Want another child, my hubby says NO WAY!

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Hi all,
I am a 31 year old mother of 3, 2boys and a girl. My husband was thrilled with our 2 boys and we agreed that we were done. (mostly he agreed). While I was still breastfeeding the 2nd one I was not really keeping tabs on time of the month etc…and we became pregnant with our surprise girl. I was overjoyed he was , well he handled it pretty well considering he is a planner and everything with him must be planned and analyzed.
At first having the 3rd was a challenge (3 kids all under age 5) but now the baby is almost a year and I have really got it under control. the thing is my husband tries his best to be a good dad, but he gets frustrated easy, and has almost no patience with little kids.
any how, lately I have been watching the boys play together and I have been feeling like we should have a 4th to well, make it even, and maybe it will even be a girl so my daughter has a sister. (even if its another boy it doesnt matter to me). Any how, the point is I have really been feeling strongly about this lately and my husband wont budge. (Ironically my 5yr old has started asking his dad for another baby in the family for his sister to play with. )
I fear there is nothing I can do to change his mind. Any suggestions??
 
All I can suggest is pray. It will settle your mind a bit, and you will feel like you are doing something to change his heart. That way, when you broach the subject again with him, you will be able to do it with the serenity that comes from having prayed about it.
 
Is your husband Catholic? The only reason I ask is because I am Catholic and when my children were 2 and 3, I began to study the faith for fear they’d ask me a question soon I couldn’t answer. At that point, I was content with two children. After three years and much study of the faith, I have done a 180. I now want more children, which is to say that I am open to life and to God’s will in my life. That’s not at all what I intended when I began to study the faith.

However, my wife wants no more. So I understand your frustration. I can only suggest prayer and patience.:gopray:
 
I’m with the pray and wait (and try not to say too much) crowd.

You are still young and it may be that a couple or three years of a spacing might open his heart a little.

We’ve been in a similar situation at several points in our marriage and time has made a big difference.

Another help has been to surround ourselves with other big families who are joyful about their family size. It helps alot!! The men with whom that my dh works all have small families (except for one guy), so he ordinarily isn’t exposed to other dads who are joyful about big families. But, our home church community (families we get together with to pray and study) and our homeschool community are filled with large families.

never underestimate the power of prayer!!
 
We too have 2 boys and 1 girl, all truly blessings from God!

After our baby girl was born, 21 years ago, we decided that we were done. Same issues, money, time, short sightedness.

We were away from the Church, having fallen for the secular worldview that we can decide what is right on our own without a “bunch of old men in Rome telling us what to do”.

How sad, how short sighted and awful that was. Imagine thinking it was our decision to reject any other miracles from our Lord.

I went so far as to have a vasectomy, again listening to the society and not to God.

Now that I am 51 and have returned to the Church after a long and painful journey, I realize how wrong I was.

I regret not having other children everyday! What will you remember most on your deathbed as you prepare to meet your maker and account for your life?

Will you cherish your money, your house, your vacations, your free time?

No, you will only cherish the depth of your love for Jesus Christ and the miraculous gifts he has given you, namely your children and the other people you love. All else is meaningless.

Do not reject His Love for you! Time moves quickly and your opportunity to share in the miracle of creating life is limited.

Did Our Blessed Mother Mary tell the Angel Gabriel, "Not right now, it isn’t in ‘our plans’ "?

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.

Mark
 
leonie said:
Another help has been to surround ourselves with other big families who are joyful about their family size. It helps alot!! The men with whom that my dh works all have small families (except for one guy), so he ordinarily isn’t exposed to other dads who are joyful about big families. But, our home church community (families we get together with to pray and study) and our homeschool community are filled with large families.
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How true this is. I used to think that 4 (which is what we have now) was just crazy, not that 4 is even that big. At our old school (a Catholic school btw), most people had 2 or 3 kidsand there were a couple of “odd” families that had 4 or 5 and actually filled the big suv’s that everyone “had” to have. You rarely saw a big family ever…At our new school (public btw), same size as the old, 4 is nowhere near unusual. Many teachers and staff have 4 or 5 kids. I have friends outside of the school social circle that have 4 kids. Four kids seems pretty normal to me now, and when you are around people that have big families, there seems to be more understanding of the logistical and economic differences you have versus a family with only one or two children.
 
To EMBWT,
You asked if my husband was a Catholic. No , he is not. He is technically Jewish but not practicing, (He was raised by Christmas celebrating parents who were not at all religious.) He is not at all religious but was thrilled that I was and was happy his kids would be raised with religion.( I pray that one day he will decide to join Christs church) He still gets annoyed that I make him follow the whole no ABC practice.
 
MamaMia3 said:
Hi all,
I am a 31 year old mother of 3, 2boys and a girl. My husband was thrilled with our 2 boys and we agreed that we were done. (mostly he agreed). While I was still breastfeeding the 2nd one I was not really keeping tabs on time of the month etc…and we became pregnant with our surprise girl. I was overjoyed he was , well he handled it pretty well considering he is a planner and everything with him must be planned and analyzed.
At first having the 3rd was a challenge (3 kids all under age 5) but now the baby is almost a year and I have really got it under control. the thing is my husband tries his best to be a good dad, but he gets frustrated easy, and has almost no patience with little kids.
any how, lately I have been watching the boys play together and I have been feeling like we should have a 4th to well, make it even, and maybe it will even be a girl so my daughter has a sister. (even if its another boy it doesnt matter to me). Any how, the point is I have really been feeling strongly about this lately and my husband wont budge. (Ironically my 5yr old has started asking his dad for another baby in the family for his sister to play with. )
I fear there is nothing I can do to change his mind. Any suggestions??
Click to expand...
I would agree about prayer. My husband was a tough cookie on having kids. Our first was a surprise, and even after planning for our second his initial reaction was “abort, abort”…awful feeling, crushed me into bits at the time.

Years later and much water under the bridge, my husband is happy with the kids and wants to try for more.

What did it? Losing our third? Joining the Catholic Church? I don’t know. I think what it really boils down to is simply that God worked in his heart and opened him up to the idea of how great having a family was–what a blessing. I can only attribute the change to God, because my husband is a completely different man on this point now.

Our prayers will be with you. It is a tough thing when one in the marriage wants and the other doesn’t. That said, if you’re willing to work with him and pray for him, things can be overcome. 👍
 
Until you and your husband are in agreement, you have a duty to be diligent in practising NFP and not adding to the family against his wishes. He may or may not ever change his mind, but you also can’t forget you have much for which to be grateful and it is that, not what you are longing for, that I would focus on for now.
 
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