Hello all,

I'm in my late 20's and I am happy to come to this site. I think it is safe to say you cannot really chose who you fall in love with. And I feel deeply in love with a woman who does not want anymore children (she already has one, who is not mine).

I am in a place, after almost 3 years of dating, that we feel as if we settled on spending the rest of our lives with each other and about 6 months ago, I asked her if she wanted to have children. I felt things were mixed on the issue of us having kids, but I was informed that I seriously misread what she said in the past that seemed like she wanted children.

Since then, things have been up and down. She got very upset after I started to get upset about her response to the children question, I felt that there was something in her that wanted children from vague things she said before, and assumed after some conversations, we would agree to have children like I assumed she wanted to all along, then work on figuring out how to do that. I thought just had to keep unpacking it with her since I knew she was somewhat confused on the topic from previous conversations. This eventually turned into serious fighting.

After I realized she truly didn't want children, biological (or adopted), I tried to accept it and tried to turn the whole thing into a romantic gesture because to me having children was something I thought was always in the background in our relationship and was romantic. I tried to talk to her about how I wanted children with her, specifically, and I did. My ideas about it were induced by her. Yet, this didn't at all illicit a similar romantic response in her. Instead, she was offended that I felt the only way we could be romantic/the only way I could love her is if she had children with me.

So then I backed off from trying to get something romantic out of that with her, to heal us a bit, and find someway to be stronger after, I tried to somehow transform the child thing into something else. So, I tried to have conversations about how we could work towards other things together other than children, some large milestones, and this also offended her (she felt I should just revel in what we had, we just bought a house together, for example, but I still cannot make a house some grand romantic gesture because owning property is just that, owning property).

Throughout all of this, there was nothing that I could say that would make her believe the truth, that I wanted children only because of her and that she gave rise to the idea of my wanting to have children (I honestly felt that wasn't in the cards for me until I fell in love with her). Instead, most conversations about this still turn into "well if you want children you should break up with me and go find someone else". I even showed her websites where psychologists say this doesn't need to be the response to one partner wanting children and other not, those websites eventually lead me here. This hasn't at all made the conversations, ones I almost stopped having because they go south and we never come to some loving conclusions, go to some loving healed place.

And, to this day, I feel there is a rift between my partner and I. I think our romantic life has changed because I acted fairly emotional throughout the child conversations in a way that showed a side of me that was embarrassing. And since these conversations, our romantic discourse has changed. We used to play a lot with the idea of having a children, even if I now realize she was simply playing, but I liked it and would like that to continue, but now she is uncomfortable. In short, it has made our intimate lives something different and I feel sometimes as if I am now just a toy and not a partner? It's a confusing feeling and it makes me uncomfortable, but I just can't shake it and I dont know who to talk to about it.

I wrote a lot here, but I need a place to vent and I would like to bond with many of you and share similar experiences. I'm still so lost on the children question... I love this person I am with and her child, but I am younger than her and really when I asked her about children was around the time we could still have a child together. I am also adopted and feel really weirdly about adoption, so weird it makes people who not adopted uncomfortable when I want to spend a lot of time going over the pros and cons of it. And that seems to make my partner uncomfortable, but I ultimately think, for me personally, I would have preferred to have a biological child.

There is also the issue of her child, who I also love. I am however not her father and never will be. And my uneasiness about the abnormality of coming into their life late (they are in their mid teens and I only have been in their life for 3 years) and how I am really not going to ever be seen as anything approximating a father and what that means later when the child has a graduation, a wedding, etc. I also feel really uncomfortable trying to get out of this child the familial feelings I want in life. It is not this child's responsibility to make me feel like their father, but then after I accept that, I still feel like I don't have a place and I want a place. Any conversation with my wife about it leads to them not really understanding my uneasiness about this. My wife also tries to make me feel as if I am close to being a father like figure for their child, but I think that is really inappropriate because, again, I am not the child's actual parent.

Again, I am just very lost and I hope I can start a dialogue with people here if anyone has anytime to respond to my lengthy text. I dont know if anyone has any advice or some similar experiences to share. And also, I will try to go into other forums and comment on things as well.

Best,
K