Unsure about children.

[mlac]

I am 29 and my husband is 31. I want to have a baby (I'm not sure how soon? I mean, I know we can afford and HAVE a child, but I don't know if I'm ready to give up finding tickets last minute to see a band we love and throwing on shoes to get there in time. I just know I WANT to have a kid--or kids, I guess, perhaps--at some point before I die.) My husband is never excited about anything. He is very into his time. His alone time, his personal space, etc. However, this seems to be almost all of his home time. I do all of the cooking, cleaning, etc., because we have this theory that if the other doesn't care, then that's your problem. I care about these things, he cares about other things, and it works.

 

Except when it comes to kids. He says he wants to have a kid, but he's never excited about the idea. This makes it extremely difficult for me. I work with kids (all ages before kindergarten,) and I love it. I love being around the kids and having them climb all over me and distract me from my work and get excited about dumb things like telling me they brought a golf tee for show and tell. I love it all. I am thrilled about the idea of having a kid.

 

He has never been excited about anything. The only time I have ever seen him show any sort of emotion is when he was reciting his vows at our wedding. He didn't even write them; they were generic. Since then, nothing.

 

Today, I was mentioning how a friend gets frustrated that her husband won't take more responsibility with their child because he wants to protect his "me" time, even though she is basically with their child 24 hours a day and gets no "me" time. I mentioned how that would be annoying and then asked if it would be that way with us (because our child would come to work with me.) And he said, "Well, I don't know. To an extent."

 

I mentioned how this was not how I wanted to raise a kid and I didn't think it was fair to assume that one person should give up their entire life while the other just goes on with theirs, and he blew me off.

 

Does anyone have any sort of input on this? It's been like this for a long time. I don't want to end the marriage based on this, but at times it's really hard to know that something I want so badly is just an afterthought to my husband. I think it's harder since I work in a profession where everyone seems to happy to be having kids and it's a joy that people are blessed with, not something that just happens. I see moms and dads coming in regularly, totally excited to tell me that they're expecting and will need an infant spot a year from now. You can literally see them glowing. And here I am, barely able to convince my husband that it's an okay thing to do.

 

I guess I wouldn't care if, before we married, we hadn't both discussed wanting to have kids and how it was an important thing to us. Am I just being too crazy? Should I take this more seriously? Whenever, I do, he acts like I'm a nut. I'm at a loss right now.

[Gemma1]

It would seriously bother me if my husband never got excited about anything regardless of the kid thing. But anyway.

 

I think you'll find after you have the kid that your husband isn't really all that interested in it, just like you suspect he won't be. The reason a lot of moms end up derailing their lives over the kid while their husbands just continue on is the same reason you do all the housework while he does nothing. You will care about it, and he won't really.

 

I'm not saying some guys don't come around, and of course there are lots of really great dads. But your husband is not in some super small minority of men. A lot of men just aren't that interested in kids. When you were dating, he said he wanted kids because it's the thing to do.

 

This is why, if kids are super important to you, and you want your husband to have a certain level of involvement/excitement, you can't just have a simple premarital discussion about kids to check it off the list. "Are kids something you see in your future?" "Yes" "Great, me too." You have to really dig down and hash it out. What will it be like? What kind of father do you want to be? Who will be responsible for this or that? How do you feel about different kinds of punishment? Who will take them to sports practice? Will you change sh*t diapers?

 

That way you know what to expect and whether or not it meshes with your idea of family life. I don't think you did this with your husband prior to marriage, but maybe you did. Either way, I think you're going to be very disappointed with your life if you have kids with this man.