I know the tittle sounds weird but let me explain.

My(36M) wife(28F) and I have been together for 5 years, married for 2, I have 2 kids from a previous marriage, early in our relationship we talked about kids, she said she wasnt sure about having kids and I said the same, then later on we both agreed we didnt want kids, she was the one who brought this idea and I was okay with it.

My wife comes from a big family, she is also the only girl, she has 3 older brothers, no girls just her, all of her brothers have daughters, no boys and I also have daughters, no boys, in her family there is a tradition that the oldest boy names the kid after himself, so her oldest brother is named like her dad who is named after his dad who is named after his dad, etc, so with no boys in the grandkids her dad said she would be the one giving him the joy of having a boy and since she is literally their golden child, even for her brothers they all said it woud be perfect if it was her, she had to break that bubble for them and said we werent having kids, her dad didnt take it so well, he didnt get mad or said anything but he never really let it go, he said that he still dreamed about it and he still kept the hopes we would have a baby boy.

Her dad died of a heart attack almost 8 months ago, this was devastating to my wife, I cant really explain how painful this was to her and her family since they were all extremely close, she is not even the shadow of the person she was before her dad died, she talks to her therapist but I am not sure thats helping.

Now the issue, around 3 weeks ago she told me what did I think about having a kid, I was a bit shocked because she was very sure about not wanting one, and said we could talk about it, she have now been extremely persistent and said we could go to a fertility doctor and work on it so we can have a boy, and make sure that if we get pregnant its a boy so she can name it after her dad like he always wanted, I tried talking to her but she said she left her dad died heartbroken because of her and she can not forgive herself and she knows that this way her dad will always be with her through our child, she said she would do it with or without me, I am lost, I love her more than anything and yes maybe I would want a kid with her but her reasoning doesnt seem right and Idk how to approach this, any help?

8 comments

  2. Oye, first I’m so sorry for your wife/families loss. It sounds like that was a really hard one.

    Secondly it sounds like your wife of making a really important life decision from extreme pain. I absolutely get why she wants to do this. But I would not advise having a baby ONLY because you want a certain gender. She needs to want to have a child because she wants A child. That means any gender.

    You could gamble and get pregnant naturally or you can go through VERY expensive and painful IVF to try to ensure that you only have a boy. But she could still go through the egg retrieval process and only come out with viable female embryos. There is literally no way to make certain you have a boy (which I don’t think you should do anyway)

    She needs to do a lot of research on IVF the costs, the pain, the time that it would take to make certain that she gets a boy embryo. She may have to go through multiple rounds of egg retrieval to make this happen

    I think your wife is in a lot of pain which is so understandable. But I do think this huge life changing decision of having a child needs a lot more consideration on her part.

    And she needs to get realistic about what it would really mean to leave you to raise a potential child on her own.

    Maybe you guys can do therapy together to talk this through through together. This is so much to try to handle on your own.

  3. I think she is grieving and it’s coming out in an odd way. I’d recommend grief therapy to work through that and if she comes out the other side sure of the kid thing, that would be the appropriate time to have that conversation.

  4. Ask her what her therapist says about this idea. I doubt she’s brought it up because she *knows* how unhealthy this is yet is desperately searching for something to diminish the pain she feels. Whatever you do, don’t agree to this. No child deserves the weight of this loaded onto their shoulders before they are even born.

  6. Your wife is likely reacting from a place of grief rather than reason. In cases like this, it’s not recommended to make giant life decisions while you’re judgement is clouded. First, there’s no guarantee you’d have a boy without some sort of medical intervention. Second, if your wife it talking to a therapist, she needs to bring up this “plan” of hers to the therapist, who will hopefully guide your wife to fully flesh out what her thoughts and feelings are on the situation. Finally, if you don’t want kids right now, you need to take charge of your own fertility – no fooling around without protection and keep an eye on it so it can’t be tampered with.

  7. What if you have a kid and it’s a girl? What if you have a boy and he is not interested in doing the things grandpa did? Etc This sounds very unhealthy.

    She can change her mind on wanting children, but needs to be ready to have a child.

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