deciding whether to have children

I am in my late thirties, and have historically been very comfortable being child free. I’m in a long term stable relationship, we have both felt this way about children, and have open communication about it. I have always been fascinated by the idea of being pregnant, going through that experience; seen the baby phase as very demanding; and three onwards as more rewarding but not something I was driven to do.

Over the last few years, as more of our friends have children I have started feeling that all our reasons for not having children are not valid / true anymore / something.. wasn’t sitting right. After the Autumn workshop I used the decision making step by step to consider the decision not to have children, help me sell myself on it and let go. I ended up using the it in reverse and we have spent the last few weeks exploring the idea we do have children.

I am aware I’m indulging in indecision, but really I’ve only just started exploring an alternative to the view I’ve held for maybe 20 years. It is also a decision that I have to take with my other half, he is also feeling similar things, but is probably less convinced of changing his mind. The decision feels very big, because there are risks that the reasons we haven’t wanted to have children remain relevant and we could regret it. We risk making different decisions and adversely affecting our relationship, which is really good at the moment.

I’m not really sure what my question is.. ..How do we decide?!

 

Answer:

If you knew you could be happy either way, and there will be challenges either way, what would you want to do? It can feel risky to your brain to do something different with an unknown outcome. It’s going to create some resistance. Be aware of this happening and don’t believe everything you think.

You’ve listed your fear that you would regret having a child and that you could affect your relationship adversely, like those things just happen. That’s not true. You get to go into this with all the tools you’ve learned in TFC to manage your mind all along the way.

It’s ok to take as long as you want to make this decision. You could also just make it and start moving forward in your life. Trust yourself that you’ll handle whatever comes up along the way no matter what you decide.