My lady and I have scheduled a date tonight to discuss our goals for our relationship. For me, this is the time I've chosen to step decisively into Phase 4 of the MAP: making my intentions clear, stating my demands, issuing an ultimatum, whatever you want to call it.
I really think this is ultimately going to mean the end of our relationship. I am scared to death of that. One-itis? I've got it. Always have. From literally the first day I met this woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and I've lived every day since then as if that were going to be the case.
Background:
We have been together for nine years. We are not married. We have been living together for seven years. About five years ago she developed a problem where intercourse was sometimes painful for her. Doctors have been no help. They could give no diagnosis and no advice better than, "hold off on sex for a couple weeks and see if it gets better." It did not seem to make any appreciable difference. Sometimes it would hurt, sometimes it wouldn't. There didn't seem to be any reliable way of predicting or ameliorating the problem. After a while she told me that she was so frustrated with the whole thing that she needed to take a long break from intercourse, on the order of six months or more. I didn't have any better ideas, so I said okay. I was paralyzed by this. It brought out every over-Beta, my-own-needs-denying Nice Guy tendency I ever had.
Since then, sex has happened only when she initiates, which is every other month or so. She still has the pain problem. It does not seem quite as bad or as frequent, but it is still there.
I started running the MAP about seven or eight months ago. I feel like I am deep in Phase 3. In objective Sex Rank I probably outrank her by about a point. In effective Sex Rank (what she THINKS her Rank is versus what she thinks mine is) I probably outrank her by about two points because this pain problem has played such hell with her sexual confidence. She was never that confident to start with and this hasn't helped. I have started initiating again and the sex has increased to 1-3 times per week. When it's good, it's GREAT. When the pain problem rears its ugly head, it's the worst kind of starfish sex. As of right now, it's like a coin flip every time.
We are 30 and 29. We have no kids. She wants to buy a house together. I don't think I can enter that kind of long-term financial commitment with her until I am confident that our sex and relationship problems are dealt with.
I have made a list of everything I think she can reasonably do to improve our sex life and relationship. It includes things like reading Dr. Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy (which I recently read and have found extremely useful in explaining myself to me and how I got into this mess, a perfect complement to MMSL which explains to me how to get out of it) to better understand what I'm going through, going to the gynocologist and making more of an effort to get to the bottom of this pain problem and see how it can best be ameliorated, switching birth control to find something non-hormonal in hopes that it improves her general sex drive, and pledging to give me some kind of sex 3-5 times a week (doesn't have to be intercourse).
I looked at that list and then started asking some deeper questions which I have been avoiding for the last nine years. Like whether, assuming she did everything on the list and it all worked perfectly and her pain disappeared forever and her sex drive increased and within six months all our sex problems went away, it would make me happy.
In the short term, the answer is yes. I think that would make me deliriously happy for about five years.
In the long term, the answer is no. I want to have kids. She doesn't want to. She has been perfectly open and honest about this from the beginning. I have been... less honest. With her and with myself. I told myself that it wasn't a big deal, that you can have a perfectly happy and fulfilling life without kids. I told myself that I wasn't ready for kids anyway and I'd worry about it later. I told myself that anything can happen, she might change her mind, we might break up for other reasons. I told myself that there was no reason to deprive myself of what I want now (being with her) because of what I might want later.
That was all bullshit Hamster talk. She is not going to change her mind, and neither am I. I have tried to change my mind about this for nine years and it never really went away, I just pushed it to the back of my mind with typical Nice Guy needs-denial bullshit. Even if she told me that she'd consider it in the future, I don't think I'd believe her.
I plan to sit her down and tell her all of this. And then I plan to say, "I don't want to be your boyfriend any more. I want to be your husband, and I want to raise a child with you. If that's not something that's in the cards for us, I don't think we have a future together."
It breaks my heart that it's come to this, but I don't think it's fair to her to make her stay with someone who doesn't want the same things she does, and I don't think it's fair to me either.
I don't see a way out of this that ends with us together and happy. I spent most of yesterday crying because I knew I needed to do this. Because I truly believe that it's the only right thing to do.
I should have done this seven years ago.
I need to stop typing now because I'm at work and I'm going to start crying again.
Thank you for reading this.
FYI,
ReplyDeleteShe is very likely to suggest that you can work things out in some way. She is even very likely to agree with all or most of your demands.
Do not believe her.
You need to make this decision. Certainly tell her what you are thinking and get her input. But do not rely on "asking" her what she wants to do. She will very likely want to kick the can down the road another few years, hoping that you will change your mind. A few years from now when you are in your early 30s and you finally leave her for good because yes, you really do want kids, you will have left her with far fewer options for finding someone who is compatible with her long-term desire for childless companionship. Unless she can convince you that she is 100% committed to a future with you on your terms, you owe it to her to break it off with her now. Part of being the Captain is that it's your responsibility, not hers, to determine when breaking off the relationship is the best thing for both of you.
Of course she may be right: perhaps you really will change your mind if you spend a few more years together. The problem is that if you do not, you at 34 will be in great shape to move on to a fulfilling LTR. (This is the voice of experience, son.) Her prospects will be seriously impinged. Unless you can all-but guarantee, today, that you will be happy with her for the next 20 years, your responsibility is to suck it up and end the relationship so that you both can move on.
Ben, I am sorry you're dealing with this. I pushed aside/ignored some things that I needed in my relationship and got married anyway...and now I regret it. With a biologically driven thing like wanting children, you're never going to talk yourself out of it.
ReplyDeleteCdeJ above is right: She'll probably promise you the world, but lots of people make promises they don't mean in a desperate moment. Again, I've been around this block before. It sounds like you know that you don't have a future with her, yet you want it to be there anyway. Too bad that wanting it isn't enough to actually make it happen.
I will say that I hope your "date" is something casual. Don't bring this up at the table in a restaurant, since it might very well be an uncomfortable scene. Do something casual, like a walk in the park or going out for ice cream, so either of you can take space if you need a few minutes.
Good luck. You know what the right decision is here; don't second-guess it.
If she says she wants kids now and will have them with you, pin her down on a specific timeline. When will she go off birth control? If she hasn't gotten pregnant within a year of trying (most couples succeed within a year), then what will you do? Will you go to the doctor? Will you try infertility treatments? Will you split up? If she fails to deliver on any of her promises on this, or doesn't promise it to begin with, break up with her immediately.
ReplyDeleteStick to your plans. It's usually in a Womans instinct to want children of her own. Especially with a financially stable Male. If not you will be happier with someone else. Keep strong and hold your head up.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad for this happening now and not seven years ago but I'm glad for this happening now and not in nine more years.
ReplyDeleteThis is a huge dealbreaker and I think is good that you are not marrying her or buying that house to further cover this problem and as bad as you think you had been you are doing her a favor. You love her now but if you decide to just not have kids for her sake you will come to hate her and resent her as much as you love her now. This is one of those things that won't go away.
I wish you good luck and blessings.
From a female perspective, maybe it will help to hear this: You are keeping her from finding a longterm partner. If she doesn't want kids (and at late 20s, she's old enough to know this), your goals are irreconcilably opposed. You can't have the life you want with this woman, and she can't have the life she wants with you.
ReplyDeleteIf she definitely does not want children, and you definitely do, you've wasted 7 years of her time in finding a guy whose goals are compatible with hers, and she's wasted the same amount of time on you. That sounds harsh, but you know what to do now. Wait another five years, and while you may be able to find someone younger relatively easy at age 35, her odds of meeting a good guy decrease every year that she stays with you. If you really do care about her happiness, the kindest thing you could do would be to force her to go and find someone she can spend the rest of her life with (who is not you).