| Dear Carolyn: My wife wants “a lot” of children, whereas I have always wanted only one. My reasons for this preference are financial, intellectual, emotional and philosophical (my wife has heard them). My wife has stated very strongly that she doesn’t want to have an only child, and she also has very good reasons for that, which I can understand even if I don’t agree with them. She has told me she does not want to have one child if we won’t go on to have more, and in the meantime, we have zero. This is going to sound dramatic, but I feel like I’m being held hostage because I won’t agree to some unspecified number of children I don’t want. I want to be a parent very badly, as does she, and I feel very sad that there doesn’t seem to be a way to compromise and that zero kids is apparently the only other available option. She would obviously be the person to give birth, and I don’t have any cards to play that are stronger than that. Where do we go from here? I am 37, and she is 33. I’d also like for us to expand our family while our parents are relatively youthful. We don’t have forever. — Very Sad |
