I am a Godly Woman and I've been married for 6 years to an amazing man! We have been together for 13 years and of course things change throughout the years. When I first met him and was in high school I was fascinated by pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. I thought I wanted to be a mother, but as I continued my research on the topic it turned me off. I heard more complaints from mother's, how their lives have changed, and it is a huge responsibility to be a mother.
Going into the marriage my feelings changed about having a baby so I told my husband and family that we would wait 2 years to start trying. Well that turned into 4 years and my time was up! So I felt obligated to start trying to convince, which lead to 2 traumatic miscarriages. After the second miscarriage I never truly recovered and became extremely sick so I took time for myself to heal. I focused on what I want and what God wants for me and now currently… I work at a non-profit children's ministry and I feel that I have a calling from God to go on international mission trips and that having kids is not in the picture for me. I can serve so many more people if I don't have kids and I will have the time and financial means to do so.
But my husband wants kids and we are not on the same page. After seeing me struggle with the miscarriages and health issues that almost took my life he is trying to be understanding, but I know he truly wants kids. He gets very defensive when I bring up the subject and he shuts down the conversation.
There are so many reasons that I don't want kids… but I am would try to be obedient if God’s will for me is to be a mother. The fact is I've had 2 miscarriages and 2 years of unprotected sex and it's not happening.
How do I cope with knowing I am crushing my husbands dreams? How do I be still in this unknowing of what my future holds? If I say NO to kids will my husband & I regret it in the future?
I hope you don't mind me leaving my thoughts for you (this is my first post on this site). I'm sort of in a similar boat to you in the sense of there being pressure from a specific person in my life to have a child before "it's too late", but in my case that has always comes from the parental side, and their desire for grandkids (they weren't too bothered early on, but as time went on and they got older, they started dropping less and less subtle hints). I love my parents deeply, so the guilt associated with disappointing them in this way is huge. However, I've actually had to deal with similar guilt-pressure previously as I pursued a completely different career path to anything they thought I'd do. And although it paid poorly at first and the hours were ridiculous, I've now been at the company I started at for 12+ years and have an incredibly rewarding work environment and a similar minded group of people in my colleagues with whom I can develop friendships outside of work if I wish. It's my pursuit of that and how it has turned out that really helped me see that other people don't always know what's best for us. I also grew as a person through my work and again this has helped me feel I can read myself much better and decide what I need or want. Your situation is a little different than mine as I'm very fortunate to be married to someone I met at work who is involved in the same industry as me, and has the same passions, and has never been keen on spending his free time on child raising. In our case, we met after I had finished university and been working at my current workplace for about a year. You sound like you met your husband when you were both quite young and as you mentioned, your thoughts about having a child hadn't fully coalesced yet, which is understandable. I'm now 35 and I've kind of kept prodding that bit of my brain that would directly deal with actually having a child, and the response I keep getting is "Nah, I don't want to accomodate that". I've kept an open mind incase things change, but right now I can honestly say that the largest factor in choosing to go for it would be what it would mean to my Dad, and that's not a good reason to have a child in my book. I actually did get super broody over dogs a year ago though, and now have two (started as one, but then he needed a friend, you know how it is). I suppose it's helpful that I can take that feeling of absolute obsession and compare it to what I feel when I think about children, and realise that no, I just don't have a need for that. I think that it sounds potentially like you might have to consider that neither of you will be happy in your relationship with this schism between you. I'd definitely be considering couples therapy in your situation as it doesn't sound your husband is open to discussing things with you without it emotionally triggering him. But if I were you, I'd be thinking about his mental welfare as well as my own and asking is there anything you could work into your lives that would give him what he feels he's missing from the lack of children, and if there isn't, are you better off apart? It may feel painful to consider this, but it's a realistic possibility if he's that set on it and you can't find a compromise.
As a last thought: Your non-profit work and mission trips sound amazing and I wanted to say I really admire that. It's a personal aim of my own to hopefully do some therapy dog work with one of my dogs at some point (visiting old people homes and the like). Also, my condolences for the pain you've gone through with your miscarriages. Again, I think therapy to help you work through feelings surrounding that might be a good idea, I'm not certain from what you said about it that your husband is necessarily being completely supportive of how much of a trial that will have been for you. I think if I were in your place I'd feel pretty overwhelmed.
Could your husband get involved in your work with children? He could look at it as either (1) being "practice" for a future where maybe you do have kids, or (2) as a possible alternate way to find meaning and purpose in life without having to have kids of his/your own.
It's clear from what you've said that your husband needs to open up to at least conversation with you. Maybe with help from a therapist, he could get to a place where he can talk? Whatever feelings he has, he needs to share with you. It might change nothing about your situation, or it might change everything. Either way, it could help you stay connected to each other and feel supported by each other.
I say all this from the perspective of the other side. I'm a person who wants to stay with a partner who doesn't want kids. Sometimes, I think I want kids. Sometimes, I feel resentful and like he's the one crushing my hopes and dreams. But he isn't (and you aren't, with your husband, either). I'm making a conscious, deliberate choice to stay with him, knowing what it means. And understanding that he has good reasons for not wanting kids (just like you have good reasons), I'm not trying to change his mind. I'm just trying to deal with the fall-out of my own feelings, and that includes my wondering whether I'm making the right choices.
So far, I've stayed still in the unknowing. I've done that by distracting myself (with work, silly TV, time with friends and family, whatever it took to stay happy). It works, and if you need to do that, do it for as long as you have to, without judging yourself for it. And then come to your decision when you are rested and ready for it. That's the point I'm trying to reach, anyway.
I hope you find a way forward that includes happiness for both of you. I hope that if that happiness includes each other, then you stay together and you both feel confident in your choice to do so. Most of all I hope you continue to find purpose and meaning in your life, because if you do, it will likely prevent those possible future regrets you fear. Good luck, and much love to you <3.
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