I want to start a family, but my partner is unsure if he does. We are both turning 35 this year, and I am struggling to know what the right/healthy choice is for me.  Has anyone else left an otherwise happy relationship because of wanting (or not wanting) children?

Background: We have been together for five years, living together for four years. We got engaged a few years ago, but have yet to set a wedding date because we were putting our money into the house purchase. Now we have our house (over a year ago), I feel ready to start a family. We discussed having kids after only being together a few months. I said I knew I wanted them ‘one day’ and he said he thought *maybe* ‘one day’ too. That felt fine to me at the time; I wasn’t ready and he wasn’t ready. I had just left a two year relationship with a man with two kids from a previous relationship, when I met my current partner. The previous relationship ended badly when I discovered he had been cheating on me for a few weeks with another woman (while I looked after his small children). He told me, as we were breaking up, that he never wanted to get married again or have more kids and he was ‘setting me free’ (not what I wanted to hear at the time when my dad had just died and I was about to turn 30. I was starting to think about my own mortality). Anyway, within the year he was married the to the ‘other’ woman and with a new baby on the way. So what that ended up meaning was that he didn’t want kids with ME. It was painful. So the reason I mention that previous relationship is that I am worried I have found another man who perhaps would like kids but may be not with me? That old painful feel has surfaced again. Except this time, I am 5 years older and the biological clock has started ticking.

I love this man very much. He is committed to me, so I can see this is different from my previous relationship. He talks about getting us getting married regularly. He never mentions kids though. I bring up having kids every few months. I say it’s important to me and I want him to give it some serious thought. This didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere though and so back in January I asked him to give me a firm answer, Yes or No, to whether he wanted kids. I asked him to set a deadline for deciding and he said September. So here we are. Four months in and I am twiddling my thumbs waiting for him to decide. He is a master procrastinator with most things and I have often had to push him forward (e.g. 8 months to decide the perfect fridge for our new house). I am happy to be the instigator, implementer and general champion for new adventures that we have together, big and small. But it doesn’t seem right to do this over the idea of starting a family, if he isn’t on board then it doesn’t seem right to drag him along, does it? If I was 25 then I would be happy to wait, but I just feel that I don’t have all the time he might need to decide what he wants with regard to kids.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to help him make a decision without me pressurising him? He tends to get overwhelmed and then stick his head in the sand over big decisions. If he says No in September, then the decision will be mine as to whether I stay or not. However, it seems mad to consider leaving someone I am very happy with to start again from scratch at 35 in the hope I meet someone new who does definitely want kids, who I can build a solid relationship with etc etc. It sort of feels like saying ‘you’re not ready now, so I am going to leave and spend a few more years trying to get to this stage again with someone else who DOES want a family’. Help.