As the title says, my (25f) boyfriend (27m) says his life purpose is to be a father. I feel strange about that answer and quite frankly feel closed off from him. We have been in a relationship for 3.5 years and this is the first time I feel unattracted to him. I see myself a fence sitter on parenthood, leaning further towards childfree as I’ve grown older. I asked him further about this topic and he says that biologically that’s everyone’s sole purpose, to be a parent. I get it, how we have evolved and grown is mainly through breeding but, this gave me the ick. It made me feel like I’m just some means to an end, a necessity to continue the family line. It made me feel like I’m some type of livestock for sale at an auction.
I also found it strange that THAT was his ONLY purpose. Maybe I’m optimistic but, shouldn’t there be something else in life? Like, why are we discounting other goals or aspirations like owning a business, traveling, or retirement at an early age? I want to talk about this further and dig a bit deeper into this topic with him. Any advice on how to handle this or even cope with this information? It’s been a week since this topic came up.
TL;DR My boyfriend says his sole purpose in life to to be a parent. I think this is crazy and frankly, it gave me the ick. How to I handle this?
35 comments
Honestly, feels like he’s giving you an out. It’s been 3 and half years, if you’re not aligned on the future best for both of you to move on.
That’s his prerogative. Some people only want to be parents. I agree with you that it’s crazy, and I would never be with someone like that.
Dig deeper but at least it sounds like you have an answer on what your future looks like.
Some people just really want to be parents. I couldn’t fathom owning my own business but that’s also some peoples goal in life, to each their own. I doubt you’re a means to an ends, he could have easily fathered kids with someone else by now if that’s literally all he wanted and it didn’t matter with who.
Break up with him if you’re fence sitting/leaning towards no kids after 3 years.
Honestly I desperately wanted motherhood but I wanted other things too and I find women (or more rarely men) who insist that’s the ONLY identity they want to be problematic people in general.
I’m a woman and have felt this way most of my life. It’s not the *only* thing I want but it is paramount. I’m happy to have a good job and to have married a great partner and to live a good, relatively simple/easy life but none of those things (besides financial independence) were ever goals for me (if I hadn’t found a partner to parent with before I became too old I planned on using a sperm donor). I don’t care about travel, definitely don’t want my own business, and would like to share the assets I earn with my children.
Like someone else said this seems to be more common in women than men but it’s not unusual for a man to feel this way. My husband is also extremely motivated to have a child but if we couldn’t it wouldn’t devastate him as much as it would me. This was something we talked about in the first year of dating because it’s so extremely important to be in the same page.
Anyway now that your question is addressed, you need to tell him that you don’t want kids and end this relationship. You’re not compatible.
ETA: I noticed your previous posts… Are you expecting different answers? Break up already.
You should break up then. This post kind of infuriates me to be honest. It gives you the ick?
What answer did you want? He wants to build a family and a legacy, it’s a great goal and we need more parents. Look at the plummeting birth rates
Being a father comes with being a provider, a mentor, a confidant, a friend.
Let him find a nice woman to have a family with and you… go do your thing
Edit: you made the same post a year ago, you guys need to stop wasting each others time
As a parent there’s really nothing I do that is greater or more meaningful than being a father to my kids. He’s made an excellent choice in whats important in life. If you can’t get with this then end it so he can find someone to build a family with.
Frankly if this is how you feel, you guys should probably break up. Kids isn’t something you can or really should compromise on, if you’re ambivalent about them and that’s all he wants from life you’re just wasting each others time at this point.
Ive heard some weirder shit than that
Relatable 27m here
I have a good life, travel alot, good finances, no debt, etc but my personal lifestyle doesnt need this type of high paying job to be obtainable.
Im only working hard at building my career beyond what it currently is because i want to amass wealth to make sure my kids are in a equally good position in the future
There wouldnt be a need to go beyond where im currently at if i didnt have anybody to pass it along to in the long run
Some people find parenthood to be their main purpose and that’s fine, it’s an important role, but it’s weird that he thinks _everyone’s_ main purpose is to be a parent. Does that mean he wants to take a big personal role in childcare tasks, or does that just mean he wants to spawn kids and hasn’t thought about the work involved in raising them?
At the end of the day this is just a clash in values. He definitely wants kids, you might not. This is the same as a clash on politics and religion and represents an incompatibility that may be too much to deal with.
And like most values clashes, particularly when you didn’t see the clash coming, yes it can leave you feeling a bit disappointed or ‘icked’ or whatever. You’ve dated over three years and apparently never saw this coming, part of why you feel it so viscerally is shock.
But this is a good point to get real. You are reaching a point where those sorts of choices need to be made and it seems like maybe you and him aren’t aligning long term in the way it seemed you might early on. That is okay, but just trying to ignore it will leave an elephant in the room that never truly goes away.
Is it odd to you because he’s a man? Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from women that their purpose in life is to be moms. And as for purpose, I’d say it’s a pretty big under taking because you are creating humans to either add to society or f it up. It’s hard work and it’s life long. It doesn’t stop at 18 years. It’s literally for the rest of your life.
So what do you really have a problem with?
My sole purpose is to be a mother I don’t think there is anything wrong with knowing what you consider most important to you
So you don’t end up with regret before the end of your life
People aren’t two dimensional you can still want to be a father or mother as something important to you on top of a career (Kids need to eat)
Maybe you guys are not compatible
Your making a fuss over nothing in my view
If you don’t want kids you need to tell him and not lead him on about an important subject
I feel you. I’m childfree myself, and while I’m happy for people who become parents that want to be, it’s not something I want in my future. He probably doesn’t see you as livestock or something, but he wants a partner who’d like to have kids with him.
However, if you’re not interested in being a parent, then you’ll probably need to break up. You can try asking him why he feels this way or what else he wants, but if he wants to be a dad, then parenthood is likely a bigger priority to him than retiring early or traveling or other things.
Having kids is one of the biggest things you can do in life, and you don’t want to have kids just to please someone else. A couple of my friends know that they weren’t wanted by one of their parents, and they feel it.
It’s ok if he wants to be a dad, just as it’s ok that you may not want to be a mom, but if that’s the case, then you both need partners who will want the same thing out of life.
My main purpose in life is to be a loving father, husband and friend.
People tend to forget that the main thing people want is the thing they were missing during childhood.
Is it the only thing I want? No.
But I find if I strive to be those things everything in my life has gone up as well because the person I need to be to accomplish those things is a great man.
I think it’s strange that when he’s honest with you…you don’t believe him or think his feelings and dreams are somehow not enough. It’s like you want him to have different dreams and be…a different person.
My fiancé’s whole life goal was always to be an awesome dad. That’s the one thing he really hopes he gets to do in this life. That’s just who he is.
If that gives you the ick then leave, don’t try to convince yourself or him that he has some kind of problem.
>he says that biologically that’s everyone’s sole purpose
I’d get the ick too. Because that’s a completely insufficient answer. I’m childfree, but I can certainly accept someone expressing that they just really want to be a parent because they think they would enjoy it, they think they’d be good at it, that’s what they want for their life, whatever. I mean I couldn’t continue dating that person, but I can except that. But him just referring to biological imperative, seems disingenuous. It indicates to me that if that’s the best thing he could verbalize, his real unstated reasons sound even worse like “my family expects me to”, “I’m only comfortable blindly following lifescripts”, or “my image of myself as a man depends on it”.
Hell, even “I just really want to ok” is better than what he said.
You’ve been posting about the kids vs. no kids issue for more than a week though. I think you know the inevitable outcome here. It sounds like you instinctively see parenting/pregnancy as a gross, burdensome task. He instinctively sees it as the most important thing in life. If you stay together one of you will be miserable.
The fact that he references evolution and says it’s “everyone’s” sole purpose is stupid, yes. It moves beyond “my purpose is to have kids” to, implicitly, “*your* purpose is to have kids” and I find that repulsive. However, if he saw you as livestock he would probably have broken up with you last year when you disagreed about this. It’s just easy for people who want kids to believe this kind of thing without questioning it. And from your previous posts it sounds like he has more than one unexamined belief about parenting– a lot of casual assumptions about how good, natural and motivating it is, so this is philosophically consistent. He feels so strongly positive about parenthood that he just considers this a universal truth. You are pretty repulsed and horrified by it.
I would feel the same as you, for the record. I wouldn’t be with a guy who wanted kids.
You handle it by breaking up. If you feel the ick about him being so excited about fatherhood, then let him go find someone who wants that with him.
It’s perfectly ok for someone to have a simple family life and not have aspirations beyond a steady job to support their family and it’s perfectly fine for you to be only attracted to someone who does have aspirations, career goals beyond raising children.
This just means that your life goals aren’t aligned, but I do know that it’s very hard to maintain a relationship when both parties are equally driven to accomplish their career goals. Maybe he can support you by being a SAHD if you do decide to have kids.
This is exactly why this conversation needs to be had very early into a relationship so that nobody’s time is wasted!
Well, how did you respond to him saying that? Just nod and keep how you feel bottled up?
If you’ve been with him for that long you should be able to question him more about it and could lead to your real answer. Maybe he doesn’t feel like he has any purpose currently (no career, talents, skills) so he’s focused on that. I’m sure there’s a deeper answer for this.
I get it. I grew up in a big family with a lot of cousins my age who were like brothers and sisters to me. My aunts and uncles were all like parents to me and I loved the family vibe. I knew that I wanted to be an awesome dad like mine and my uncles and I decided to find a decent paying career to support that dream.
You’re not compatible
It’s incomprehensible to me too, but also fairly common – for a lot of people that just genuinely *is* their big life goal, the one thing they want to accomplish, and they don’t understand how anyone doesn’t feel like that’s the one thing we’re all here to do.
My values are fundamentally at odds with that viewpoint so I didn’t make my life with a partner who felt that way. I recommend you don’t make your life with such a person either, or you’ll just make each other miserable.
Very few of us will ever change the world or be remembered. Most of us will not be billionaires or superstars.
Our purpose in life is therefore to have fun and (for some) share that opportunity with those that we bring to the world
I think his statement is fine assuming he intends to work and roofed for these kids
But it’s also a doomed relationship if you don’t want to be a parent
I’ve had career successes and lived a good life but never really was happy or felt like myself until I met my wife and had kids. It’s not weird that some people feel fulfilled by having a family…it’s one of the primal drives of any species.
You two are not compatible. That’s okay, cut your losses and move on and both find people better suited to you.
If your views arent going to change, why should his?
He surely has other purpose too. He doesn’t know it it. You should also explore what he means by ‘to be a father’. That might involve a lot. For example, travelling the world to give your child a wide exposure and so on which may align with your purpose as well.
I am a parent, but saying your sole purpose is reproducing is weird af and also concerning for their future kids.
We’re whole people, kids need to see that to grow up healthy, and the main aim of parenting is to raise independent individuals. At some point your whole life isn’t consumed by your kids….and what have you got left? And that’s a shit tonne of pressure for kids, feeling like the sole reason someone exists. All around not a great ideology.
Yeah I can’t relate to him whatsoever. Leave him girl. My man doesn’t want kids at all. It was probably one of the first questions and he asked ME! He was immediately relieved when I told him at like 8 I knew I didn’t want kids ever.
So don’t worry girl, they are out there. And you will find him. ❤️ good luck
From the time I was about 20 my main goal in life was to be a mother. Ideally, I wanted to have a partner to parent with, but I was certain that I’d go the solo mum route if I didn’t have the right person by like 30. I just knew it in my bones. I was clear with my now-husband from very early on in our dating that I was 100% set on having kids and wanted to be a stay at home mum. I have no career goals and will likely never re-enter the work force. The idea of working or owning my own business sort of fills me with dread 😅
All that being said, for many people being a parent is not their SOLE PURPOSE as your boyfriend describes. My husband has all the ambition in our relationship and it’s a wonderful balance. It sounds more like your boyfriend is struggling to understand how anyone could not want exactly what he wants, which is immature but not malicious.
It sounds like you guys have VERY different visions of the future that are incompatible. No one is wrong here, but the relationship really can’t continue, can it?
I’m a childfree woman, and my advice to you is to break up. This is such a colossal incompatibility. I’ve been pretty firmly child-free since I realized it was an option to not have kids as a teen, so I’ve never even been a fencesitter. I know I’d be deeply unhappy as a parent, and now that people around me are having kids, it only reaffirms my decision when I see what parenting entails. IMO, if it’s not a 100% yes when it comes to wanting kids, it should be a no. I’m sure there are some exceptions where people are maybe just a bit unsure, but if you’re like me and you’ve never felt the desire to have a child and be a parent, it’s probably a no.
When my husband and I first started dating, I made it 1000% clear I didn’t want kids, would never change my mind, and if i were to get pregnant, I’d terminate the pregnancy. I told him if he was uncomfortable with any of that, we shouldn’t continue dating because it wasn’t going to work. Thankfully, we were on the same page and will be celebrating 5 years of marriage in May!
Kids are not something you can just half-ass, and with your partner’s intense desire to have kids, it’s just an incompatibility. Your values do not align. If you want to focus on things like traveling, your career, hobbies, etc, and all he wants is to settle down and parent, your partnership will end up being an unhappy one, because one of you is going to be missing out on the things they value.
As sad as it is to end a relationship, you both deserve to find partners who are on the same page and that you can both craft a life you’d enjoy with. Breaking up now let’s you both have that chance.
His desires are valid. So are yours. You aren’t compatible.
It’s really unkind to say you get the ick from someone having a valid personal desire by the way.