Maybe you’ve never talked about having kids with your partner, or you’ve vaguely said that you’d like to have kids “someday.” Maybe you agreed to start trying to conceive at 25 (or 30 or 35). But now one of you is ready to get pregnant, and the other isn’t so sure.
This common scenario was addressed in a Reddit thread: 30-year-old user aed89 had been dating her 29-year-old boyfriend for nine months and living together for three months when they had unprotected sex, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy.
“He (my boyfriend) was unhappy and kept saying he wasn’t ready to be a father. He didn’t want anything to change between us and said this would ruin everything we had in our relationship,” she said. “He wasn’t mean, he just seemed as shocked as I was.”
When aed89 found out the results of her pregnancy test, she immediately knew she wanted a baby, but “didn’t want to force the man I love into having a baby he didn’t want.”
She added: “Ultimately it was my decision and I thought if I terminated this pregnancy I would regret it and resent him. If I got pregnant he would resent me and the baby. I felt so irresponsible and overwhelmed.”
So what’s aed89 to do? We spoke to New York-based psychoanalyst Austin E. Galvin, CSW, about this difficult situation.
Find the root problem
According to Galvin, conflict over the decision to become a parent is very common. Concerns about finances, house size, and the like are often not the central issue. Lack of time, lack of funds, and other external barriers most often create resistance, he said. Thus, Galvin suggests that those who express concerns need to make a breakthrough to understand the true internal resistance.
While talking is often the best way to address issues, Galvin doesn’t necessarily believe couples should solve all of their problems together. He encourages the resistant partner to find a safe, objective listener, like a therapist or a neutral friend, who can offer valuable insight and advice.
Here are some possible reasons why one spouse may not want to have children and the other spouse does:
Fear of commitment: Partners with ambivalent feelings may question their ability to maintain the relationship or raise children. Children make things so real for people that it can be overwhelming, Galvin points out. More than any other decision in life, your children, and the people you share them with, will last forever.
Relationship distress: If one partner suddenly wants children, it may have more to do with the relationship than a desire to become a parent, Galvin notes. The partner wanting children may want to strengthen a fragile relationship by drawing the other person deeper. Perhaps there’s some hope that children will bring an intimacy that’s currently missing in the marriage.
Childhood issues: If you’ve had plans to have a baby and one spouse suddenly starts putting up barriers, childhood issues could be a concern. Galvin suggests that the resistant partner may need to resolve unresolved feelings toward their parents.
If one partner doesn’t want children, find a compromise.
When Galvin encounters a situation like this, he asks the couple to talk about the feelings and events that led to their current dilemma. “Even if they agreed to have children in the past, either partner can change the rules,” he says. But it’s important to understand what’s at stake, so couples can feel responsible for their decision and its consequences.
Galvin asked each couple, “How important is having children to you? Are you prepared to give up your spouse or significant other for it?” He says that unless the relationship is in serious trouble, they should always say “no” and then, once they’ve made the commitment to stay together, they can negotiate a solution.
In many cases, the best advice may be to continue working through this conflict (which can be a lengthy process) while trying to conceive. Galvin notes that the most rebellious spouses often end up becoming doting parents. He’s had clients who suffered extreme anxiety throughout the nine months of pregnancy, but none of them came back after holding a baby in their arms and said it was a mistake.
