Me [36M] with my Wife [34F] 12 Years, Cannot agree about having a second child

You don't seem to realise the gravity of what you've done to your wife by your early dismissal of her desire to have more than one child.

My ex husband did something similar to me, a bait and switch, it was devestating when I realised that he never actually wanted the same life as me. Our marriage was built on lies, although he believes that he never intentionally let me on, it still could have been avoided if he had just been honest from the start.

Now I will never have a family, and I'm years behind in where I wanted to be in my life, I don't even know if I will get to where I want to be because my health has taken some difficult turns and I don't quite know what the future looks like anymore. We went to couples therapy together, and it was definitely helpful but it was there that we realised we couldn't have a life together and both be happy, so we split. We were better off, there was already a lot of resentment.

It hurt deeply, and I feel deeply for your wife.

You might want to do some searching through this sub, for old topics along similar lines. You will find similar advice about going to therapy, even though you have good communication you might be surprised with what you will learn about yourselves and each other. You will also find all different kinds of outcomes and opinions, everything will help.

You may also want to check out /r/childfree to search for threads on people who've been stuck in a similar place in their relationship.

I'm glad that you'll read through all of this together, and for what it's worth I don't think you are looking for ways to change her mind as other posters have suggested.

However you do come across as treating this as a somewhat trivial thing that can be negotiated though because your relationship and love are strong enough, and that is somewhat naive when it comes to the emotionally charged and deeply personal topic of having children. But what you appear to be missing is how your approach appears to be a betrayal of a partner who trusted you and was honest with you right from the start, and I think that what has users here so upset with you. I know you probably didn't really act this way on purpose and you didn't intentionally deceive her, but it was not an approach to take with a partner who wanted a family because there is nothing more hurtful than realising that the partner you loved and trusted wants to take away a dream like that from you.

There's no compromise to be made on having children, if a couple isn't in agreement it will rarely have an ending that doesn't involve someone being hurt. Get to a counsellor quickly, and hopefully you can reach an agreement.

/r/relationships Thread