Q:
Hi,
My partner and I were planning to have a child together, but I started to feel increasing fear and dread about it as we started to take actual steps. Now I am not sure if I actually want a child. My partner is extremely hurt and said they don’t know if they can forgive me. I feel like a piece of shit, but I wanted to be honest with them and not push through those feelings when it was starting to feel like it was the wrong decision for me.
How do I move forward? Is there a way to move forward together? How do I deal with the fact that changing my mind deeply hurt my partner and altered the future they thought they were going to have? How do I repair the damage I have done?
A:
This is one of those incredibly difficult situations where you and your partner are both entitled to your feelings even though those feelings are at direct odds with each other.
Deciding whether you want to have a child is such a huge, life-altering decision, and for many of us, it’s not straightforward. Some people have always known they’ve wanted a child. Some people have always known they did not. I’ve also known people who thought they always knew which one they wanted and still changed their minds. I’m someone who changes my mind about this all the time, but early in my relationship with my now-wife, I landed on “I want to leave the door open to it.” It was not a definitive yes, but it was also not a definitive no. This felt best for me at the time (and fortunately did for my partner as well).
All of that is to say: It is normal and even honorable to change your mind about having kids. Because it is such a major decision! I don’t even need to know your reasons for why you have become uncertain to tell you they are valid. It would be way worse to go further with the process or even get all the way to having a kid and then realize you didn’t want this life. You are doing an incredibly difficult but ultimately mature and responsible thing by expressing your doubts now.
Now, I don’t need your reasons for your uncertainty, but I do feel like you should discuss them with your partner. This should happen in a neutral setting where the point is not to debate but only for you to talk and them to listen. You should then in turn listen to them discuss their reasons for wanting a child and why they feel hurt now. None of this should be about convincing the other person to change their mind.
This will be hard. It may even be the hardest thing you’ve ever been through together. But you both will have to decide how you want to proceed, and that could mean your life plans are no longer compatible with one another. Your partner is allowed to feel disappointed and frustrated, but at the end of the day, you have not harmed them. You have merely realized you don’t want the thing you thought you wanted. That is not deception. You are correct: You are doing the right thing by being honest about this being the wrong decision for you. In time, I’d hope your partner would come to understand this outcome is better than you pushing through your feelings and pursuing a choice you don’t actually want.
I know they probably said it in the moment and all these feelings are very raw and fresh, but your partner saying they aren’t sure if they can ever forgive you isn’t quite fair since again you have not done anything to intentionally hurt them. But then, I do understand that unintentional hurt can often happen in a relationship. Forgiveness for your change of heart will indeed be necessary for the relationship to continue in a healthy way. I just do not think it has to be entirely on you to repair the damage here. I think in addition to you listening to them and being open to and understanding of their feelings right now, they too have to meet you in the middle and understand how hard this decision is and where it comes from. None of this will be easy. All of it will take time. You will have to be open to multiple possible outcomes, including a seismic change or ending to the relationship. Mutual empathy will be key here. It is possible to acknowledge that your partner’s future has been completely altered while also not punishing yourself for the role you’ve played in that.
It is a hard decision you have made, one that has hurt the person you love. But a lot more people would have been hurt by the decision to go through with it against your own wishes. Your partner is allowed to grieve. They’re allowed to take time and space if they need it. Things will likely feel uncomfortable and tense, but relationships go through periods like that all the time. Don’t be too hard on yourself. “Repair” might be the wrong thing to focus on, because I don’t think this can be repaired per se, but I also don’t say that in a doomsday way. This in many ways was a decision that transformed things, so a focus on transformation in the aftermath is what will be needed. You’ll have to reimagine the relationship and your shared future together.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
Dear letter writer,
I find it incredibly courageous of you to speak your mind even though this might endanger your relationship. And it is so much better to do it now than when you have a child together and then you fully realize that you can’t do this, or don’t want to do this. It is crucial that people don’t ignore their red flags when it comes to kids, and pay attention to their early warning signs. I am a fan of honesty in advance. And sometimes, unfortunately, that can mean the end of a special relationship.
Your partner has the right to be hurt, and you have the right to change your mind. Both can be true at the same time.
Best of luck to you and your partner! I hope you can communicate with compassion and empathy for each other’s viewpoints, really see each other, and do this as a team, not from opposing sides. Whether you can work it out together or you decide you need to go your separate ways, the way you interact with one another in this challenging time can make a huge difference.
PS: There is a wonderful workbook that I can highly recommend for the process of finding out whether you want to become a parent or not (and also for the people who know for sure they want to become a parent, it is an amazing exploration): “Motherhood – Is It For Me?” by Denise L. Carlini and Ann Davidman.
https://www.motherhood-is-it-for-me-the-book.com/
It is a book by two female therapists who have been working on this topic for decades, one of whom is a lesbian. They also address homophobia, though it is very binary with mothers and fathers. I know that non-binary people use it as well, but just for everyone’s information.
The thing about having kids is that it MUST be an enthusiastic YES from all participating parties. You are entitled to your feelings, your partner is entitled to their feelings. But one yes/one no is not enough.
Good luck.
“This should happen in a neutral setting where the point is not to debate but only for you to talk and them to listen. You should then in turn listen to them discuss their reasons for wanting a child and why they feel hurt now. None of this should be about convincing the other person to change their mind.“
Yes, yes, yes!! Trying to convince the other person to change their mind and to have a child, or to not have a child can be super-damaging. Even if you decide to split up because you want different things in life, it can either be a respectful and loving goodbye, or one filled with anger and resentment because one person pushed the other to ignore their concerns and continuously disrespected boundaries. That taints the memory of a relationship for a long time and really takes a toll on the person who constantly had to defend their boundaries way beyond the relationship.
Your partner gets to be angry, and upset, and sad. Fair enough! But you get to change your mind. Like with having sex, a person can change their mind at any given moment and stop. And having a child is such a huge decision. Your partner would not benefit if you went into building a family and not really wanting it. I think it isn’t fair that your partner conveys to you that they will never forgive you. Yes, they can be disappointed. But you are not the bad guy in this scenario. None of you is a bad guy. I don’t see it in a way that you damaged things by changing your mind. You apparently want different things. That’s tough, and it happens to so many couples. In golf, they say: the most important shot is the next one. This applies here as well: the most important thing is how you both deal wit it now, and how you communicate.
I believe that when a partner wants a child themselves, they would/should want you to have a child enthusiastically. And I understand the disappointment on their side because they believed for a while you were on the same page and that you both wanted a child very much. But now that the situation has changed, they should not want you to jump over your fears, something like: “If it is not good for one of us, it is not good for both of us.” It doesn’t mean that they have to change their mind! Just that you both have to figure out what you want for yourselves, and maybe that fits together, and maybe it doesn’t. But your partner should not want you to having a child if you are not on board enthusiastically.
Hey LW,
My partner changed their mind about us having a child a few days after we brought our baby home. We’d thought about adopting for eight years, and we were in the grueling adoption system for four, including a year of therapy.
After all that, we finally welcomed a beautiful six-month-old baby boy. But as days went by, my partner, for lack of a better word, broke. They just broke down and one night they pleaded not to go through with the adoption (at the time we only had like a permission slip from the judge to bring the baby home). My partner cried and then apologized for asking me such thing, and said wholeheartedly that they’d go through with the adoption for me.
I didn’t want them to “stick around” just “for me”. I wanted my partner to want to be a parent—we both thought they wanted it—because we needed to be at 100% for what was coming. We had a full lifetime ahead and the deal was that there would be two of us to handle it. My partner was amazing at meeting the baby’s needs, and yet their mental health took a nose dive. It was unbelievable. I realized that if we went through with the adoption, we’d probably have to break up. A child requires all of your attention and a united front, and I could see us growing apart, me resenting them for “not doing their best” (despite me rationally knowing their mental health struggles), and them trying to be around, more out of guilt and love for me than a true desire to be a parent.
Since the beginning of our relationship, I was clear that I didn’t want to get pregnant. And not once did my partner ever said a thing to try to change my mind, let alone tell me to go to therapy. I felt it was now my turn to show them the same respect. To this day I have no words for the pain, shame and heartbreak that engulfed me, and still does sometimes, as I chose to give up on parenthood, especially after having my son in my arms. But I chose that (thankfully, the baby had spent his short life with a loving foster family who then filed papers to adopt him). I wasn’t going to force parenthood onto my partner. *Maybe* things could’ve improved over time, but that’d have been a gamble on a child’s life and my partner’s mental health, so we had no time to find out.
LW, I tell you what I told my partner after this heartbreaking ordeal: you are allowed to change your mind about something as life-shattering as having a child. Unfortunately for us, my partner’s realization came as we had a baby in our arms, but also, it fortunately happened when we could still take a step back. I’m grateful they were honest. I’m grateful they have also recognized that this hurt me deeply and that they make space for my grief, while knowing that my grief doesn’t make them a villain; neither of us tried to force the other to do anything: we were honest and with that honesty we made a choice. My relationship with my partner was worth choosing, and I’m OK with us being a happy family of two instead of an unhappy family-ish of three. You’re being honest and you’re setting your partner and yourself free to pursue the life you want, whether together or going your separate ways. That’s one of the best things you can give to someone you love.
Thank you so, so much for sharing your process with us. I have a hard time finding words to express how much your comment moved me.
@ SG: Thank you so much for sharing your and your partner’s journey. This must have been incredibly hard, and I feel for you. I was very touched when reading this – how you both showed up for each other, your grief, how your partner held space for your grief, and your ninja-level of communication.
Sometimes people don’t know that they don’t want a child until they have a child, and cannot anticipate what it can bring up for them mentally. Which is precisely why it is so central for those who do have an idea that parenthood is not the path to take to not ignore it, and to be honest to themselves and their partner(s).
Parenthood is wonderful and life changing and incredibly hard. It is something you should only do if your yes is 100%
So please don’t doubt that you have done the hard, honest, ultimately better thing.
The key is to try and continue being open without agenda (hard as that is!) That means that just as your partner should not try and persuade you to have a child, you cannot try and persuade them there is a route forward together or that their future will ultimately look different. I know that’s a heartbreaker but it’s ultimately a big choice only they can make.
I think as well you do need to acknowledge that this happened “as we started to take actual steps”. That’s not your fault! Realisations happen at awkward times and you can’t control it!
I mention it as your partner (particularly if this was a biological plan and they were the planned carrier but not just then) was in the midst of a process which is already scary and potentially hormonally, physically, emotionally challenging. It helps to be sensitive to that.
And – this is a decision for them that is not without a timewindow. I don’t know how relevant that feels for you both but that can also be an intensely vulnerable place to be. Talking about your reasons clearly can make them less like they were led on.
I hope you both get what you want from life :)
LW, don’t assume that your relationship will survive this news. It is of course the right thing to speak up if you don’t want to become a parent! And the advice and comments are of course commending you for being honest about this! But for many many people who do want children, this is a dealbreaker in choosing a partner. It may be a good outcome if you two can let each other go to pursue the lives you each want for yourselves.
From the way you wrote this, I don’t assume this is your dynamic but sometimes people string along a partner who wants kids while never really intending to be “ready”. Changing your mind is human, there are no villains there. But stringing someone along, even running out their biological clock to get access to a relationship they would never otherwise spend time in…well, that is enormously selfish and I could imagine someone being unable to forgive if they feel that is what has happened. Again, I’m not assuming that’s what happened here, but I did wonder what was left out of this letter and it’s a dynamic I have seen play out, so I think it’s worth mentioning.
“But stringing someone along, even running out their biological clock to get access to a relationship they would never otherwise spend time in…well, that is enormously selfish.”
I have two thoughts on that. For one: if one person knows they don’t want a child but don’t communicate this to their partner because they want to keep that relationship, and time/biology is a factor, then this is selfish and hard/impossible to forgive.
For the other, when the partner who wants a child knows that their person doesn’t want to become a parent and hopes that they will change their mind, then I see the responsibility also on the partner who wants a child – either to break up and pursue their wish for a child with someone else or alone, or by saying: this relationship is so important to me that I decide to not have a child. There are people who want a child and string their not-wanting-a-child-partner along in hoping/pushing that they will change their mind eventually. So if their partner has expressed honestly that they don’t want a child, then I see the responsibility with the person who wants to become a parent to make up their mind, and not selfishness on their partner’s side.
Absolutely agreed!
And LW, I truly don’t want to suggest either of those dynamics is at play for you! We just can’t tell from such a short letter. But I think that’s the problem: the heart of the heartbreak or the coulda woulda shoulda is in the lead up to where you are now.
Basically I think you’re asking about the easy part by putting a box around the final decision to speak up when you don’t want kids (good! Necessary! Important! Nobody would ever say otherwise!). And I do wonder what was left out of the letter because surely you knew that framing it this way would only lead to affirmation of speaking up. And sometimes we just need a little affirmation in hard times, that’s ok! 💛
But would framing with a wider lens lead to a more uncomfortable answer? I think you’ll have to look at your conversations with your partner that led you to that final point. That’s where you’ll have to look to learn something.
“I’m sorry to hear that your partner is hurt. It’s okay for feelings to change about having a baby. Communication is key.”