For reference, I'm 24M and she's 22F. My girl and I have been together for four years, we met in college and have been together ever since. She's honestly the most amazing person and puts up with my shit, she's all happy-go-lucky while I'm extremely hard to approach and serious. I love her more than anything, and plan on proposing to her this summer.
The problem is babies. Recently, my girl's been seeing all of these baby videos on Insta and gushing over the babies. At first I didn't care, she was just acting like most other people do. Then, she started showing me videos of babies like every five minutes. I would be washing the car and she would just shove the phone in my face to show me a video of someone's baby doing random sh!t.
At first, I would just force a smile and nod. It got to the point that she would try to show me a video and I'd just turn away. She began making all types of comments about the videos like "I want one!" and "Ours will be just as smart as this one!"
I'm starting to get worried because we sleep together regularly (she's on the pill and I use condoms), and I don't want for her to try to intentionally get pregnant. I had a nightmare about this a few nights ago and woke up in a cold sweat.
She noticed my attitude yesterday after the thousandth time and asked what was wrong, and I told her that I'm just not interested in babies. She got all quiet and her face fell, and then she asked if I never wanted to have kids.
It's not that I don't want kids at all, I know that when I'm older and more ready I'll probably want to start a family- and it will definitely be with her. But, I do NOT want kids now. I really don't care for the noises, smells, imposition, and responsibility right now. I don't even find them cute, to be honest.
My plan for the next few years is to focus on working on our careers mutually, plus traveling and enjoying our youth. She's just about to graduate and is starting her work the upcoming fall, so we're both doing well in that department. I don't want to screw up our relationship with a baby coming in and throwing off all of our plans.
I told my girl this and she just kind of shut down, hasn't really said anything to me since yesterday. We live together, have grown together, and will soon be engaged (if she says yes)- and I know we're just getting started. But AITA for not wanting a kid right now? All I want is her, honestly.
toni_baloney_ said:
You're not the ass hole but you probably should think twice about proposing... you two may not want the same things on the same timeframes and that will cause resentment, with one or both of you...
totesnotanalien said:
NAH but you both might be on different timelines so before proposing you might wanna make sure you’re both on the same page.
NauticalHiker said:
You may want to really reflect on if you’ll ever actually want kids. This is a dealbreaker for most people and she clearly wants them. If you don’t want them at all or even have the same plans as her then you shouldn’t propose to her. You two need to sit down and have an honest conversation about where your lives are going. Does she also agree to this plan you have for your lives or is that YOUR plan?
OP responded:
I do want kids in a few years, at least when I'm 28 and she's 26 or something like that. Early 30s would be preferable. And yeah we spoke about our plans before, she's the one that's really into traveling and doing adventurous things, I want to give her that. And I wanted to do it as husband and wife, minus the child for now. She wanted that before
shendrad said:
NAH but it sounds like you both have some things to discuss before you go off and propose. First, you need to be on the same page regarding having kids. If she is wanting kids right now and you don't want kids right now, she is going to either need to compromise and wait until you're ready or be with someone who is ready now.
You also need to talk about marriage before you propose. Make sure she is on the same page regarding being ready to be engaged and married before you propose so there aren't any surprises. You don't want to assume she is ready to get married then propose and get rejected because she's not.
OP responded:
We both agreed before that kids was something to consider in our late twenties (we spoke about it briefly when we moved in together). She wants to travel the world and I want to do that with her, but that wouldn't be possible with a child. I don't know why now she seems to really be into the idea.
For marriage she has told me before that she dreamed of getting married young to be together for a long time and all that, so that's why I wanted to do it this year. I'm really hoping this phase doesn't make her want to be with someone else, we're too young to be having kids anyway
Holy hell I never thought I would get this many responses, thanks guys. I've been sitting through all of them for the past half hour reading everything. I accept every judgement made, and I see how I might've hurt her feelings by seeming so standoffish about it. I've decided that I want to sit down with her tonight to talk.
Last night we watched a movie together and everything seemed fine, but I noticed her watching me out of the corner of my eye, like she was ready to say something. I want to tell her this: "I'm sorry for how I reacted to you showing me those videos, the last thing I wanted was to make you feel bad.
I know that one day in the future we'll have children, I just feel that we're too young for such a responsibility now." And whatever else comes out, I guess. I want to marry this girl, without a doubt. I love her more than anything and want to have a life and family with her. Wish me luck!
We had a long talk last night, and stayed up until really late. I told her along the lines of "I love you, and I'm sorry that for the past few days I've been rude towards you. The last thing I want to do is make you feel as if you can't express your feelings to me. Every time you showed me a video of a baby, I would just get scared that you were starting to want a child now.
I want to have a family with you, when we're more financially stable and have completed our bucket list of things to do. I'm sorry I didn't communicate this with you and instead shut you out.." and so on.
My girl told me everything that she's been feeling the past few days: her younger sister (19) is currently pregnant from her boyfriend and confided this in her a few weeks ago, has since been sending her a bunch of baby related posts and articles.
My girl said that she had a dream a few nights after that she was pregnant, and she says that she felt like the dream was so real that when she woke up, her body felt disappointed. She said that it was probably just a hormonal rush, like a caffeine high, and when it happened it was like baby word vomit.
She apologized for bombarding me with the idea of children out of nowhere, especially since (her words): "I want to have kids after we've done everything we want to do, maybe when I'm 25 or 26." I liked this idea, and we agreed that the next three years were for our goals (visiting the world wonders, road-trip across the U.S, etc.) and after three years we will stop preventing pregnancy.
When it happens, it happens. If we get to 27 and no kids naturally, we'll start really trying for them. I sneaked in the idea of us being married, and she said: "Well, I'll want to have kids with my husband." So, I still intend to propose in the summer, when we're in Rome (we have this trip planned).
Thank you to everyone for all of your input and advice, you really helped me sort out my feelings, and put into perspective hers. Let's hope she says yes, and that my future kids never see this post!