“The wife does not want children. How can I convince her?»

“I will never have children of my own, and the thought hurts me a lot”

Igor, 36 years old

“I love my wife very much. She is 38 and has a high school daughter who I just adore. At the same time, I also dream of my own child, but she doesn’t even want to hear about devoting the next 15 years of her life to raising children. She enjoys her job and wants to focus on her career.

I respect her decision, but it still means I will never have children of my own, and the thought hurts me a lot.”

“A modern woman is no longer a vessel for bearing children”

Konstantin Slepak, Jungian analyst

Unfortunately, Igor, I can only ask questions, guess and remain unaware of how my thoughts will coincide with your feelings.

It’s great that you carry the love that you are ready to send to your own child — it means that you feel that you have something to convey to him. And at the same time, it is sad that at the moment you do not have the opportunity to realize these feelings.

In a successful sequence of events, the image of the child is first born in the fantasy space of the couple and only then is embodied in the body of the woman. Sometimes one partner becomes the «author» of an imaginary child, and the second one joins later — when he matures. Maybe this is your situation…

I would like to know how long you have been married, whether the topic of common children was discussed before. In any case, it is curious: if you want to become a father, you find yourself in a marriage where you cannot satisfy it … What does such a life configuration mean for you? Maybe she is talking about your ambivalent, ambiguous attitude towards the unborn child?

Assess external and internal factors

From a biological point of view, both you and your spouse still have time to give birth to common children, but something in your couple does not allow them to appear in the near future … This may be due to external factors, such as uncertainty about the future, — it may be related to a difficult housing or financial situation or the influence of parental families on yours.

It is necessary to take into account internal psychological factors:

• different family images for you and your spouse may be related to whether you were only children or, conversely, grew up in a large family;
• experience of your wife’s previous pregnancy, including the role of her daughter’s father: he supported or, conversely, was a source of suffering and anxiety;
• degree of trust and confidence in each other;
• your wife may have experiences with body changes during and after pregnancy.

Invest in relationships

The decisive difference between you, in my opinion, is this: the wife has realized in her life what you have not yet realized — one of the functions of the first half of life, procreation. Now she is focused on social tasks, lives a fulfilling life, is passionate about her career and to some extent does not belong to you, you are not able to hold and control her.

And this can cause unconscious anxiety in you as a man: the wife is filled, but not by you. The future child is not seen by those who can fill and deepen or root your marriage. It seems that the wife is ready to leave the first half of life and find herself unattainably far away, solving completely different tasks of the second half of life.

A modern woman is no longer a vessel for bearing children. She can say “no” to a man for a variety of reasons, and this “no” is one of the sources of her self-respect. Your spouse says «no», but this «no» is not about your feelings, but about her plans for life.

And here it would be interesting to know, but how does your wife reflect your feelings? How much does she understand you and the sacrifice that you are forced to make? If you sacrifice your hope for a common child, what will you demand in return? And how do you experience her rejection of her victim? And how will you feel if she agrees to sacrifice career ambitions in favor of the child? What sacrifice are you willing to make in this case?

Mature relationships are always based on the fact that both sacrifice. If this does not happen and only one sacrifices, then there is a distortion, like a crack in the wall of a brick house.

Talk to each other

It is very important to talk to each other about mutual expectations and confess your anxieties, share experiences that are inevitably associated with sacrificing something very valuable. The experience when our feelings are heard and accepted is still a rare experience between partners, but it, in fact, works wonders: experiencing it, you want to live and create, share and be grateful. But it can arise only from sincere conversations, where there is no place for depreciation and overflowing emotions.

Appreciate the individuality of the other

I understand that it is unrealistic to perceive a partner solely as a separate person with his own past, with his own history, worldview, one who is free from our desires and, by and large, does not owe us anything. Every day we repeatedly use partners, we expect something from them.

But at the same time, it is important to learn to appreciate that a partner can live their own life and share it with you and expect the same from you. This is exactly what we most often call love. Your wife should not give birth to a child for you, but she may want it, ripen to it.

The scenario may be different: she may at some point feel that the problem is not that she needs to invest in a child for 15 years, but that her interest in a career separates her from her beloved man, that she is in such a hurry to live several lives, that the hearth is fading, passion and intimacy are leaving the relationship, because the relationship develops according to her personal scenario, and not according to the scenario that both of you became the author of.

If you manage to be patient, sincere, begin to accept and share the values ​​of your wife, then in any case you will be rewarded with what is born in the relationship further — even if it is not a child. Of course, this will only happen if your spouse treats you the same way.