I would be LIVID at my H

Casadena

My husband and I don’t want kids. When we met, he said kids would be a dealbreaker, and I was fine with it. The only issue with this was my mother-in-law. At first, the hints that she didn’t accept our decision to be childfree were small. Then, when we got engaged, she started making comments like, “now that you’re getting married, it’s time to rethink having children, a family isn’t a family without kids.” I told my husband to handle it and he said that she’s always had these feelings and probably couldn’t be swayed. I told him he still needed to talk to her and he agreed. She shut up for a little while.

Over Christmas, his mother took me aside and said that I needed to stop “thinking about kids” and get on with it since I am over 30. I was very confused. When we got home, I asked my husband. He brushed it off and said it was his mom being herself and he’d talk with her again. But it’s sticking in my mind. I brought it up to my husband again and he blew up at me…and the truth came out. When we were engaged, he told her we were both on the fence about kids, and then that he was considering having them, but that he wanted to give me time to slowly “convince” me that I wanted kids.

He admitted that he thought making me the one that didn’t want children would keep his mom from being so overbearing. I’m livid. I can’t believe he did this. He risked my relationship with his mother and my mental well being just so he wouldn’t have to have a grown up conversation with his mother about her inappropriate behaviors. I honestly don’t even know where to go from here. I feel like I married a child who I can’t trust to be my partner. How do I move forward?

VarunaTT

Wow.  Old WWers will remember that I refused to speak to my MIL for a year b/c of crap like this, until she apologized.  IDK how exH really handled it; he still went over to see his family rather than standing with me.  I do know that the apology came because there was an actual family argument about it, and FIL said, "Varuna's right and you should apologize."  He rarely got involved in any arguments, so that's what made the difference.

If OP is even interested in staying, there are conditions about a united front and his mother needs to STFU about it, period, or there are consequences of no to low contact.

I still do not understand why people think their opinions on child bearing have any relevance to another person's choice.

banana468

"You are going to your parents house.  You're going to tell your mom that all along it was you.  That YOU do not want kids.  That I agreed with you and that it's a DEALBREAKER for you.  Because if you don't I'm going to ask her why she's so confused about all of this because you made it REAL F*CKING clear to me.   If you can make it clear to one woman with your last name how come you can't make it clear to another? Don't come home until you do." 

MyNameIsNot

I would have outed H to his mother without a second thought. One of our rules is that I'm the fall guy for my family and vice versa. Blaming things on your spouse is how you let your parents cause division in your marriage. 

downtondiva

My husband and I agreed a long time ago that we weren't going to have kids. If he pulled this kind of crap with his parents, it would probably put our marriage in jeopardy. I'd really feel like he didn't have my back. 

short+sassy

MyNameIsNot said:

I would have outed H to his mother without a second thought. One of our rules is that I'm the fall guy for my family and vice versa. Blaming things on your spouse is how you let your parents cause division in your marriage. 

Absolutely!  I would have replied back, "Oh gosh!  I'm so sorry your son lied to you.  Neither one of us have ever wanted children or been on the fence about it.  In fact when we first started dating, he said if I wanted children it would be a dealbreaker for him."