The Baby Decision
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Jay and Audrey considered such a solution because Audrey desperately wanted a child and Jay was just as adamant about remaining childfree. They were so impossibly deadlocked that Audrey considered telling Jay, “OK, you don’t have to be a father. Just get me pregnant, and I’ll do the rest. I’ll change all the diapers, arrange all the child care, and even pay all the child’s expenses out of my salary. You won’t even have to hold it if you don’t want to.”
Luckily, Audrey decided not to follow through because in such an arrangement both partners would lose. Jay would lose his coveted childfree status. Audrey would have to accept the sometimes delayed gratification of “single parenthood” while Jay enjoyed the immediate pleasures of remaining “childfree.” Or trying to. His alternatives would be guilt at staying uninvolved or resentment at getting involved against his will. Audrey cannot drastically change her life—by becoming a parent—without drastically changing her husband’s life. Jay is a stickler for neatness but would have to put up with mess. Jay loves silence but would have to put up with noise. Jay loves Audrey’s undivided attention, but he would have to share her with the baby.
What would happen if Audrey ran a 103-degree fever and the baby needed to be fed in the wee hours? What if they had tickets for a special concert and the babysitter canceled at the last minute? The babysitter blues would be a poor substitute for his favorite music. In such situations, Jay would have to pay the price of being a father even though it was Audrey who ran up the bill. And Audrey would have to pay the price of Jay’s resentment and endure the consequent deficit in their marriage.
Furthermore, consider how a child would be affected by living with a parent who’s uninvolved or only reluctantly involved. As a psychotherapist, I have worked with hundreds of such parents and children and observed the emotional anguish of all involved.
When a couple seriously entertains such an idea, the partner who wants children either:
Mistakenly assumes that once the baby is born the reluctant partner is going to turn into a parent—if not a model parent, at least a functioning parent. But the result is more likely to be a malfunctioning marriage and family.
Consciously or unconsciously decides that having a child is more important than staying married. This can, in fact, be a roundabout, “safe” way of drifting toward a desired divorce without ever having to take responsibility for it.
If you don’t want a child and your partner does, can you think of some way to help him or her meet those intense needs to parent? For example, if your husband wants to borrow his nieces and nephews on Saturday afternoons, maybe you could take over the bill-paying he usually does then in order to give him time for his “children.” In this way, you can show respect for your husband and for his desire to have something you don’t want. You can make him feel loved and understood despite your disagreement about parenting and also show your willingness to make some compromises, despite your unwillingness to have a baby.
If your partner agrees to your decision, you may be terrified: Will he or she leave because my choice was just too hard on them? Will anger, resentment, or grief kill your love?
Your behavior is crucial.
Express gratitude about the sacrifice.
Ask, “What can I do to show my gratitude?”
Ask, “How can I make my choice more palatable to you?” Some answers might be: “I want to visit my sister and her kids often without your complaining,” or “Make sure even after the baby comes that I’ll have time for exercise, meditation, and friends.” Be ready to listen to anger, sadness, and regret. There must be no “statutes of limitations.” It is your responsibility, having gotten your partner’s consent, to let them express their thoughts even years later, e.g. “I’d be in grad school now if you hadn’t convinced me to have a child.” or “My sister, who was going to be childfree forever, is pregnant. It makes me wish we had gotten pregnant despite your doubts.” If you don’t think you can, or should have to do this, please go to couple’s psychotherapy. Your happiness depends on your willingness to continue listening from time to time. You can still have a wonderful life together, but your willingness to express gratitude and to listen on an ongoing basis makes it possible for your partner to feel loved and respected enough to accept your choice.
Should you Marry Someone Who Disagrees with You on Having Kids?
Are you trying to decide simultaneously on a long-term love commitment and a baby? For some couples, mutually leaning toward both, you can make these decisions simultaneously.
If, however, you are quite opposite in your leanings, I would advise you to resolve the baby decision first. If neither of you can imagine, even in the future, accepting your partner’s choice, as much as you love each other, a permanent commitment may not make sense. Short-term couple therapy may be crucial for sorting things out.
Is Counseling the Answer?
You should seek counseling for this conflict if:
You find it impossible to talk about it or to get your partner to talk about it.
You’ve followed the advice in this chapter and still feel hopelessly embattled.
Before You Head to the Divorce Court . . .
Are you considering divorce? Use caution. Try to avoid an impulsive choice in a moment of rage or panic, a choice that you will later regret.
1. Is more than the baby issue involved? What else do you fight about? How else do you feel your partner fails to meet your needs?
2. How will you handle the decision about having a child if you remarry? Can you be sure a solution will be any easier the second time around?
3. Have you considered the pros and cons of single parenthood? (See Chapter 9, “Alternative Parenting”)
4. Do you have realistic expectations about parenthood? Do you think parenthood is so wonderful that it might be worth risking the end of a good marriage?
5. Are you really prepared to leave you partner over this conflict, or are you threatening your partner in hopes of getting what you want? Consider the possibility that your partner may feel so angry and hurt by such declarations that it may take weeks or months to get over this, time that could have gone into planning together in a way that would deepen your relationship.
Try to be realistic about the loss of your partner: it might include emotional turmoil, conflict, loneliness, missing your partner, and the expenses of legal fees and maintaining two households. Even if there is a part of you thinking or saying, “Good riddance!” there is likely another part that still loves and values your partner. That part might wail later on, “What have I done?” Unless your relationship was already on the rocks and you were already considering divorce, leaving could turn out to be even harder than accepting your partner’s choice. This situation calls for therapy. I recommend that each of you have a least one individual session with a therapist to clarify your feelings. It’s impossible to do this in a couples’ session because your partner’s presence will inhibit you from fully expressing your feelings and exploring your options. Next, it makes sense to see a couples’ therapist to help you either work on the baby conflict or to help you separate with a minimum of animosity.
Even if divorce is the right decision, take care with this transition. Even if you initiated the divorce, and especially if you didn’t, you will still need some time to grieve the relationship. There will be things you will miss about your partner and your shared life together. You will need to accomplish this task, no matter how relieved you are that you will be remaining childfree or how much you are looking forward to becoming a parent. Whether you have therapy or get support from family and friends, you will need some transition time. Don’t neglect self-care, such as eating, sleeping, and exercise. Ask for help when you need it.
Taking the time for this transition will prepare you for seeking a new relationship and/or parenthood.
It may be appealing to think about how you will become a parent in your new life situation. Perhaps you are considering adoption on your own as a single parent or with a
new partner. Keep in mind, however, that adoption agencies will want to ascertain that you have healed enough from your marriage to be fully ready to focus on the adoption process and on nurturing your child, and they will usually want you to have been married for at least two, if not three years before you are eligible to adopt. If you are considering pregnancy, should you need a high-tech, stressful fertility treatment such as in-vitro fertilization, your program will require a psychological evaluation, and you may face disappointment if the program’s psychological screening evaluation professional thinks you need more time healing to be ready for the roller coaster of hope and disappointment as well as the medical and logistical stresses.
Of course, if you are thinking of leaving your partner in order to remain childfree, you will not have the same time pressures as the people who are divorcing in order to meet their needs to parent. Nevertheless, you will experience financial losses and emotional losses that may inhibit your starting a new relationship or pursuing the activities you preferred over parenting.
None of this is to say that leaving your partner to become a parent is impossible or that it might not be a good solution. These notes are simply to help you think your decision through carefully. Your resilience will help you weather the storms, and this decision may work out well for you. Obviously, these are tough considerations.
The Second Time Around
Simon and Judy’s marriage seemed to be made in heaven—the first year, that is. This is his second marriage, her first. At their first anniversary dinner, Judy made a toast: “May we have a little one to celebrate by our second anniversary.”
Simon choked on his shrimp cocktail. When he stopped coughing, he looked at Judy as if Dr. Jekyll had suddenly turned into Ms. Hyde. “But, Judy! Why spoil all this? Do you have any idea what a kid would do to our marriage?”
For the moment, joyous thoughts of their marriage were overshadowed by gloomy visions of divorce. Simon knew more about divorce than he wanted to. His previous twelve-year marriage had ended in divorce. And when Simon moved out he didn’t just leave a wife. Simon already had an eight-year-old daughter and a twelve-yearold son with his first wife.
Although Simon loves his children, he never chose to have them. His ex-wife’s first pregnancy was an accident. He had enjoyed having a son, even though the marriage was stressful. Then against his better judgment, he agreed to have a second child “so Josh won’t be lonely.”
Simon and Judy talked about the baby decision before they decided to marry—well, they half-talked about it. Both had been aware of Judy’s interest in children, and both had mentally filed this under L for “later.” The question was just too scary. After all the emotional trauma they had gone through to be together, surely they wouldn’t let a teeny tiny baby issue keep them apart? They didn’t want to lose each other.
They managed to get back into the anniversary spirit, and postpone discussion about the conflict. They felt uneasy about the topic, but felt their relationship was strong. They were committed to working it through.
If you want to be a parent and you marry someone who already has children from a previous marriage, you can expect the tug-of-war to be more intense for the following reasons:
1.Differential willingness to sacrifice. The ABP (Already Been a Parent) has experienced both the joys and stresses of parenthood, and the idea of starting all over again can be quite daunting. For the NBP (Never Been a Parent), on the other hand, the pleasure of having a baby would appear to outweigh the sacrifices involved during the early years. The trade-off seems worth it. But the ABP has already experienced those pleasures firsthand, and in his or her eyes the sacrifices involved in parenting, at least a second time, with today’s possibly lower energy level may outweigh the joys.
2. Economic considerations. Many ABPs have to make child-support payments, and the idea of new bills may be quite frightening. If the budget is stretching to care for two existing children, perhaps it will burst with a third. The specter of one more college tuition can be terrifying.
3. The unfairness issue. If you are longing for a baby, you’ll resent that his ex-wife got to have kids, but you may not. And even if you do have a child, you may have to live frugally because of child support. There may be stress about the time your husband spends with his older children at your home or elsewhere.
Separate Faces – An Exercise for the ABP
Are you blurring your ex-wife and your present wife into one image of Wife-As-Mother? Try to imagine your ex-wife’s face. Now imagine your wife’s face. Picture a solid white line between them, separating them in your mind. Now try to figure out how much of the unpleasantness of your fatherhood experience stemmed from the unpleasantness of your first marriage? How would parenthood be different with your present wife? Are you making an unfair assumption that all women mother in the same way your ex-wife did? You chose your second wife because you thought you would be happier with her. Is it possible that you would enjoy parenting with her more than you did the first time? What characteristics does she have that might make her a better mother? Are they the same characteristics that make her a lovable partner, i.e., affection, patience, an ability to communicate?
After you’ve done this exercise, talk about it with your wife. Ask her if she thinks you’re confusing her with your ex-wife. Let her tell you why and how she thinks she would be different from your first wife as a parent.
The goal of this exercise is to make sure that your desire to remain childfree is based on a clear conviction of what’s best for the two of you, not on a mistaken blending in your mind of one wife with the other. This does not mean that you should have a child; it just means you owe it to yourself and your wife to examine this with as open a mind as possible.
It’s quite possible that confusing your former wife and your present one clouds other couple issues as well, and so doing this exercise may improve your marriage as a whole. You might consider having just one child with your new partner as feasible even if more would be out of the question.
If you are the new partner and the ABP is very opposed to having a child with you, you will be devastated. It may help to consider some substitute parenting experiences, such as volunteer work with children, or spending time with favorite nieces and nephews. Do you think some of these might be satisfactory? Would your husband bend over backwards to make it possible for you to participate in these activities?
Perhaps you’ve had the good fortune to have stepchildren whom you enjoy spending time with. This typically occurs after a rough period of getting to know each other, but sometimes things can be fairly smooth from the start. Even grown stepchildren that you like can be a positive addition to your new family. If and when the time comes, you might enjoy a close relationship with your husband’s grandchildren. Also consider the possibility that if the quality of your husband’s time with his existing children could improve, he might have more energy for a new baby. Don’t count on this, but it sometimes happens when divorced families work hard to get along, with the help of family therapists.
A Final Word About Conflict
Although conflict is never pleasant, take comfort in the fact that it often leads to growth. Weathering this storm successfully can draw you closer together—if you speak authentically and compassionately.
Before Aileen’s engagement ring ever touched her finger, she and Roger had agreed that they would never have children. Roger thrived on cleanliness, order, and quiet; children meant dirt, disorder, and noise. The good life he envisioned meant coming home from his law practice to a peaceful dinner with his wife. Aileen readily agreed. As a doctoral candidate in physics, she assumed that she couldn’t combine her career with motherhood.
Eight years later, while spending time with her sister’s baby, Aileen changed her mind. Although she had repressed it because she knew Roger would be miserable as a father, she became increasingly depressed. Whenever Roger mentioned a vasectomy, she changed the subject. He had noticed the mixture of pain and pleasure on her fa
ce when she played with her nieces and nephews. The couple went to see a therapist.
Questioning their decision did not make them change their minds. They agreed that remaining childfree was still the best choice, even though difficult. Having Roger was more important to Aileen than having children. But putting their cards on the table made them both feel better. As they discussed their conflicting desires, Aileen realized that her depression was a vague mourning for the children she would never have. Because she hadn’t been aware of her feelings, she had never openly mourned. But if she failed to do so, she might remain depressed indefinitely. With the therapist’s encouragement, she allowed herself to grieve. It was a stormy month. Aileen, crying for her “lost” children, lashed out at Roger for depriving her of them. They were both frightened by her anger. They discovered that they didn’t know how to be emotional with each other. Both had come from homes where emotional expression was unwelcome. Both had chosen careers—science and law—that used their strengths without demanding emotional expression. Through counseling, they learned to face their emotions and talk about them together. They became closer and more affectionate as a result.
Because Aileen had acknowledged her need for mothering, she could do something about it. She increased her time with her threemonth-old niece, sometimes one-on-one and other times hanging out with her sister’s family. Sometimes Roger came along and even enjoyed the gathering. Although this substitute mothering would never make up for her childlessness, it was a meaningful alternative.