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Actually, that's not quite the logical conclusion of his position. If he has multiple offspring, one one would have to have kids in order to continue the family line. The others could remain child-free.
That's an awful amount of pressure to put on any child.
He's a total a**hole. Just talking about it makes me want to go over and key his car or something. The wife and daughter are nice though. I have no idea how they can live in that arrangement. The wife once confided that her dad had several mistresses that her mom accepted, and she rarely saw her dad. Her dad is a well-known name philanthropist (e.g. hospital wings named after him) so it was pretty shocking info. So I think the wife has a pretty skewed sense of child rearing also.
Amazing. And she chose someone like her dad. No wonder they get along. Wow.
Wait, do they still co-habitate despite him not wanting anything to do with the child?
I firmly believe that someone's desire to have or not to have children should be respected, but he put himself in this situation, and that's just maddening--not only that he would suggest it, but that she would accept it.
As for the OP's situation, it's very sad. As others have pointed out, our ideals and desires sometimes change as we get older, so there could have been no predictor that this would have happened when the OP and her husband were first married.
Yes, they live in a big house and he travels a lot while wife provides 100% care. He does not go to any of the daughter's activities, from what I can tell. And I do see them a lot as our daughters are friends. Maybe he sends her a present here and there.
He's a total a**hole. Just talking about it makes me want to go over and key his car or something. The wife and daughter are nice though. I have no idea how they can live in that arrangement. The wife once confided that her dad had several mistresses that her mom accepted, and she rarely saw her dad. Her dad is a well-known name philanthropist (e.g. hospital wings named after him) so it was pretty shocking info. So I think the wife has a pretty skewed sense of child rearing also.
I know, it's horrible. It upsets me every time I see them. They are pretty forthcoming about it - they take the time to explain the arrangement so that another parent doesn't ever call the hubby for a playdate, carpool, school info, etc. He explains that he is completely hands-off with the parenting - that it was his wife's choice to have a child, so she is raising her. They even take separate vacations (e.g. only the wife and child go to Disneyworld, etc.). BTW, they are both doctors (he is quite a bit older than her and set in his ways). Divorce would have been a better option for all involved IMO.
Man that is totally F'ed up!!!!!!!!
He should be castrated, what a total pirce of S**T he is. Not a man in my book!
They're both at fault. He offered that stupid situation, and she accepted. Both equally to blame.
I just don't get people. I'm temporarily away from my kids while we do this big move and its killing me, I can't imagine having them there and just ignorning them. He must be Aspergers or something.
Actually I know many people with Aspergers and they would show more compassion than that.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Port North
I just don't get people. I'm temporarily away from my kids while we do this big move and its killing me, I can't imagine having them there and just ignorning them. He must be Aspergers or something.
Actually I know many people with Aspergers and they would have more compassion than that.
There are lots of people that have kids and don't give a crud about them. That doesn't mean they have aspergers or another cognitive issue. They're just different from most people.
This impulse to want a child will not change soon. Unless your husband changes his mine, I think you should get divorced. I commend you for being honest and not playing the "I don't know if I want children" game.
The OP's situation is eerily reminiscent of what happened in my own former marriage. During the dating-process, we were both adamantly child-free. I am an avowed anti-natalist. My ex had no philosophical objections to reproduction, but was uninterested in the fuss, the responsibility, the drain on her resources. So while our reasons for being child-free were different, the practical consequences was identical. When we got married, I was 30, and she was 29. Continuing through our mid-30s, our views remains invariable. Then, at age 37, my then-wife's views on children, family and motherhood completely reversed. She announced that her life was empty, vapid, devoid of meaning; that only the biological and emotional experience of motherhood could validate her as a woman and as a human being. To affirm her existence, she announced, she must have a biological child of her own, going through the mechanics of pregnancy and birth, passing on her genes. She wanted to be transformed by the emotions of becoming a mother, expecting to mature literally instantaneously (for years she referred to her own self as an overgrown child).
She moved out of our house. A year later we divorced. Six months thereafter, she met somebody; got pregnant, got married, give birth, became a stay-at-home-mom. Her new husband is a much younger man, nowhere nearly as established as me, but evidently more effervescent, more empathetic, more relaxed. She reports experiencing a happiness and life-affirming joy in her new role, a joy that remained elusive while she and I were married. And as for me – well, I'm addicted to posting on this Forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Port North
Again if you don't want kids why would someone ever get married? If I was single right now I would be out having a grand ol time. Never understood voluntary "child-free" marriages. Marriage is for creating a stable environment in which to raise children. Sorry to be cynical but that's why it was invented.
Marriage offers many legal, psychological, financial and social advantages to the married couple, regardless of their reproductive choices. Marriage was invented to pool resources and to establish paternity if and when children were born. While it's true that kids do better in a stable household with parents married to each other, that does not imply that the purpose of marriage is to have children. Power-tools do better when stored in a heated and insulated garage, but that doesn't mean that the purpose of a garage is to store tools, or that people who own no tools shouldn't be buying houses with garages.
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