men who don’t want children

Should she stay with her older man?

Sue Fagalde Lick marrying an older man, men who don't want babies, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Today’s topic is young wives and older husbands. Sometimes it goes the other way around but not as often. A new commenter calling herself Anonymous wrote today about her dilemma. Her fiance is 15 years older than she is. He’s perfect in every way except that he doesn’t want to have children. She says she was okay with not having kids before, but now that she has this great man, she’s feeling the baby urge. Now she doesn’t know what to do? Is this relationship worth giving up having children in order to stay together? Sound familiar to anyone?

It’s an impossible question. Nobody has a crystal ball to predict how we will feel in 10, 20 or 30 years. Will he change his mind? Probably not. If he has gotten to 40 or older, he’s going to be pretty sure about his no-kids decision. Either he never wanted children or has already done the dad thing and doesn’t want to start over. Anonymous noted that her fiancé was worried about the financial aspects of parenthood. That makes me cringe. Yes, children are expensive little critters, but that’s not the point, is it? My dog costs me a fortune in vet bills, but I wouldn’t give her up for anything. Not that it’s the same thing.

Marrying a person substantially older includes issues you might not even think about. It’s more than not liking the same music or having different cultural references. His friends are likely to be older, too, and you may feel out of place with them, just as he will with your friends. Your husband and your parents might be closer in age than you are. That’s all just fun little quirks when you’re both relatively young, but as you age, your older partner is likely to experience health problems. He may retire and want to do retired-people things when you’re not even close to old enough. You might find people asking if you’re his daughter. He might even die, as my husband did, leaving you not only childless but alone. Do the math. When you’re 25 and he’s 40, it’s no big deal. But when you’re 55 and he’s 70, it’s different.

So we come down to the main questions: Is he worth it for however many years you have together? Should you leave him for someone who would be your baby daddy? Preferably someone your own age? What if you never find that person?

I never found anyone else I liked as much as Fred. I think I made the right decision, but it’s pretty lonely sometimes.

Nobody knows what’s going to happen. You could live a long wonderful life together, doing all the things people with children don’t have the time or money to do. I know people who have done just that. Or you could spend your life resenting your partner for preventing you from having children. You might also end up alone.

All you can do is look at what you’re feeling now and decide to try it or not.

So, what do you think about all this? Do May-December partnerships work? Should Anonymous stand by her man? I look forward to reading your comments.

 

 

Childless post 550, same question persists

Sue Fagalde Lick babies everywhere, childless , , , , , , , ,

Dear childless friends,

We seem to have discussed everything there is to discuss about being childless by marriage. This is my 550th post! How many times can we go over the “stay or go” dilemma? The mate, usually the man, doesn’t want kids; you do. Should you leave in the hope of finding someone else or stick around and hope that you can live with the decision or, better, change, his mind? The answer is always: Talk to your mate, be honest about how you feel, and decide which you want more, kids or this partner. Unless the relationship is already a mess or you’ve only been dating for a week and a half. Then the answer seems clear to me. Move on!

Funny nobody has written here about having an affair with someone who would be happy to make babies together. Should she leave to be with the potential baby daddy or get pregnant and tell her husband, “Oops, I guess some sperm slipped through all the layers of birth control”? Is nobody doing that, or does that only happen in fiction? You can tell us anonymously in the comments.

I did date someone who tempted me with the babies we could have. I wasn’t married at the time, but technically he was. The kids he had were gorgeous, and he really hated birth control. But no, he was not the right guy. And once I met Fred, I didn’t want any other man. I never considered leaving him to have babies.

It’s all a done deal for me now. My namesake niece, age 29, is going for the mommy job in a different way. She has just been approved to become a foster mother. A child could be arriving any day. She is not married. She works full-time. How she’s going to do this, I don’t know, but she’ll have plenty of help and advice. Her brother and his wife just had a baby last year, and her mom is over the moon with grandmotherhood. Her cousins and friends keep having babies. Being a strong, assertive young woman, she decided to go for it on her own. She is braver than I ever was.

My cousin and his wife just announced their pregnancy on Facebook. I’m glad for them. This will be their second child and it will be great for their daughter to have a little sister. I added my congratulations to the many congrats pouring in. But it’s all very far away, geographically and in terms of life experiences. I can hear the babies crying and the children playing in the distance, but I’m busy with other things. For the most part, I’m happy. Are there times when it hurts? Yes, especially when I see family photos of women my age surrounded by kids and grandkids. All I’ve got is myself and my dog, and she can’t work the camera. But what’s done is done. I curse for a minute and move on.

Speaking of moving on, I’m delighted that Halloween is over. Aren’t you? This morning, I saw my first TV Christmas ad for kids’ toys. Yikes.

So readers, what have we not talked about here? What concerns about your childless life would you like to see discussed? I’m here for you.

Go or Stay? Readers Keep Asking

Sue Fagalde Lick childless, ending marriages over childless issue, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

Should I leave the person I love in the hope I can find someone else who is willing to have children with me? That question comes up over and over in the comments here. Sometimes people ask if they should do it. Sometimes they declare that they are going to do it, that they have to do it, that it’s breaking their hearts, but they have no choice. However, most of them haven’t done it yet. It’s next year, next month, if he doesn’t change his mind, if, if, if . . .

I don’t blame anyone who is hesitating about taking that giant step, especially when they have been in a relationship for many years or when they’re borderline too old to get pregnant. What if you end up alone?

I don’t know how many people are as insecure as I am, but I always found it miraculous to get one guy to love me. How could I know if anyone would ever even ask me out again? And now that I’m older and widowed, it has been ages since I kissed anyone except my dog, and my friends are all busy with their grandchildren. Maybe I screwed up, but now it’s too late.

How do you step out on faith, as my churchy friends used to say, when you’re not sure there’s anything under your feet except a big black hole? I didn’t do it. Most of the men in my life left me one way or the other. There was that handsome druggie whom I dumped because I couldn’t deal with him always being stoned. He was willing to have children. It would have been a disaster. As it was, he stalked me for six months after we broke up. No, you never know what’s out there. It’s not like “The Bachelor” TV show where you have all these men who look like models and who all profess to be eager to get married and have children. The real world isn’t like that.

I suppose a person could do online dating, specifying that they only want partners who are willing to have babies. Back when I was younger and dating, that kind of ambition scared some guys away. I suspect it still does. If you’re Catholic, you could do catholicmatch.com. The church says you have to welcome children. But I know a Catholic couple that didn’t get around to marrying and trying to get pregnant until the woman’s eggs were defunct, so even that’s not a guarantee.

I’m meandering here. It’s that kind of day. But hear me on the following:

1) If you are in the go-or-stay dilemma, I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t know what’s right for you. You have to decide which you want more, to be with this person or to have children. Nobody should have to make such a choice, but that’s the deal.

2) If you’re in your early 20s, just dating, and haven’t been together long, for God’s sake, find someone else. You do not have to stay or to settle for a life that’s less than you want. If you’re older and have been together for ages, see #1.

3) I would really like to hear from someone who has taken the leap, left the relationship and tried again. Did they find someone, did they have kids, did it work out? We need to know.

I welcome your comments.

“Honey, I changed my mind about having kids”

Sue Fagalde Lick childless by marriage , , , ,

In Carolyn Hax’s July 20 advice column, a reader asks what a lot of folks ask here. She and her husband originally agreed not to have children. Now she’s having second thoughts. She has a whole script worked out to discuss this with her guy, hoping maybe he has changed his mind, too, but what if he says he still doesn’t want kids?

Hax asks the reader if she can accept it if her husband sticks to his no-kids decision. She offers comments from other readers who have experienced this situation. And one of them mentions this blog. Whoever you are, thank you. Tell your friends.

So, people do change their minds. They think they’re okay with not having children, but then everyone around them is having babies, they are aware that they’re running out of time, or they realize they agreed to a childless marriage just to keep the relationship going. Maybe they thought stepchildren would fill the space where their own children would be, but they don’t. Am I ringing any bells for people?

Maybe you’re not the one changing your mind. Maybe it’s your partner, who suddenly says he wants kids or that he (or she) has decided he does not want them. He/she cites money, freedom, jobs, age, bla bla bla.

Where once you thought you agreed on this huge decision, you don’t anymore. You had an agreement. You knew what you wanted and were living your life counting on that agreement staying the same. Now what do you do? Do you leave? Do you urge your partner to leave? Do you get counseling to help you accept the unacceptable? This is the heart of the whole childless by marriage concept.

As longtime readers know, this is what happened to me. I stayed. I didn’t have children. I cried where my husband couldn’t see me. I wrote a book about it. He didn’t change his mind. Now I’m a childless widow living with my dog. It’s not as tragic as it sounds. I have a good life, but I still wish I had found a way to become a mother and grandmother and great-grandmother.

I want to share some comments posted at my old Blogger site that you might not otherwise see:

On July 20, Anonymous said…

In my fourth year of marriage, during marriage counseling, my husband told me he never wanted me to have children because of my autoimmune disease. I divorced him because we had agreed on children, we had picked out names. One unsuccessful relationship after another led to me missing my window. I never did get to have a child. But I have a stepson who lost his mother at a young age. We love each other so much. Jumping in as a parent of a teenager is very hard. But to hear him wish me my first happy Mother’s Day was priceless, absolutely priceless. My ex has been married twice after me, and he plans on having children. Sometimes I hate him for what he did to me. But now I have my wonderful stepson whom I never would have met if it wasn’t for my ex. My husband now is pretty awesome, too. I love my boys like crazy. So, happy ending!

Yesterday, Anonymous commented:

I feel like I am the only woman in the world who started out not wanting children, grew to change my mind, and had my husband on several occasions scream at me that I can’t change my mind. He expects me to be around and support all of his friends’ families and every time, I die a little more inside. I am scared for my future, aging, lonely, and just sad I married someone like this.

On July 21, another Anonymous wrote:

I was lucky enough to fall in love in my mid-twenties with a man who, like me, was somewhat leaning against having children. I was pretty sure I didn’t want children, having had, since childhood, a feeling that motherhood probably wasn’t for me. But after we married, I wanted to wait a few years before making a final decision to see if my feelings, or his, would change. They didn’t. What happened next was a series of vivid dreams in which I would inexplicably find myself six or seven months pregnant, too late to change my mind, horrified and terrified, and trying desperately to convince myself that having a baby would be okay while knowing it would not. At least twice I woke up clutching my belly. Husband and self are now in our sixties, happily married and childless. I know that by not having children, we gave up some wonderful things. And I know my sisters will have the support of their children as they age, and I won’t have that special kind of support. But I remain convinced that I made the right decision for me, and my husband feels the same way. My childhood was happy, my mother is warm and wonderful, and I really can’t explain why I knew I didn’t want to become a mother while my sisters wanted to be, and are, great mothers. I do know that especially after those dreams, anyone who might have tried to persuade me to have a baby would not have been successful. To the list of reasons why some people don’t want children, I’d have to add “Unexplainable but extremely strong gut-level knowledge that having children would be a huge mistake.”

Everybody’s different. I thank you all for your comments. Keep them coming. This is one of the few places we can discuss this stuff without judgment, and I appreciate every one of you.

***

I apologize for not posting yesterday, my usual day. I work as a music director at our local Catholic church, and we have a new pastor whose changes kept us occupied and mind-blown all day. Basically, he thinks this is a cathedral, not a little coastal church, and he thinks it’s 1950, not 2015. Think Gregorian chant. In Latin. Last Sunday, he gave a little speech on the importance of family that let me know he’s going to make it hard on us childless folks because we failed to reproduce. I can’t wait for Mother’s Day. (Don’t share this blog with him! I need my job. :-))

Why Wouldn’t He/She Want to Have Children?

Sue Fagalde Lick childless, husbands who don't want children , , , , , , ,

Here at Childless by Marriage, one reader after another reports the same problem: One partner wants kids and the other does not. Period. End of discussion. If infertility is an issue, there are ways to work around it, such as in vitro, surrogates, donors, or adoption, but no. They don’t want to talk about it. I always encourage readers to keep the conversation going, but I had a tight-lipped first husband who wouldn’t discuss it either, so I understand if you keep running into a dead end.

Why are some people so sure they don’t want children? Let’s look at possible reasons:

  1. ·They hate children–Kids are needy, whiny and sticky.
  2.  Money–Raising children is too darned expensive.
  3. Conflicts with existing kids–They already have children from a previous relationship. Between child support, dealing with the ex and taking care of these kids, they can’t imagine bringing more children into their lives.
  4. Fear–of pain, conflicts, cost, life changes, and passing on physical or emotional problems.
  5. Age—They don’t want to be the oldest parent on the soccer field.
  6. Career—Having kids will totally screw it up.
  7. Freedom—They want to do whatever they please whenever they please.
  8. Marriage—Will having children ruin their relationship? Will the wife focus all her attention on the kids? Will they fight over how to raise them? Will they never have sex again?
  9. Inadequacy—They’d be a lousy father or mother.
  10. Responsibility—Don’t want it.
  11. Overpopulation—The world has too many people already.
  12. Messed up world—Why subject a child to wars, terrorism, climate change and a culture gone to hell?

Do any of these sound familiar? Can you add anything to the list? Do you think it’s possible to change their minds? I look forward to reading your comments.