When I say my whole life I’ve wanted kids, it’s no exaggeration. I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of being a mom and raising a family. My wife has always expressed that same desire. We have had baby names picked out for a while. We have plans. We’ve had endless conversations about what our little family would be like. For some reason, the last couple years I’ve been questioning if I should really be a mother. And then I got diagnosed with BPD…I have feared passing on mental illness to my kids for a while. I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety since I was 12 and wasn’t diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder until this past October. It totally changed my world. I’ve been doing my due diligence learning about this disorder, doing individual and group therapy, I even took time off of work for an intensive outpatient program. If there’s one thing I’m realizing it’s that I’m in no place to bring kids into my mess. I have years of unpacking to do. My wife wants to have kids in the next couple years and I just can’t stomach the idea. If I did have kids, I wouldn’t want them for at least another five years. I need time to work on myself and stop some toxic cycles and unlearn unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I’m also kind of worried that the only reason I ended up married is to fill the emotional void I feel due to BPD. And I don’t know how to work on myself when my isn’t necessarily stable. It’s been rocky for the last year and a half and my wife isn’t making the effort in her personal therapy like she said she would (like, she literally isn’t going). And the therapy aspect is important to me because her anger got so out on control that I told her the only way I’d come back home is if she went to therapy. So the fact that there hasn’t been much progress and she’s off her meds kind of feels like a slap in the face.

Honestly, I’m in no position financially to get a divorce. I’m working two jobs (one fits my career path and I love while the other supplies health benefits and pays for my schooling) and I just went back to school to get my degree. I don’t have any close friends to lean on where we live, we only moved there for my wife’s job last year and the pandemic didn’t allow for much friend making. So I’m kind of stuck.

I feel like getting my diagnosis made me wake up and realize everything I’ve surrounded myself with was a trauma response and I have no clue what to do, how I got here, or how to get myself out of it.

Can I work on myself and my marriage at the same time? How do I get my wife to do the same? Should I just call it quits because of the kids thing? I’m feeling so lost. I don’t see my therapist again until Monday, hopefully he has some good insight for me..