r/FenceSitters

Asking as a 34 year old woman who’s currently on the fence / leaning towards no. Having a healthy and happy relationship is more important to me than having children. I haven’t seen many examples where both coexist. There’s such an extreme biological shift for women that honestly terrifies me and I realized I hadn’t asked any dads for their insight about how they experienced it.

It’s like for example sometimes you’re on an awesome vacation having a blast not worrying about money or being tied down

Then other quiet days it’s like is this all meaningless fun with no point

As a 34yr old woman I have always been on the fence about having children. I've been married to my husband (41) for 10 years now, we are both neurodiverse and have the best marriage. We are literally best friends, we love spending time together, going on adventures together. Still super affectionate and silly together. We've been through so many highs and lows, we 100% couldn't live without each other.

We often talk about having a baby together we both love children, but we also know how hard it is and how much life changes in parenthood. What if we change? Maybe we will always be missing each other from the reduced time together. Maybe life will be too serious for the playful little life we always knew.

We have friends who have had children and their marriages (while never seeming to have the intense love and connection we share) have suffered. Neither of us have met a couple like us, who had children and are truly happy.

Sadly unlike most things in life it's not a decision you can take back if you aren't happy! So I'm hoping the comments here might finally knock me off the fence, one way or another.

TLDR - I’m a fence sitter and lost.

I’ve been with my partner nearly 7 years \[30F\]\[32M\] we’re engaged own a house and have a dog. The conversation and inner debate about children is more frequent now as I’ve reached 30 I’m worried about body clock etc. I’ve always been a fence sitter and in the mindset of if it happens it happens but my partner is a definite no and this hasn’t changed. I’m currently in turmoil of what to do, we have these conversations but nothing evolves we sweep under the rug until the next time. My predicament is as we’re approaching the next step of getting married and I’ve been asked to make a decision that I still don’t know the answer too, in my mind something bad hasn’t happened in order to justify ending the relationship but I know that if I say yes I want kids then that would have to happen. But then if I say I don’t want kids and go ahead as planned getting married would I regret it? My question really is to women that were fence sitters or for people that have changed their mind on having children. what would you do? Is there another solution other than to end things? Or continue on pretending that there isn’t this giant topic that ultimately is going to need to be addressed? It’s creating such stress on myself as ultimately there is nothing wrong in the relationship.

for the longest time, i’ve (30f) never wanted to have a child and have felt very secure in my decision to be cf. around nine or so months ago i started having huge mood swings around the idea, i would guess both due to hormonal shifts after turning 30 and being in a really healthy and safe relationship. the tldr version on my fiancé’s end of things is that he’s indifferent and wants me to make the choice that would make me happiest.

i have some time to think on it since neither of us would want me to get pregnant before our wedding and that’s over a year out. since then, i’ve been looking at a lot of online info and talking about it with my therapist.

one big question i see come up asks if the reason you want a kid is because you want to identify as a mother and the title of having a kid or if you really want to do the hard work of being in a child’s life and raising them. the question brings up that there are many people who just want to say they’re a parent, have it as an identity, “have” a child/family like you would have a tangible object, etc but don’t want to do the work. the thing is, i’m the exact opposite. i work as a therapist, and i would absolutely love to help a child navigate the world and grow into their own person. and sure, the work of parenting doesn’t always sound pleasant, but the hard parts sound like a sacrifice i’d being willing to make. however, having “mom” be a part of my identify grosses me out so bad. i know myself, and i know i would not react well to having an onslaught of “mommy / mama” nicknames on me from anyone but my actual child, would not want anything to do with “mommy” related groups, would not be responsive to people who only knew my by (child’s name) mom, etc.

i think that’s probably a sign i shouldn’t be a parent, but i don’t think i’ve seen anyone else have my response to the aforementioned questions the way i did. does anyone else feel like they want to raise a child but don’t want to lose their identity? and has anyone actually made a decision based on it?

So, I've been with my boyfriend for two years. He was my first relationship, and honestly, he's everything I ever wanted in a partner. He cares about me so much, adores me, and would do anything for me. We genuinely love and respect each other, and our relationship is healthy.
I've always had commitment issues, and even while dating him, I struggled with them at first. But he was always patient, reassured me, and helped me work through my fears instead of giving up on me.
Also, he's younger than me, but neither of us has ever had an issue with that. He's planning to meet my family in a few months because we're both thinking seriously about our future together.
The problem is that we have one major incompatibility that we've never been able to solve.
I don't want children. I don't mean "not right now"—I mean I genuinely don't want to be a mother. Motherhood has never been something I've wanted, and I don't see that changing.
He, on the other hand, loves kids and has always dreamed of having a family. He doesn't want a huge family, but ideally he'd like three or four children.
We've actually tried breaking up over this because we know it's a huge issue, but we couldn't go through with it. We love each other too much. We've spent two years trying to find some kind of compromise, but there really isn't one.
I know most people are going to say that one of us has to sacrifice, but that's the problem—we can't. We're both willing to compromise on so many other things, but not this one. Having children isn't something you can meet halfway on.
I honestly don't know if there's a solution. Has anyone else been in a situation like this? If so, how did it end?