You'd divorce over this?
Dear Prudence,
My wife and I both had kids rather young so when we met, they were well into middle school. I got the snip right after my daughter was born and was upfront about not wanting more children. My wife was OK with this until around our second year of marriage. Then she became obsessed with having a baby that was “ours.”
It nearly broke our marriage. I thought we had hit the lottery because our kids all got along and we had a successful blended family. I basically told my wife she had to choose what kind of life she wanted: what we had versus what she dreamed up. We went to therapy and we worked through it—or so I thought.
We recently went through a crisis where one of our kids had an unplanned pregnancy and they chose to end it. We are lucky to live in a blue state but the situation was fraught. My wife’s reaction blindsided me. She was so angry and felt she had been “cheated again” because we would’ve raised the baby if they kept it. Luckily, she didn’t say this around our kids, but her reaction makes me think our marriage is not salvageable. She told me she regrets not pushing for another child and that I forced her to give up her dream. She didn’t want to be a single mom again. She later apologized but is the damage done? We are both pushing 50 and I thought we were happy. Is counseling even possible at this point? I feel like I am living with a stranger ever since she confessed.
—No Baby
Re: You'd divorce over this?
No, I don't think it's fair the way she's acting and I also think it's not really all that smart to think that a vasectomy can be reversed as I know of instances where the reversal didn't take.
The real issue here is that you both don't seem to be on the same page and were you ever? The accusatory statements aren't helpful on either side.
But I don't think I could stay with someone who told me they only wanted to be with me because they didn't want to be a single mother. I'm nobody's consolation prize.
I think OP has the right to be upset; now they need to be looking as a couple on how to resolve/solve this issue.
It's worth giving counseling another try, but you shouldn't have to live forever with your wife's resentment that you "forced her to give up her dream" of having another kid. If you can't resolve this and she can't make peace with how things unfolded, then you may indeed have to consider ending the marriage.