My boyfriend and I (we are in our early 20s) have been dating for a month and were friends for a couple of years. When we were talking about the future and the topic of kids was brought up by him. I have always said to my friends that I don’t like children and definitely don’t want them. Even as a child I knew I definitely did not want kids. When I reiterated this to him he said that he thinks children is something he’s always wanted. I said I’d keep an open mind if he does and he agreed. Recently we talked about the future again and in that conversation he said he really doesn’t think he can keep an open mind on this. He said we will see where things go and the conversation ended. I realised that when I had him agree to keep an open mind I was hoping that meant I could convince him to not want kids.
I don’t see the point in them and he can’t give me a good reason to even want them. Simply being “I feel like I want them” “it’s something I’ve always wanted” doesn’t make sense. The reasons to not have children is more compelling, logical and practical. Whereas to have them the argument is never very sound and attributing such a decision to emotion makes no sense to me.
If I ever wanted to have children I would rather foster and then potentially adopt. However, if this were to never happen I wouldn’t be disappointed. I think the next time we talk about this I will mention this but part of me hopes he dislikes parenting based off the foster experience.
My boyfriend means the world to me and we get along so well. He is perfect for me but children is the only thing we cannot agree on. I really don’t want the relationship to end and I’m scared to talk about this again I case it leads to that. How should I approach this? What should I say? I don’t want to break up the thought of it brings me to tears.
TL;DR
Boyfriend wants kids and I don’t but I still want the relationship to work.