WE BROKE UP BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT KIDS

Dear Pastor, I am 35-year-old woman. I am educated. I have a master’s degree. When I was in my teens, I used to think that it would be exciting to have a husband and children. But when I got into my 20s, and I observed my friends and how they are married and living in misery; I changed my mind.

I used to have a boyfriend, and we shared a house together. We cohabited for two years. We did everything together. This guy talked about having a family. We broke up after I told him I was not interested in children, and that I did not want my stomach to stretch and have baby marks. He said I was not talking as a woman, and I needed to humble myself. He also said that a good woman wants to have children. He told me that I hated children, and I told him that I did not hate children, but I did not want to have any. He found himself another girl, and one year after we broke up, he got married and I sent him a wedding gift.

At the moment I am with another man. He has tricked me because I told him that I did not want to have children. Now that we are together, he says that he wants children. He says that what he sees between my legs, he likes, but having children with me would bring us closer. How can children bring a couple together? Everywhere I see couples breaking up and marriages ending in divorce.

This man already has children so I thought our relationship would work, but he wants to have children, even one, with me. I want this man, and I want our relationship to last, but I don’t want to have children. Some of my friends say that something is took his own life and left his beautiful widow alone. I know a minister of religion who took counselling as his major, and he and his wife decided that they would not have children because they wanted to devote themselves wholly to the ministry. But as they got older, and the wife passed the childbearing age, they admitted that they made a mistake by not having children.

The reasons you have given for not wanting children are very poor, and for an educated woman, I would say, they are disgusting. I hope that when you have gotten older, you would not regret not having children. wrong with me. But I can assure you that nothing is wrong with me. I am quite happy the way I am. I come home from work, I play my music, watch television, talk to my friends on the phone, and I have no one to molest me or disturb me. What do you think?

I.P.

You may see yourself now as having this perfect body that you do not wish to be spoilt by giving birth. But remember that your body is likely to shrivel as you age.

The man whom you are living with told you that he didn’t want children, now he has changed his mind. Every man is likely to change their mind. I can’t force you to have children, but I would ask you to reconsider the matter. And if you do not want to give birth or marry and get pregnant, consider adopting children.

Pastor