Girlfriend(26f) and I(28M) have been together for about 6 months. I make it a point to talk about kids early on because I know I don’t want them. when we first started talking this was brought up and she’d kinda shrug it off as a “one of us will change our minds” kinda thing. Then when I asked her to be my girlfriend I clarified again about kids and I said it’s not fair to assume someone will change their minds or wait for that. She said that she agrees and she doesn’t think she actually wants kids but wants to feel like she has a family. Around this time my sister had a baby and I became an uncle! I love the little guy and I spend a lot of time with him and talk about him and am constantly sharing pictures of him. For a moment I thought that I might want kids because I was gushing with so much love for him but I acknowledged that I could love him dearly and still not want kids. I never told her about my thoughts on kids being a little Shakey at that point, but she just saw me with my nephew and would kinda want that. She’d even go as far as to say it’s not fair to send her pictures of me and him together because she’d never have that. Kinda like salt in the wound I guess. I told her that she knows where I stand and I’m not going to change my mind or expect her to change hers, that if she wants kids she will need to find someone else and I hold nothing against her for that. But she insisted that she is 50/50 on kids (could have them, could not) and just wants to be with me and see where it all goes. I love her. I know she loves me. I could see myself building something more with her but I know this is one of those things you can’t really compromise. I joke about pregnancy with her sometimes and she told me I need to stop making those jokes cause it’s not fair. And I brought up again that she can leave at any time because if that’s what she wants I can’t give it to her. She said she’s not sure and that right now she knows she doesn’t want them, and she thinks she won’t want them because she doesn’t ever see herself in a financial position to raise a kid the way she thinks they deserve. That she feels a “moral” dilemma with having children with the way the world is going. She’ll also be a surrogate for her best friend when he and his partner decide to have kids so she says she can have that as her “test run” to see if she really wants kids.
I am at a loss. Well, not really I guess. I know what should be done if we don’t agree on this but I also feel she’s not being completely honest as a way to keep me in her life. I would like this to work out and I’d like to be able to give her that time to figure out what she wants… But I also don’t want to try and build something with someone to then be told “actually I do want kids so bye”.
How should I bring up this conversation to her? I don’t want her to give up what she wants at all. But I want her to make a choice and I don’t want to be the dispensable part of her life.
Tl;Dr: girlfriend of 6 months MIGHT want kids, and I KNOW I don’t. how do I seriously talk about this when she doesn’t see herself even thinking about having kids for at least the next 10 years? I don’t want to try and build with someone that might want something different.
8 comments
Get a vasectomy. You will not have any unplanned pregnancies to deal with, and she will know that kids are not an option if she stays with you.
She’s 26… biology is gonna make it hard for her to postpone even considering this question for another 10 years …
I think she has decided by her indecisiveness. If she actually wanted kids, I don’t think she’d be speaking the way she is at 26. I obviously can’t know that, but she sounds familiar
I agree with the vasectomy suggestion. And I’d cut out the pregnancy jokes – if you are the only one laughing it’s not a joke
I would break up, because this seems like a disaster. The fact that you can’t share your happiness with your nephew with her is the thing that would be a deal breaker for me. I get wanting kids but not being in a situation for them and accepting not having then. That’s my life. I always wanted kids – but I became severely ill in my twenties and I unable to be a fit parent to raise a child. So, I accepted it is better to have no children than to bring a child into a horrible situation (my situation isn’t that horrible, but it would be if I added a kid to it). However, I never let that stop me from being happy for my friends and family who have had children they wanted. If she can’t handle other people having kids, that’s a big issue. And it also makes her whole, I’m 50-50 on it seem like she is fooling herself. I wouldn’t want to invest in a relationship which is likely to involve a lot of bitterness. Even fi she never has kids, she isn’t able to be gracious about it, and you should be with somebody who both doesn’t want kids and is gracious about it.
Its been 6 months. Kinda early to be talking about kids. Relationships where couples are on the same page on everything and want the same things have failed later on because time is the true test of everything. Wait until more time has passed before bringing it up again but as of now, you two should just be enjoying each other and learning more about one another.
On the overall issue: I’d say it’s too soon to say. Maybe set a deadline for yourself that seems reasonable and check back in at that point, say when ya’ll have been together or a year. I think at that point it is fair to say you’ve been considering it enough to know if you should move forward with the relationship or not. Right now it’s maybe too fresh, especially with the recent arrival of your nephew.
On a few more specific things:
I agree with her that you should stop making pregnancy jokes. That’s easy to control and a reasonable ask.
I disagree, however, that you should stop sharing pics or stories with your nephew. What, are you just never supposed to have ANY kids in your life unless they are yours?? It’s ridiculous for her to ask you to not celebrate your important familial relationships out loud. If she legit thinks that’s an issue i’d end this relationship now. That’s her showing you she’s too sensitive to rationally separate you *liking* kids from you *wanting* kids, and thats a big fat red flag imo.
More than likely, she’s hoping that you will in fact change your mind. It sounds like she actually wants kids but also wants you, too. In the short-run, it’s often hard to sacrifice what’s in front of you for a nebulous future. But people who don’t want kids don’t say things like, “It’s not fair for you to send me pictures of you with babies because I’ll never have that,” not to mention the surrogacy bit.
Of course, there is a possibility that she realizes she firmly doesn’t want kids after all. But you can’t really date possibilities. You have to date the person in front of you as they are now, and that is a person who is likely telling you what you want to hear.
Two thoughts:
First, I strongly suspect she’s saying that maybe she doesn’t want kids because that’s what she has to want in order to be in a relationship with you. Women face so much conditioning to do what their partner wants that it might be hard for her to be honest if she *probably* wants kids. Her comments about it being unfair of you to share the photos or joke about pregnancy, and her comments about kids and financial stability, make it clear to me that she DOES want kids, she just doesn’t see a road from here to there.
But also, it’s been six months. As wonderful as things are now, there’s no particular reason to think that you two would still be together in a year and a half – you know, around the time it might actually make sense for her to have kids.
You say you want to build something with her and that’s great … but also … there are dozens of reasons why you could be building something together for the next couple of years and not be together in ten years. Her deciding she wants kids is only one of them. REGARDLESS of her stance on kids you’d be building something with her with an understanding that, you know … y’all are in your 20s. You are looking for guarantees where none can really exist.
What doing “build something” mean to you?
I didn’t see this mentioned, but your girlfriend will likely not be allowed to surrogate for her friends. Typically, for any office or clinic to accept you as a candidate to be a surrogate, you must be a certain age and already have at least one child. She doesn’t get a test run at this, and she needs to understand that her ideas aren’t realistic and really they aren’t fair to either one of you.