of it and then only later realize you went too fast too soon.

51

This almost made me cry. I hope everything is going okay and you’re feeling better.

52

I have not read the ominous “other thread” that people keep referring to re your intensity about having a kid, but having said that, here is my take on what you’ve posted here.

There are some men in this world who will never be ready for fatherhood. It is a wild, chaotic, expensive, energy intensive sea of unknowns, and a man who is as precise and anal as your hubby about planning everything out is probably not going to have much of a real appetite for this prospect no matter where he is in his life. Some men only agree to kids because it is the price if keeping a wife they love. It is unlikely IMO that he will be any more “ready” 1,3,5 or 10 years from now than he is today. That’s simply a reality you have to accept.

Having said this, you need to understand that the overall context of how you approached your husband is “I really, really want this, but if you have any doubts about it go ahead and crush my dreams and desires, I’ll understand”. It’s kind of hard for any man who loves his wife to say “no” to her for anything she really, really wants. You overcame his sales resistance for the moment, but it came roaring back when he started over analyzing the situation and his neuroses kicked in.

He doesn’t “really” want a child. He wants you to be happy. You need to understand this as a concrete fact. The problem with this type of individual is the situation can go one of two ways if you insist on a having a child. He can feel that you “forced” him to do it, and a low level resentment will simmer for the rest of his life, especially when the kids are difficult. Alternatively he will bond with the child and will be eternally grateful you insisted on having a kid. I have no idea which way his personality will turn on this.

The real issue is you are in your absolutely prime child bearing years for a healthy child. You’ve got about a 7 year window until your fertility drops off a cliff. As others have pointed out it is highly unlikely his life will become more serene in that period of time. The late twenties to mid-thirties in most of of academia (or the business world for that matter) are the period of the most intensive effort and stress to build a career. It’s also the time, come hell or high water, professional people start families.

If you really want a baby with him you need to tell him point blank, that that is a concrete reality he needs to wrap his head around. If you keep giving him multiple doors to opt out of that decision he will keep taking them, and postponing it as much as possible. You think you’re being understanding, but you’re just making his decision more difficult for him. There are times a woman needs to stand up and frame the options her SO has if he wants to stay with her. This is one of those times. If you’re content to be childless with him that’s fine, but if you are not you need to set a concrete timeline and tell him the train is leaving the station, and he’s onboard or you’re chugging off into the distance.

53

I would define “ready” as 1) wanting a child (obviously), 2) being prepared to handle the additional work and stress, 3) having a solid relationship that you feel can handle all of that, and 4) knowing that the dynamics of the household/relationship are going to change and being ok with that. Sounds like the second requirement is the problem.

I don’t argue with his culpability, just with your contention that he should suck it up and have a kid anyway, if I’m interpreting your previous post correctly.

54

I never made such a contention. I’m saying he never should have said he wanted a kid if he didn’t. None of the other circumstances changed except that he decided he wanted one, and then he decided he didn’t.

55

So he’s an asshole because his feelings changed? Or is it your contention that real people don’t actually ever have changes of heart, or even make poor decisions with good intentions?

Your ability to see the world in black-and-white when it comes to relationships blows my mind at times.

56

You don’t commit if you aren’t sure. Once you’re committed, you’re committed. You don’t just dick people around with something like this. It’s like standing somebody up at the altar.

57

Hi, olives, long time no see.

Try not to commit yourself to this so steadfastly. This isn’t the time, nor the subject matter, that you want to lock yourself into stubbornness over. Spiny and I weren’t in sync on the baby issue for a couple of years, and every once in a while I’d ask him if he’d give some thought to having a child. Eventually he said yes, and once he was truly “on board”, as it were, he was actually more excited about it than I was!

We weren’t able to conceive, so we went through training to adopt through the foster care system, and we have our final interview tomorrow. It’s happening for us and it will happen for you, too. Just try not to let it consume you and you’ll get through this just fine.

Wishing you all the best.

58

I was about to apologize for reading things you didn’t mean into your posts but then you posted this. When you say “once you’re committed, you’re committed,” that sounds a lot to me like you think he should go through with it because he committed to it. What *do *you mean if not that?

59

The bolded part is what I take issue with. I’m not in any way suggesting that this situation doesn’t suck for olives based on her expectations. I do think, however, that’s it’s possible to have a genuine change of heart about something without being an asshole. I wish – for her sake and his – that he’d been more self-aware sooner. But based on her description of his reaction to even telling her about it, I am not ready to burn him at the stake. I’m glad that he told her how he felt, even if it came too late to spare her a lot of heartache. That kind of honesty, even under incredibly difficult circumstances, leads me to think he would not have lied to her in the first place just to make her happy.

60

Frankly, I think that a year or two from now, the OP will be very GLAD there is no baby in the works. Just saying…