Dear Queenie,
I never wanted to have children. Before we got married my wife said she felt the same way, or I wouldn’t have married her. But now that my brother and his wife have a baby, all of a sudden she doesn’t think life is complete without one.
I still don’t want children. I don’t like them, and I do like the way we have been living without them.
Queenie, I’m not going to change my mind. How can I get my wife to stick to the deal we made when we got married?—Don’t want kids
Dear Don’t want kids,
It’s possible your wife told you what you wanted to hear before you were married, expecting you would change your mind, or she could change it for you, later on.
It’s also possible she is seeing her brother’s baby “through rose-coloured glasses” – only seeing how cute and warm and cuddly it is and not noticing the dirty diapers, 2:00am feedings, expense, crying at all hours, being tied down and all the other less appealing aspects of parenthood.
Arrange with your brother and his wife for your wife to baby-sit for them while they take a nice romantic weekend off together (that is, assuming your wife knows how and can be trusted to take proper care of the infant). I’m sure they will appreciate the respite from parental duties and it may be an eye-opener for your wife.
If that doesn’t work, you had better take the responsibility for birth control into your own hands, or you may find yourself with one or more little “accidents” on your hands.
And remember, the only contraceptive method that is 100% certain for a man is a vasectomy. Condoms have been known to break, accidentally or otherwise, and I doubt that your wife can be trusted to use any other method effectively in her present frame of mind.
Readers, please note: I do not advocate either parenthood or childlessness, but I also do not recommend that a man who does not want children let himself be pressured or deceived into becoming a father. Children deserve better than a reluctant father who may eventually abuse or abandon them.
