But you and your life partner already have an agreement - what’s fair here, or does it really matter?
There have been some high-profile cases of this in the news lately, namely the whole Pitt/Aniston/Jolie trainwreck. And that is the rumored ‘fraud’ in the Chesney-Zellweger break up. (I only point out the celebrity versions as examples we all know about. Surely each of us knows a similar nonfamous couple like this.) Couple gets together, decides they don’t want to have/raise kids, then someone either changes their mind or admits they didn’t really mean it in the first place (or admits they hoped their partner was going to change their mind ‘someday’). That’s a heartbreak and a half, but is it really fair to dump your partner to either go have/raise kids w/ someone else or go find someone who wishes to remain childless? Does the desire to reproduce/raise kids trump any previous promises? Do you get a pass on breaking that promise?
Well, I don’t think it has much to do with promises. Maybe I’m a child of the modern era, but IMHO any reason is good enough reason to leave a relationship if it holds more importance than the other good things about the relationship.
If a person lied about something so important in hopes the other person would change his/her mind, and then left when the person didn’t; yeah, that’s a really shitty thing to do. But, if both people are honest and someone truly changes his/her mind and they’re left unable to compromize, then it’s a situation where no one is wrong or right.
You need to decide which is more important – the kids or the marriage. Only the people in the relationship can make that call.
Hey…if everyone felt the same about every issue in their life from birth to death, what a boring place this would be! We all hope we grow in the same direction as our spouse, but there are no guarantees.
I don’t think it’s a promise that can ever really be held as sacred. It’s impossible to always know what you’ll want or feel a few years down the line. But if two people get married agreeing that they don’t want kids, and suddenly one realizes that they do, or vice versa, I don’t think that’s a lie or broken promise, just a new development that can either be worked out, or by deciding whether the new feelings are strong enough that the couple is better off going their separate ways.
Is it fair? I dunno, is it fair to stay in a marriage that will almost inevitably decline by squashing your own needs in favor of your partner’s? I’m not talking about other things like “We agreed I’d never have to work, but now our finances dictate that I do”; those things can probably worked out by two reasonable people. But the decision to have children or not is often based on a fundamental need, instead of desire. Some people feel a need to have children of their own; some have a need not to.
I’m not sure I agree w/ that, but I’m also not sure how one can discern between desiring/needing in this instance. You marry your spouse not needing to have children but as you get older, that need changes? How can a purely emotional need change over time? Desires change, and can change back as well just as quickly.
Seems to me that relationships evolve. If one person decides they want kids and the other remains steadfast that they don’t, they split. So be it.
Now, the situation where a woman gets pregnant and then decides to let the man know she wants to have the child that is troublesome.
One would hope that committed couples have a ‘disaster plan’ in place if they decide not to get pregnant but wind up so anyway. Heck, one would hope a couple would decide on that plan before they ever have sex, but…people wanting to have sex aren’t usually thinking of a worst-case scenario, they’re just thinking about how good it might feel.
But most vows include something about ‘forsaking all others’, which I always took to mean valuing your partner over any other person, be they a lover, parent or child. Shouldn’t staying w/ your spouse regardless be more important than having a child? Isn’t the whole reason for getting married/committed just to be w/ that person, not for the convenience of anything else?
The concept of Christian marriage within my church (United Methodist) is that your commitment to your partner is permanent, and is second only to your commitment to God. I’m sharing this perspective b/c it’s the kind of marriage I have, not because I think it’s the kind everyone has. I think this is common to what a lot of Christian churches teach about marriage, though. With that in mind, leaving your partner because there’s something, anything, you **want ** to do doesn’t really fit into it (unless it’s something like “I want to stop getting beaten”). My church requires premarital counseling to be married in the church, and the question about kids was definitely asked.
It was actually kind of funny. There were about 15 couples in the room, and the facilitator asked you to raise your hand if you want to have kids. I have to think that Facilitator 101 School would teach you that that is not a good way for someone to find out their potential mate has different plans. Fortunately, our group had no incongruous pairs. Let’s hope everyone was telling the truth.
So to address the OP, I guess I don’t think it’s OK to leave if you change your mind about kids. And actually not OK to leave if your spouse changes his/ her mind, although obviously there will be major challenges if that happens.
Putting both responses in one post…
Yes, one would hope. But if they don’t?
I’ve always thought that “forsaking all others” was in reference to infidelity. Perhaps that’s wrong. No, I don’t think staying w/ your spouse is necessarily more important than having children. My understanding is that some people do not feel that having children is a “convenience”, but is a necessity. My wife’s sister originally did not want children, but in her early 30’s felt the overwhelming necessity. Her husband agreed, so there were no issues. But if he hadn’t, what is the proper course of action? What if she felt that the rest of her life would have been meaningless and empty without children?
Now personally, neither I nor my wife want children. But, as I said above, it seems that some people reach a point in their life where they have a driving need (not a “convenience”) for children. Fair? No. But telling such people “Tough, you have to live with your original decision” seems to me to be the worst option; with one person perpetually unhappy, how long can the marriage last?
I have two friends whose marriage split up over this. They agreed they didn’t want kids. She changed her mind (I should point out she was still pretty young when she was married) and left him. Two years later, he met someone else. Now he wants kids, just not with his first wife.
I think my bro-in-law’s marriage split up over other issues, but if I were he, I’d be mildly ticked off that my wife who I’d been with ever since childhood sweetheart days and who was like, “Nuh-uh! No way! Not gonna happen!” over children all that time joyfully popped one out within about a year of being married to Husband #2.
Nah. If you’re a church-goer, they WANT you to multiply. More recruits.
I also don’t think there’s a pat answer. I mean, if your spouse told you you COULDN’T care for an ailing parent, would you abide by that decision? You need to look at each case individually. Sometimes the spouse doesn’t come first. And sometimes the spouse is wrong.
Yes, it’s fair. Wanting kids or not is pretty important, and I don’t think one has a duty to be miserable in order to respect an agreement made X years ago.
Then again, I might not be the best qualified to answer, because I don’t think such promises should be made at the first place. Not only about kids, by the way. You can’t know whether or not you’ll want children ten years down the road, nor whether or not you’ll still love your partner, so in my opinion making promises supposedly engaging you forever is foolish.
By the way, regarding “emergency plans” , they don’t need to have been drafted with your SO/spouse. You can (actually should) have one of your own. I’ve one, which is basically : “So be it” . Not that I’m going to admit to it, especially not if I know my partner would want kids.
I don’t think I understand this last part, you’re not saying you’d be deliberately dishonest about reproduction w/ the other person who might be responsible for it are you? 