Is it ever OK to not have children after marriage?

“More often than not couples assume they will have children after marriage or, if not married, they believe it’s a way of solidifying the relationship.” But not everybody wants to do it — and that’s very much OK. “When one partner wants a child or children and one doesn’t, it’s a great way to see how they envision their lives and their futures.”

What if one of you don’t want children?

Or if one of you doesn’t want children because of overpopulation, consider adoption. Look at what the reason is that’s keeping one of you from wanting children and see if there’s a compromise.

What happens when one partner wants a child and one doesn’t?

“When one partner wants a child or children and one doesn’t, it’s a great way to see how they envision their lives and their futures.” Discussing whether or not you want kids can be a tricky, tense conversation, but also a really important one.

Is choosing not to have children a recipe for future divorce?

But, in every single case, sacrificing your own happiness to keep your partner happy is a recipe for future marital discord. Choosing not to have children must come from your heartfelt desire not to have them. Be clear about your reasons for making this choice and be able to enumerate them.

Are You fooling your kids by pretending your relationship isn’t going wrong?

Child psychologist Kimberley O’Brien says parents who pretend to their children the relationship isn’t experiencing problems could be fooling themselves. “Kids are really sensitive to changes to things like voice tone and parents’ stress levels,” Dr O’Brien of The Quirky Kid Clinic says.

Does having children make marriage more difficult?

To make matters worse, people generally become less satisfied with their marriage when they have children (making the attempt to fix a marriage by having children even more ironic). Research shows the disadvantages of parenthood to be the strongest in the United States. We’ll talk more about this in a bit.