Thanks for responding Anita.

Yes, perhaps I did come to the wrong conclusion with regard to my ex. I hadn’t thought of that and it is a very good point.

His main concerns regarding having children seem to be the sleepless nights and a loss of freedom. A lot of our friends who want children have had them now and do seem to relish telling us all the horror stories (and very little of the ‘good’ stuff). This really seems to scare him and I think he just likes things how they are now. He does enjoy being with ‘some’ children, but doesn’t seem to have much tolerance for ones which cry or are high spirited. Neither of us have had a huge amount of contact with children anyway. I am an only child and there aren’t any children in my family or his (we are the youngest generation). However, what I did learn from my last relationship was how unconditionally I could love a child. I feel that if I could love children which aren’t my own, even when they didn’t like me (or rather what I represented as a ‘step parent’), then it must be magnified with my own biological child(ren). I realised I could take both the rough and the smooth. It made me realise that I had the capacity to be a parent. Maybe he doubts this in himself (as I did a few years ago)?

My partner seems to have had a very happy childhood. He is close with all of his family and loves visiting them. He hasn’t mentioned any trauma except from bullying in his mid teens.