Womb With A View
My friend constantly talks to me about her baby on the way and asks me to help her pick out furniture and clothes for it. This is very painful for me because my husband doesn't want kids and I agreed not to have any. I didn't realize I'd have this deep longing for a child, but I love him and am not willing to leave him. I also have a hard time asking for things, even if a person is my friend. How do I tell her it would be better for me not to talk about this so much without making her feel bad?
--Never-Be Mom
It's hard when hanging out with your friend is one long "Look what the stork is bringing!" and all you can think is "My stork got run over by a bus en route to my house."
Understandably, you don't want your friend to feel bad. But you're protecting your friend's feelings at the expense of your own, feeling extra bad because you aren't telling her you need something from her: to stop bringing you in on crib picks and "which onesie is cuter?" because it shines a spotlight on the bare space in your life where a baby would go.
In other words, she's become a crappy friend to you -- through no fault of her own. Maybe she doesn't know you chose your husband over a baby, or maybe she thinks you've made your peace with that. By keeping mum about your feelings, you've effectively transformed her -- turned her into the pregnant version of some empathetically bankrupt Binge-Shopper Barbie dragging a friend with no head to all the hat sales.
Imagine if you were as attentive to emotional pain as you are to physical pain. If your friend backed her SUV onto your toes, you wouldn't just stand there all, "I have a hard time asking for things, even if a person is my friend." You'd scream; she'd move the thing; and then she'd whisk you off to the nearest urgent care for a lollypop and an X-ray.
In contrast, consider where submerging your emotions, opting for the just-suck-it-up approach, leads. As clinical psychologist Randy Paterson puts it: "If you cannot say no, you are not in charge of your own life." He explains that a "passive" style like yours is "designed to avoid conflict at all costs." (In fact, conflict we avoid doesn't go away; it just eats away at us on the inside.)
Paterson observes that passivity often emerges from a deep fear of being rejected and the mistaken sense that "the way to be accepted and appreciated by others is to give and give." It leads us to keep our opinions to ourselves, give in to unreasonable demands, and generally sell ourselves out in a desperate and typically counterproductive attempt to gain others' approval.
Your passive style might have been protective for you once, like if you were a little kid trying to avoid getting smacked around by violent alcoholic parents. But chances are you've continued using it out of habit, because it's become automatic, not because you closely evaluated it and decided that it still makes sense. And it still might -- that is, if you, as an adult, have fisty alcoholic giants as your legal guardians.
You can choose to shift to a healthier style: assertiveness, sticking up for yourself and your needs in an effort to rebalance your interactions with other people so they feel fairer. You do this by being direct and honest about how you'd like to be treated. State your needs calmly, using respectful language, and do it in a timely way -- as soon as possible -- instead of endlessly festering with resentment that someone hasn't read your mind and changed their behavior accordingly.
Assertiveness is ultimately the active form of self-respect (a person's sense that they have value and thus have the right to ask to be treated as if their needs matter). Keep that in mind when you first start asserting yourself, which is sure to feel seriously uncomfortable and maybe even terrifying. Do it despite that. Refuse to let your fears be the boss of you, turning your life into one big suck-it-up fest.
Be prepared for the other person to disagree with you, dislike what you say, or even get angry. All you can control is your own behavior -- through putting your needs out there in a calm, respectful, timely, and nontoxic way. Mick Jagger, wisely, noted that, "You can't always get what you want." However, you're more likely to have a crack at it if you don't just seethe with anger until your friend finally figures it out at her baby shower (upon unwrapping your generous gift of matching Mommy-and-baby Swarovski-encrusted muzzles).
For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.
Man I need this one today. Am cleaning the house for a party I don't want to have that I got guilted into because my relatives complained I don't host often enough... just did 2 kiddie parties last week and now I get to host the whole family, every one of whom is an asshole neat freak who likes to be super judgey about everything and not keep it to themselves.
NicoleK at October 15, 2020 7:49 AM
Unrelated to the thrust of the column, but I can't help but feel bad for the letter writer for giving up her desire to become a mother to be with the man she loves.
That's one hell of a compromise! She didn't ask you this, but how does someone reconcile a desire for children with a partner who doesn't want them? Where does this pent-up desire to bring a new life into the world and nurture to adulthood end up going? I can't help but feel this is not going to bode well for their future together. When the time comes that she can no longer have children, will she be roiling in resentment towards her husband?
Especially if he ends up changing his mind and trades her in for some hot young number who can still have babies.
I just can't help but feel this should be everyone's dealbreaker. If you can't agree on whether you want kids, then don't get married! Move on and find someone who feels the same way you do about kids!
Patrick at October 15, 2020 3:33 PM
Unrelated to the thrust of the column, but I can't help but feel bad for the letter writer for giving up her desire to become a mother to be with the man she loves.
That's one hell of a compromise! She didn't ask you this, but how does someone reconcile a desire for children with a partner who doesn't want them? Where does this pent-up desire to bring a new life into the world and nurture to adulthood end up going? I can't help but feel this is not going to bode well for their future together. When the time comes that she can no longer have children, will she be roiling in resentment towards her husband?
Especially if he ends up changing his mind and trades her in for some hot young number who can still have babies.
I just can't help but feel this should be everyone's dealbreaker. If you can't agree on whether you want kids, then don't get married! Move on and find someone who feels the same way you do about kids!
Patrick at October 15, 2020 3:36 PM
I’m with Patrick on this. The problem isn’t the friend, the problem is that she’s changed her mind and her friend is a symbol of what she has agreed to give up. For anyone else reading, this is why doctors don’t sterilize women before a certain age. They have vast experience dealing with women and know, that a woman in her 20’s who says she never wants kids, will most likely be the 40 year old sobbing in his office when he tells her it’s too late to try. This girl needs to decide if children are a priority for her pronto. If they are, she needs a new husband. Let the current one go and be smarter about making compromises in the future. I wish her well.
Sheep Mom at October 16, 2020 12:27 PM
I second Patrick and Sheep Mom.
David H Doo at October 16, 2020 12:35 PM
I was the husband in this scenario, many years ago. I never wanted kids, and I made that clear when I first got married. My bride, then 22, went along with me. Seven years later, baby rabies kicked in. If we'd divorced then, she'd have had time to find someone else. But she spent six years trying to change my mind before we finally split. By the time she remarried she was over 40. Never had kids.
Rex Little at October 18, 2020 9:03 PM
I don’t know if this is helpful, but I was the letter writer in this scenario. The last guy I was with really didn’t want kids. I told him I wanted one, but we stayed together anyway. I eventually got around to the conclusion we should part, and left him. After a solid week of denial and telling me he was considering dumping me first, he told me he’d love to have a kid with me, and we didn’t have to limit it to one. Months later, he stands by that. He’ll randomly text to tell me he made a mistake assuming he didn’t want a family with me. I am 100% sure he wouldn’t have done the deep thinking on that if I didn’t leave him. Of course, idk if that’s helpful, because leaving is hard, and when I do it it’s because I’m truly done.
Anon at October 19, 2020 12:35 PM
Rex,
That appears messed up on her part. What's really crazy is that after you two were divorced, it seems like she used her remaining time to search for someone willing to have kids, go through an entire engagement and wedding before she could even think about getting pregnant.
Anon,
You didn't confirm this, but it sounds like you never went back to that guy. Good.
Fayd at October 19, 2020 1:04 PM
I don’t know if this is helpful, but I was the letter writer in this scenario. The last guy I was with really didn’t want kids. I told him I wanted one, but we stayed together anyway. I eventually got around to the conclusion we should part, and left him. After a solid week of denial and telling me he was considering dumping me first, he told me he’d love to have a kid with me, and we didn’t have to limit it to one. Months later, he stands by that. He’ll randomly text to tell me he made a mistake assuming he didn’t want a family with me. I am 100% sure he wouldn’t have done the deep thinking on that if I didn’t leave him. Of course, idk if that’s helpful, because leaving is hard, and when I do it it’s because I’m truly done.
Anon at October 19, 2020 1:10 PM
Fayd, no I didn’t. It was hard, but I’m confident about it now.
My comment posted twice because I was in a restaurant with no reception, oops
Anon at October 19, 2020 1:15 PM
Fayd,
I don't know if she was still looking to have kids after we divorced. She was 35 then, and may have decided it was already too late. She did eventually remarry, and they're still together after more than 25 years.
Rex Little at October 20, 2020 5:58 AM
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