I have been with my husband for 11 years (married for 2 of those years). I have always wanted to be a mother and I’ve always been very open about that throughout the relationship. My husband never wanted kids before me but has told me more than once that with me, he would. He would often make jokes about having kids being terrible and say kind of mean remarks about people with kids. It definitely all seemed light-hearted but it started to bother me in the year that we were engaged. Early in the year we were to be married, I started to evaluate my life with him. I had spent 9 years of my life with him and I was starting to feel like he would never be on board with having kids, despite him saying that he would. I had a really bad day. It was on my mind and I spent the entire day in bed just crying and feeling numb. My husband was just kind of mad at me for being upset and not talking to him about it. When I did talk to him about it, he assured me that he loves me and that we would have kids just like we had already talked about, etc. He told me he was sorry that he got mad at me for being upset but he was scared that I was thinking about leaving basically. That’s all that I can really remember from that day. It was a lot so difficult to recall…

Anyway, I have been having a difficult time lately. I am almost 29 and I imagined being at a different point of life by now. I thought I’d at least have one of the two kids that I’ve wanted by now. Our coworker’s wife, whom is my friend, just recently told us that she’s pregnant and it broke me. I am so happy for her but it’s just making me look at where I am and what I need to do in order to get my life together…

I went through a horrible trauma. My mother left home and got together with an ex-boyfriend from high school that was released from prison. There are a lot of layers to the situation but she did not come to my wedding and there has not been much communication for the last couple of years.

… with everything that happened in that situation, I lost my job and just kind of curled up and checked out of life for a while. I need to change my career and financially prepare us if I want to have a baby any time soon. It’s on me because my husband has only ever worked for himself teaching music and performing music. He supports the majority of the household right now so he can’t go to school or anything like that so that’s why it’s on me to figure it all out…

I’ve been emotional about it and stressed and just pouring myself into research and making decisions about what to do. Well, I had a couple of breakdowns and again, the response from my husband is just anger and lack of understanding. He keeps telling me there’s no reason to be upset and there’s no reason to cry. Things like that. I felt like he wasn’t being fair. He can’t feel what I feel. He has said, with a pissed off attitude, “it’s going to happen so I don’t know why you’re upset” but he knows that early menopause runs in my family and my mum was unable to have kids right around the age of 30. He keeps telling me I should get tested to find out how much time I have but it’s scary, you know? Obviously it’s better to know but he can’t understand from my point of view that if the time isn’t long, that will be terrible to know. It will only make things worse and more stressful. I am getting the test now but I am scared. I didn’t tell him I’m getting the test because I just can’t deal with it right now. I’m hoping it says I have a lot of time. I am sad. I do want a baby, now. But I do think I will feel better about it if I know I have time. I can take a deep breath and I’ll still be sad but I can focus and get into a good place financially and be ready.

…the issue I’m having is the way that my husband has presented himself over the last week while I’ve been having a difficult time. He’s said “there’s no reason” for things I’m feeling a lot instead of being supportive and trying to understand what I’m thinking and feeling. The one time he tried to tell me that he understands, he compared this to him not making it big with music. He had a dream as a young person to be a big shot in the music industry and it still bothers him that he isn’t and probably won’t ever be. My sadness surrounding this whole thing “insults” him because “we are going to do your thing but mines done, never doing to happen” … I understand where he’s coming from but he doesn’t get it either. As women, we literally watch our chances of having a family pour from our bodies for a week every month. For those of us that want it so badly, that’s hard. I know people have it worse. There are people that want it and know 100% that it won’t happen. I am not discounting those people or their situations. I get that it could be worse but for him to compare my feelings to a musical dream, I feel isn’t fair… also in our conversation he said he hoped that he would be enough. That we would be enough. Which is sweet and I do love him but I wanted to be a mother first. And I’ve told him time and time again for the past 11 years that I would never change my mind about that. And in our back in fourth of an argument that I didn’t want to have the other night he said “I honestly thought you would just get over it”… that day that I spent crying in bed all day thinking that I chose the wrong person because we want different things in life that he assured me everything was fine… had he said THAT on that day.. that hopefully one day I’ll “just get over it”?!… I would have ended the relationship right there. Where the fuck did that come from? I can’t get over it. It’s lodged into my brain since he said it. When I look at him, when he talks to me… it hurts and I’m confused and I feel stuck and I just don’t know what to do now…