# Time to Move On?



## TiredBob (Feb 9, 2011)

A simple question but such a difficult one to answer.

We’ve been together for coming up to eight years now and for the most part things have been good. I wouldn’t say great because we’re not intimate and coming from two different cultural backgrounds sometimes made communication difficult. At the start we would argue a lot, we were young (both 24) when we married so I guess it was a big life change for both of us but while the sex soon went (her not wanting it put me off the idea) the love was still there. I know a load of Alpha Males are going to be telling me different but pushing that aside, there were still lots of cuddles, holding hands, loving looks etc so to say there was no love at all would be wrong. We took a load of nice vacations together, she has made us a great home and is forever making me smile and laugh. In all honesty I think she is a wonderful woman. 

Anyway we both turned 31 this year and the whole child issue came up. She wants them but I don’t. We live in a bad neighbourhood and our relationship seems to be loving but stuck, like we’re an old couple, just content to continue living as we are until the end. When I told her that I didn’t want kids she broke down, told me that I was being selfish and that she felt there was no meaning to life (she suffers from major depression but refuses to acknowledge it) and that she was wasting time with me. In all fairness, as much as I love her, I had to agree. I don’t think I would ever want to have kids, not with her or anyone else, but if they mean that much to her she should move on with her life and find someone else who can. 

We tried marriage counselling that turned out to be a nightmare thanks to the jerk not listening to a word she was saying and for a few weeks she tried to put the idea of us having kids out of her mind (I went to individual counselling so perhaps she thought it would cure me) and for a time it worked. The cuddles resumed, the laughing started up again, our home was warmer and life felt better…even though I had the nagging feeling that things were being swept under the carpet and not dealt with.

Then today comes, we go for a picnic at the park and see families and their children. This sets her off crying again, I do understand, but she begs me to have children with her but I don’t think its right forcing us to have them when I don’t really want them. If that makes sense. I told her that we can’t keep on doing this, we can’t keep on going through this happy-sad cycle. She says she loves me, as I do her, but we’re still not intimate and she can’t keep on trying to cover up these child issues only to have it spill out again a few days later. She can’t understand how I can be so sure that I don’t want kids but in her culture having children is the expected thing and all other problems are commonly brushed under the carpet. The way I see it, if there are problems now I don’t want to sit on them until they explode ten years later when she could be too old to have children with someone else. 

We’re both hurting a lot right now, I’m trying to do the logical thing in forcing her to let go and move on with her life while she still has time but she’s very dependant on me and the idea of her being on her own (especially with her depression) scares the hell out of me. Am I wrong in thinking now is the time to split while there is still time for her to get the life she so desires?


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

Why didn't you guys talk about children BEFORE getting married?

Seems like a big topic to discuss.

Now she's 8 years older and going to be heartbroken when and if she leaves...wow.


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## TiredBob (Feb 9, 2011)

We did talk, the plan was that we’d work on our careers then have them by the age of 28 but by that age cracks were already showing and sex was redundant. I started life changes (went back to school to get a better job, learned some communication skills) thinking that by improving my life I could somehow improve our relationship, thinking that if we got out of this bad neighbourhood then maybe, just maybe I would want to have children. It sounds stupid but for a long time I was hoping I would just snap out of this thinking and by improving our living standards I would wake up wanting kids. 

Alas between the ages of 28 and now, while I was setting out to improve myself, she wasn’t showing any interest of doing the same. While I wanted to get out of this bad neighbourhood she was content to just live here, while I wanted a better job (so that we could afford to have kids) she just wanted to stay where she was. In time this also influenced how I saw her, her being reactive while I was proactive, and we began to drift apart or at least, start having different goals. 

My counsellor once told me that people change, simple as that, the ideas and needs they once had disappear and are replaced by others. I don’t know for sure if that was what happened to me but sometimes I wish it hadn’t.


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