That’sa damnably impressive feat for a man! Care to share the secret?
I don’t know how common this is, but I know more than a couple of women who hold the view “Ewwww? Pregnancy? Then giving birth? No chance!”
Which I can hardly argue with. I wouldn’t do it! 
Damaging a condom or diaphragm, not pulling out early, or even, taken to an extreme (and much more difficult and less likely), swapping birth control pills for something else or lying about having a vasectomy.
I was speaking in the couplehood sense of the word “pregnant” as in “we’re pregnant” - but as SciFiSam points out, it isn’t impossible for a guy to “accidentally on purpose” knock his wife up.
i.e. in my use of the word, I was speaking of my girlfriend, who didn’t want kids, her husband didn’t want kids, and there was a birth control failure that they decided to view as fate.
Holes in the condom, holes in the diaphragm? (Yes, I know, the guy still isn’t getting pregnant that way.)
One of my husband’s coworkers and the guy’s wife were iffy about wanting kids, until suddenly her biological clock turned on at a screaming volume. (The thought terrifies me, but since I’m in my early 40s I’m probably safe.) After much talking they decided to try for it, and had a boy that the two of them absolutely adore.
Then she wanted another baby. She kept trying to get their friends on her side about how it was Wrong And Bad for their boy to grow up an only child. He actually stopped having sex with her for a while because he was terrified that she was going to have a birth control “failure” and spring a pregnancy on him. Seemingly she’s finally given up, but we were worried for a while.
I hate kids. They eventually grow into that guy who cuts you off in traffic but smaller and louder is all and I have no idea what people see in them.
I told my husband “I’m not having kids, I don’t mind if you have kids - it just won’t be with me.” So “we” don’t have kids. Perhaps HE has kids, but I doubt it. If he does I don’t care as long as I never have to see them.
And I’m with astorian with being a little baffled by the OP. Disagreeing with someone doesn’t make you incompatible - if you cannot dismiss/accept your disagreements you are incompatible.
If you go into a marriage hoping or assuming your partner will change their mind or come around about something important, you are, in fact, an idiot.
That was just what I was going to say.
If you only “kinda” want kids and don’t mind if things don’t work out so that you have some, then it makes sense to take your chances with someone who doesn’t want kids.
But if having kids is important to you, then yes, you are stupid if you marry someone who has made it clear they don’t want kids. You’re wasting everyone’s time.
Whether you want kids or not, there are enough other people out there in the world who do share your views that you don’t need to settle for trying to get a round peg to fit in a square hole.
A friend of mine dated a woman who really really wanted to get married and have kids. He was older (late 30s) and didn’t want kids - or to get married (again). She stuck around hoping he’d change his mind. He let her. This went on for several years.
I never quite figured out who I had less respect for - her for sticking around despite him saying that he absolutely did not want kids. Or him for keeping her around when he knew she really really wanted marriage and kids and was waiting for him to change.
I used to think that anyone who got married to someone who was on the opposite side of a deal-breaker were idiots, but I’m coming around to seeing how it can happen. My husband doesn’t want to leave Calgary; I do. When we first got together, the city hadn’t gone through a massive growth spurt yet, and it never occurred to us to discuss what we would do if the city grew so much that I didn’t want to live here any longer.
Talking about wanting kids or not seems like a very obvious, early in the relationship kind of talk, but I can see people who take their position for granted not considering that the other person might not feel the same way, and neglecting to find out for sure until it’s too late (“Of course we’ll have kids! Everyone has kids. S/He doesn’t want kids? How can that be?”)
The OP describes my situation when I got married; I wanted kids and she didn’t. We had long talks about this before getting married and were clear about what each person wanted. My basic opinion was similar to olivesmarch4th in that I didn’t want to have any kids unless my partner also wanted them. I wanted to marry her more than I wanted ankle-biters. I was perfectly content just growing old with her (which I had to remind/explain to her multiple times). I did NOT go into the marriage expecting her to change her mind. I fully expected to not have kids.
Of course, it was harder on her because not only her partner wanted kids but she felt pressure from culture/society as well. After a couple of years, she eventually decided that a kid would probably net more good than ill in our lives and changed her mind. I did my duty to try and grill her to make sure it wasn’t just a momentary mood change.
Long story short, our son is now 4 1/2 years old and my wife does experience regret from time to time, but she also loves him dearly. It was never going to be easy in our marriage no matter what route we took. With no kids, she would feel guilty for denying me this. With kids, she doesn’t always feel like an adequate parent and misses the freedom from crushing responsibility that kids bring. She seems happy with her decision, and it helped discussing the issues before we said our vows.
Thank you for that post - specifically the quoted above - that was really helpful to read.
Aside from the man I married this has never come up in any relationship I’ve ever been in ever. (And it only came up then because a third party mentioned “I think he might want kids?”)
What is it that makes people assume love/sex/marriage = children? That is bizarre Bibleish stuff or something. (OMG! Spilled seed!)
It’s still the default setting, as far as I know - people assume that you become an adult, you get married, you have kids.
I can relate to this OP, seeing as I am in the same procreation boat. My GF wants kids, and I defintely don’t, not for another 3 years. My job situation, my life situation, my everything, is just too unstable for me to confidently bring a child into this world. When I do have a family, I want to do it proper. Curveballs can come at any time, but there’s a difference between taking a swing at life’s pitches and purposefully stepping up to get hit by the ball.
To make matters more stressful, my GF is a bit older than I am, and she is getting to the age where it’s pop out or shut out. I feel horrible sometimes… It would be infinitely better for her to have kids yesterday, but my dreams and kids are incompatible for the next few years, and I am not willing to sacrifice my future to raise a family. I’ve told her as much. It was a difficult conversation, to say the least.
She has agreed to wait for me to be ready, but she is not happy about it. There is no bitterness or deceit, but she is clearly not completely OK with the situation, a fact which often comes out after a few drinks or five. More alarmingly, this situation has resulted somehow into us using birth control methods of not the highest confidence. Suggestions of more reliable methods are immediately shot down and countered with threats of breaking-up. I know this is a Very Bad Thing. There are more details that make it even more complicated, but long story short, I am beginning to strongly feel she is hoping for an ‘accidentally on purpose’ situation and then shaming me into sticking around. Sigh. Writing these thoughts out has made me realize it’s clearly time for another talk 
Oh, and if anyone is tempted, please spare me any rendition of “dump the bitch.” This is a difficult issue that neither of us are resolving with 100% maturity, but villainization and monochrome thinking will not provide any constructive input.
Lastly, sorry for bringing so many personal details into this thread. Maybe I should have just written my own OP, but it all just came flowing out.
I knew someone in that situation here. An American married to a Thai lady. He wanted children, she didn’t. To make it worse, her autistic brother lived with them, and the brother absolutely hated my friend. The couple eventually got divorced.
Funny thing is, it’s an unwritten, informal rule here that you pretty much have to be married to a Thai and have children to be accepted for Permanent Residency. He had paid a doctor to certify he was sterile so his childlessness would not be an issue. He did get Permanent Resident status. After the divorce, he met a nice lady, and they now have three children.
I think the default setting is you become an adult, you get a job somehow contributing to society. The end. Any love/sex/romance/reproduction is kind of a bonus if/when it happens.
Just goin’ out on a limb here – you’re probably in the minority. You have me curious, though, Ima do some informal polling among my friends.
I can’t fathom NOT talking about stuff like that, especially if you’re serious with someone. WTF do you* talk about, if not what you want for your future?
*You understood, not you specifically
No I’ll accept me specifically. I don’t discuss children with people because it’s not even on my radar. If someone had ever broached the subject with me then yes, I would discuss it. Luckily that never happened. Raising a child is a BIG DEAL THING. I am frequently left in charge of OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN and it is terrifying.
But yeah, for many many many people they have no interest in children and it’s not on their mind so it never comes up and it’s not an issue. Much like many people have no interest in like, Harry Potter, so they never bring it up, along with their potential mates who never bring it up. Does that make sense, kinda?
I don’t think that that’s the reason you should talk about it. And it depends on the purpose of the relationship.
If two people are in a relationship for a good time for a few months, there are a lot of topics that can be skipped over…
But if either person is looking for “someone to spend the rest of their life with” fairly early there should be conversations regarding “what do you want from life, what do you value?” It makes no sense for someone shopping for a life partner to spend a lot of time on someone whose attitude on children is different, their desire to travel around the country in a minivan at some point, that their vegetarianism is really NOT just a temporary thing and there will be no meat in a shared household, etc…