Last night things came to a head a bit. Everyday has been torture for us both, we ended up having a sobbing session in the morning and I left the house to think for a few hours. The hope was that counselling would help my wife change her mind about this or at least look at it from a different perspective but we are both so devastated by this that we are unable to think properly. We both want to dig out heels in and it is not being very productive. It doesn’t make sense as she has only had the one session anyway so it is too early to expect results but we can’t both be in disagreement and continue on together. From the moment we both drew our lines in the sand it made it impossible to live together in any sense or normality.

I realised that I am putting the weight of the world on her shoulders and she is not coping well with it. My solution is to just accept her decision as it is. She stated her terms when she said she did not want children, I was not ready to walk away at that time so I tried to push her to change her mind. That loaded too much onto her and took responsibility away from me, so instead I now have decided to accept that staying with her would mean not having children. I am not ready for children myself right this moment so there is no urgency. So for the now I have said I will take some time to come to terms with the idea of not being a parent, I have always had a strong desire to be a father but never believed life could be otherwise so I will consider my options over the coming months and decide truly what is more important to me a childless but possibly happy life with my wife or taking the chance on an unknown life with an unknown partner and the chance of children.

I have decided to do this as it puts the responsibility for my happiness on my shoulders alone, it makes me solely responsible for my choices and is not blaming other people for my situation. It means I cannot bring this up in the heat of the moment or use it as emotional blackmail on my wife (I don’t think any relationship could survive that kind of imbalance). I am not perfect and I know I would do this when I am angry or upset but I have asked her to remind me of my promise should I try this crap, I am better than that and she deserves better than that.

But it also means that I am able to walk away if I decide I cannot go on like this, I stressed that this is a massive thing for me to give up and it will take time for me to properly grieve and really consider this change in perception. If I cannot accept the loss of the chance of being a parent then this is truly the last straw and we will call it a mutual end to the marriage and she must accept that in the same way as I have accepted her decision. It really seems to me to be the only way we can move forward.

I will admit there is a bit of a surreptitious hope that with time the counselling will help my wife to readdress her decision to not be a mother whether biologically or adopting however this new agreement means I am not allowed to feel betrayed by her if she does not change her mind. This agreement changes the default expectations for our future and while there is still room for both of us to change our minds the default is now that we will not have children.

I am not happy with the idea of never being a father, but I am also not capable right now of walking away from my wife and we are not capable of staying together under our current conflict of expectations so I think this is the last hope for our marriage and the only way for us to truly respect our vows to one another. I am not okay with not being a parent but I love my wife enough that I am certainly willing to give serious consideration as to whether this desire is more important to me than my relationship with my wife. While I do think she has caused all of this turmoil due to a lie of omission for 8 years I believe our love is strong enough that it deserves all the chances we can give it and if it does not survive this conflict then at least nobody has the right to accuse us of not trying.