When Getting Married Depends on You Wanting Kids

A reader asks... My partner won't marry me until we decide on kids, but I wanted someone who would choose me no matter what. How do I reconcile this?

This is another installment of Dear Fence Sitter where I answer reader questions about dilemmas that fellow fence sitters are facing and try to give them wisdom, guidance or help them make a decision. This series is for paid subscribers only. In order to have your question answered and read the full archive, upgrade your subscription!

Dear Amanda, my partner and I have been together 15 months. He wants kids, I'm on the fence. He won't move cities or integrate families until we decide on marriage, which includes the kids decision. I feel pressure to get off the fence because I want to get married for the first time ever.

1. I struggle with the fact that my partner will never, never, never, understand what it feels like being the one who will have to carry the baby, whose body will get affected, on whom societal parental expectations may be different. I think childbirth requires a kind of sacrifice that a man will never have to make: women risking their bodies to unknown changes and medical issues (big or small). He could empathise and be there for you, but a man would never truly understand this at a deeper level. (Or am I wrong?) How can I have and raise a child with a man without hating him for something that’s not his fault?

2. Having seen bad marriages (never ending fights + dominating men) across generations of my family, I felt I wanted a partner who’d choose me no matter what. Which meant he’d choose me first, kids or no kids. For me who I will spend my life with trumps the kids decision. For me living with someone and experiencing a happy marriage is essential before I decide if I want kids. But that can’t happen. How do I reconcile this?

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Hi! Oh man this is such a layered topic and I have A LOT of things to say. Hopefully some of them will help! I loved all your detail, so hopefully you don’t mind that I had a lot of thoughts and ideas I wanted to share.

Let me start by saying something that might sound counterintuitive. The fact that you're struggling to separate the kids decision from your relationship isn't a problem to solve… it's information to pay attention to. These decisions ARE deeply intertwined, and pretending they're not is what gets people into trouble.

You said "that pressure is ruining everything," and I believe you. When we feel like we have to make a decision by a certain deadline - especially one as monumental as this - it can make us feel frantic and cloudy rather than clear. Your partner has given you until the end of 2025, but you're treating this like a test you might fail rather than a timeline that gives you space to explore.

Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash

The Ideal vs. Reality

I know I just told you that these decisions are intertwined, but I also want to acknowledge something: you deserve to know for yourself whether you want kids. In an ideal world, you'd figure this out completely independently, and then either find a partner who wants the same thing or have a partner who's flexible either way. But life rarely works that cleanly.