Wanting or not wanting children is one of the most clear-cut deal-breakers in any relationship, which is why most couples make a point to discuss it before things get serious—to avoid unnecessary heartbreak down the line.
This Redditor thought he had. Before getting married, he sat down with his wife and had that exact conversation, and they seemed to be on the same page about starting a family. So when the time came, they began trying for a baby. Months passed, but for some reason, she just couldn’t get pregnant.
That’s when he stumbled upon the truth and realized that the woman he loved had been hiding a pretty serious secret from him all along. Read the full story below.
The man and his wife were trying for a baby, but she was struggling to get pregnant
Image credits: Freepik (not the actual photo)
When he found out the real reason why, he felt completely betrayed
Image credits: Alena Darmel/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: throwawayaitadadthin
Having or not having kids is a conversation every couple needs to have
Image credits: Gustavo Fring/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Starting a family is one of the biggest changes a couple can go through. There’s the pregnancy itself, and then the actual work of raising children, which is a massive undertaking on its own. You have to be financially ready for it. You have to be emotionally ready for it. No matter how you look at it, it’s a lot.
Which is exactly why experts say couples need to talk about it openly and honestly, and ideally, sooner rather than later. Who knows, maybe it could even come up on a first date?
When you discover early on that one person wants kids and the other doesn’t, at least you have a clear answer. According to licensed marriage and family therapist Anita Chlipala, who spoke to Verywell Mind, there’s really no middle ground in that situation. Staying together under those circumstances means wasting each other’s time.
Things get more complicated in a long-term relationship. By that point, both people have deep feelings for each other and the stakes are much higher. Chlipala notes that it’s actually pretty common for couples to put off these harder conversations for years without realizing the damage that delay can cause.
And when they finally do have them, they don’t always go smoothly. Sometimes one partner has had a change of heart, or has reservations they never fully voiced.
In that case, the next step is figuring out why. Is it finances? Body image concerns? Are there certain conditions under which they could see it happening? And of course, some people simply don’t want kids, with no particular reason behind it. It’s a deeply personal decision and one that doesn’t require any justification.
Either way, once both people understand where the other stands, they can figure out whether there’s room for compromise or whether it’s time to go their separate ways.
In this story, the issue isn’t really about whether the wife wanted children or not. It’s that she said she did, and then admitted she had been lying about it. Maybe it’s because by the time the conversation about kids even came up, the couple had already been together for years, and she was simply too afraid of losing her husband to say anything.
But that fear, as understandable as it is, didn’t protect the relationship. It just delayed the inevitable and made everything hurt far more than it needed to. Which is yet another reminder of why having these conversations early really does matter.
Keeping a secret like this ends up doing more damage than the truth would have
Image credits: Gustavo Fring/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Hiding something from your partner rarely works out well. In fact, according to licensed therapist Darlene Lancer writing for Psychology Today, secrets and lies jeopardize trust and can damage relationships, sometimes irreparably.
The longer you wait to tell the truth, the harder it becomes to come clean. And when it finally does surface, it tends to hurt more than the original secret would have, because now the betrayed partner has to look back and question everything they thought they knew.
That’s essentially what happened here. While the husband was genuinely trying to build the family they had agreed on, his wife already knew she didn’t want that anymore. The longer she waited, the more she was asking him to invest in something she had no intention of following through on. It’s hard not to see why he felt manipulated.
Ultimately, the only real path forward in a situation like this is an honest conversation. It may be painful, and it may lead to a very difficult decision. But that’s still far better than letting the silence cause the damage for you.
Readers had some questions for the author, and he answered them in the comments
Many thought he had every right to be angry after being lied to
While some felt both of them handled the situation poorly
Others, however, believed he was in the wrong, arguing that having children is ultimately the woman’s choice
