Hi folks! I’m looking for some strangers perspectives and possible those of men tbh, as all my friends are female..
My (32F) boyfriend (30M) have been together a year now. I’ll call him M for easiness. We met on the apps and it’s all been going great, we have a lot of fun and he’s very generous and thoughtful.
I own my place and he’s living with his parents, he moved back with them a couple of years ago to allow him to save money to buy a place, he’s now planning to start looking in the next few months.
M has a three year old son who I’ll call E. He introduced me to E a few months ago and he seems to love me, he’s a lot of fun and I’ve really enjoyed doing activities with the three of us.
I recently spoke to M about our long term plans, I told him that I love spending time with M but I didn’t feel ready to live with him yet, but that perhaps he could consider me into his choices of places to buy (ie somewhere that I could maybe move into when we’re ready). He has the budget for this and agreed that he was on board. My mortgage deal is up for renewal next year so we agreed we could reevaluate then.
We’ve had a couple of conversations about kids and he’s said before that he’d want another, just not any time soon. Which was a-okay with me. I think I only want one and I want a strong foundation before even considering that.
However M threw me a bit of a curve ball the other day and said he wasn’t sure if he wanted another. I asked him why he felt this way and it seems as if he doesn’t want to do the new born time and be up all night, tired all the time etc etc. I suggested that perhaps his feelings were a result of his relationship with his ex and E’s mum (they get on mostly okay however by the time E was born I think M was pretty miserable and had admitted that they rushed into having E), he agreed and said there’s a chance he might change his mind down the line.
Since then I’ve been spiralling a little though! I reassured him that I don’t want a kid now and that having that strong foundation is very important to me. And I even said that down the line once we’re living together I wouldn’t suddenly announce it’s baby time before we’ve even settled. I also said that I would never pressure him if that’s not what he wanted, all I asked is that he be open to it and we discuss it down the line.
Then a little later I showed him a rehoming appeal for a dog on fb but said I’d rather have a puppy due to experiences with rescue dogs before and he said ‘why can’t that be your baby’ and it just rubbed me up the wrong way, so I said that we shouldn’t talk about it for now because I’d end up over thinking everything he said.
So now that’s what I’m going! I know this is probably a common issue couples face, but I don’t want to find myself five years into a relationship then hear that he doesn’t want kids. Equally I don’t want to leave him and look for someone who does want that with me. But why should I settle for less than what I want? Honestly my gut tells me he might change his mind but do I want to take that risk? I love him and he’s such a great partner, and it’s not like I’d rush into something with someone else if we ended it anyway. Plus, this is honestly my first long term relationship (I was a slow starter!) and to think of going back to being single is awful, I really can’t see my life without him now.
Has anyone been through anything similar and able to offer any advice?