# Will my husband ever want to have children?



## Colagurl (Mar 29, 2014)

Hi, 
I'm an Indian girl, I had an arranged marriage a year and a few months back. I was 26, husband was 30. I knew that husband lived & worked in Singapore, but I didn't know he was so obsessed about staying on there. 

Having children was really important to me, I had assumed that its important to my husband too as he comes from a very traditional & well off family & all his cousins have big kids already-he too seemed very traditional.Before marriage, he'd also told me a boys' name & a girls' name he'd thought of. After marriage he told me that he intends to go off to the USA for two years (two years after our marriage) to do an MBA. He also wants me to stay on in Singapore with a job so he can come back & job hunt after his MBA on my Dependent Pass. He hadn't told me any of this before marriage, rather his family had told us that they'd cancelled the marriage alliance of a software engineer girl who wanted to go abroad for just one year for her job as the purpose of marriage was to live together & this is an arranged marriage not a love marriage(their words), now we learnt that my husband had always planned to do an MBA he was only waiting to become a Singapore Permanent Resident.Shortly after my marriage, we learnt that his PR application had been rejected the third time, before marriage I knew that he'd applied for PR but I didn't know that he'd applied & been rejected twice before, I learnt from his friend's wife that this was the third rejection.

Regarding a child, he says that he actually doesn't want a child at all, because the sufferings he's gone through, he doesn't want his child to go through, & this is something about which he's had long discussions with his parents, because they obviously want a grandchild. He says he'd even asked them to find him a girl who doesn't want kids, but he might have kids due to social pressure later because (in his words "I want & his parents want"). 

He's now 31, he'd applied to INSEAD Singapore for the September 2014 batch & was rejected, he's now re applying for the January 2015 batch & wants to apply to other US B schools as well. If/when he gets through he'll be 33 when he joins & 35 when he graduates, he says that after graduation, he won't do consulting as there's "no life" but wants some other job with a high pay. His friends in Singapore, who're top investment bankers & consultants, have done their MBA's many years back & are now pretty high up in their careers,unlike him they're willing to slog, in two-three years, they're likely to move even further up in their careers, & my husband just might not land up the high earning, low pressure job he's dreamt of & then he'll be left stagnating even more & his "sufferings" in life will only increase.

People with his salary can & do have children even in SG, but he says its too expensive for him & he's in no position.

Do you think he'll ever want kids?


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

I don't know. I'm struggling to find a reason why you'd want to have kids with this guy.

C


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## nikoled (Mar 12, 2014)

It is going to be challenging to give you insight when you are coming at this from a different cultural view, but if I were in your shoes I would demand some input in the "life plan". If that is not allowed, and I did not agree with the life plan that had been presented to me, I would be making my own life plan without this man.


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## EnjoliWoman (Jul 2, 2012)

Since it was arranged between the families, can the families intervene and get together and talk to both of you about a life plan including compromises on family as well as your lifestyles, career choices/ambitions and where you want to live long term?

Since it's the families that brought you together it seems they could help you two figure out how to solve the problems.


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## Colagurl (Mar 29, 2014)

nikoled said:


> It is going to be challenging to give you insight when you are coming at this from a different cultural view, but if I were in your shoes I would demand some input in the "life plan". If that is not allowed, and I did not agree with the life plan that had been presented to me, I would be making my own life plan without this man.


:iagree: I did ask husband about his "life plan"-but he refuses to say much. People at his salary level do have kids in Singapore but he says he can't afford kids.

He says he wants to stay in Singapore, from what I can gather, he has four big life goals:

1) Staying in Singapore

2) Getting Singapore PR

3) Seeing the same level of success that his friends enjoy in Singapore, without slogging like them 

4) Having an MBA like they have

Everything else-having or needing children, a wife, coming back to India etc is impossible for him.


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## Colagurl (Mar 29, 2014)

EnjoliWoman said:


> Since it was arranged between the families, can the families intervene and get together and talk to both of you about a life plan including compromises on family as well as your lifestyles, career choices/ambitions and where you want to live long term?
> 
> Since it's the families that brought you together it seems they could help you two figure out how to solve the problems.


@EnjoliWoman,

That actually would be possible with his father, but not with his mother.

His father wants him to come back to our hometown, he's very keen his son do this & keeps pestering his son to do this but to no avail. His mom says he too was a topper in school like this McKinsey friend in Singapore but he's "fallen behind" & she wants him to "prove himself" once in Singapore before he returns to India.

Indian MIL's are usually very keen to have grandchildren early, among my husband's cousins, there's a guy who married at 25, his wife was 22, just two years into the marriage her MIL was frantic about why they aren't having children yet, she was diagnosed with Poly cystic Ovaries & it took her a couple of more years to conceive, my MIL knows all this very well, yet she keeps saying that nowadays many people have children many years after marriage & gives the example of this cousin's wife. My MIL had an ectopic pregnancy at 30 & a hysterectomy at 34.

I am not saying I should have kids immediately but I did ask husband & MIL for a "timeline".

Husband says that if having children was so very important to me I should've told him so before marriage that I want kids in 1-2-3 years & if I tell him anything about why we were kept in the dark about his MBA, husband says I should've specifically asked him whether he intends to do an MBA.

In India, people do their MBA's earlier than the West, often they have no work experience pre MBA, so many are as young as 21-22, post 30 MBA's are rare even in the West, let alone in India.

I don't know a single Indian man in an arranged marriage who did his MBA post marriage.

All my husband's friends had completed their education when they got married & if any of them were stagnating, they moved back to India or to the Mid East etc- rather than do a late MBA.


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## appletree (Oct 9, 2012)

It seems that your husband does not want to be with you. Why would he like to go to the USA while you stay in India for two years? His plans are really strange to me, but I'm from a different culture. Did your husband ever asked what your want? I think he is not very hones. Is it possible to divorce a arranged marriage? I think you need counseling with someone from your culture.


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## Colagurl (Mar 29, 2014)

appletree said:


> It seems that your husband does not want to be with you. Why would he like to go to the USA while you stay in India for two years? His plans are really strange to me, but I'm from a different culture. Did your husband ever asked what your want? I think he is not very hones. Is it possible to divorce a arranged marriage? I think you need counseling with someone from your culture.



I would actually prefer for us as a couple to move back to India, or even if he does this MBA & wants to settle abroad, to give me a "timeline" regarding when he'll want children etc.

Husband actually didn't want to get married at all, his parents had been pestering him to get married for many years which is why he finally agreed to get married, also he says that all his friends in Singapore were married, so that also exerted some pressure on him. When his parents had insisted he get married, he'd told them he wants to do an MBA, his parents told him to do this after marriage as "many" people do it after marriage-although he can't show me a single example of such an Indian guy & we were kept in the dark about this whole MBA thing.

He doesn't give a damn about whether I want to have children or if this MBA & "proving" himself the equal of his friends will take up a lifetime, he'll do what he wants.


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## appletree (Oct 9, 2012)

That is a truly difficult situation. You must talk nuts and bolts with him and make clear that you are ready to leave (if that is possible for you at all). Otherwise you go abroad too, make whatever degree or get a great job. He might be gay and does not want to be married to a woman. You must figure out your possibilities first. The fact that he does care so little for what you want are not good signs at all. Is there a way out?


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## DoF (Mar 27, 2014)

I really REALLY struggle to accept ANYONE but myself making such a big life decision for me.

No way in hell.

I'm sorry


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