Hi everyone, I (30F) am really struggling in my current relationship with my boyfriend (37M) of 6 years and i need advice on if i should break it off.
We have been together for a very long time and I’m needing to know if i should even stay with this man anymore since I have recently found out that we have very different values when it comes to commitment. We got into a huge argument about a week ago and now i don’t know what to do and need advice on whether this relationship i worth staying with him because besides this one difference we align on all other things.
Some context is that we started dating after i got out of a very abusive long term relationship and few months after my mom passed away. So It was probably not the best time for me to be looking for a relationship but when i met him i felt like he was my person and we clicked instantly. We are at the point in our lives that i feel the next step is to start talking about marriage. I told him this and we looked at engagement rings (with me planning the whole thing and more push back from him than i expected. Should have been red flag #1). We looked, found one i fell in love with. He got all the details and even told the clerk he’d be in touch soon, which got me extremely excited. That was 7 months ago, still not engagement, which is fine i understand things take time, i was just happy we were moving in the same direction. I would make jokes and drop hints to him that it would be so nice if i had that beautiful ring to show off and i can’t wait till i do. Or tell him when we get married we should do this and he would agree smiling. So i thought that these were all good signs, turns out he was never planning on proposing to me because he didn’t see the point unless we started a family.
I have never wanted kids for as long as i can remember, i was upfront about this and i thought he accepted it. Im now realizing that he just told me what i wanted to hear because he waned this to work out, so i was under the impression that we were on the same page.
To add over the years the conversation never came up unless i brought it up when talking about the future and what he wants vs what i wanted but it was never a set in stone thing or something he was even sure he wanted. I want to be married because i am a hopeless romantic and to me marriage is the highest form of commitment and presentation of you and your partners love. He had told me when we started dating that he was married once and said he’d consider getting married again, but the new condition is only if that resulted in a family. When i reminded him that I didn’t want kids and i made that very clear to him in the beginning, his response to me was well I’d hoped that when you got closer to your mid 30s you’d change your mind like most women do, or that maybe he’d change his since he’s getting closer to 40 and doesn’t think he’d have the energy for it.
Now I’m stuck in this limbo space where i don’t know if i should continue with this relationship anymore since we don’t have similar values like i thought and if he does truly want kids then i don’t feel right taking that away from him. To add to the complicatedness of the situation is that i am in school and had quit my long term stable job about 4 months ago and he is financially taking care of me through it all. I own my own home but it is currently being rented and where we live it would take me over a year to get the tenant out. Plus since i have no job id have no way to pay for my bills if it became an options sooner unless i quit school and go back to working full time. When i told him this he said if we did end up breaking up that he would still continue to take care of me and let me stay here free of charge because he wouldn’t want me to leave school after working so hard to get in just because we didn’t work out.
I have cried more these last few days than i ever have in my life, and i have been struggling with what I should do. This man has been my rock and i love him more than i have ever loved another human, the thought of being a part makes my chest ache and it feels like my life would end. But i don’t want to have kids and as much as i love him i don’t want to change my whole life permanently to give them to him. I feel if he really does want to have kids then we need to break up and he needs to find someone who he shares that same value with. But he doesn’t want to since this is the happiest he’s ever been with someone and he’s hopping one of us will change our minds in the next few years. Which i know i wont, so i think he’s hopping he can accept that without resenting me. I just know that wont be the case, i know if some really wants kids then thats something they should experience, even if its not with me.
TL;DR: i don’t want kids and he all of the sudden does and wont move to the next steps of getting married unless i say I’ll have kids
So should i end this?