What should I Do? I wanted kids and marriage with her now I need to think carefully

[Gebidozo]

3 hours ago, Lamron300 said:

I’m now obsessing over her motives. I refuse to believe all the arguments she started were for the reasons she said. 

She started those arguments because she was unhappy in the relationship.

She wanted kids ASAP and didn’t care for marriage. You wanted marriage and didn’t want to have kids ASAP. For both of you, these incompatible goals became a deal breaker, so you broke up. 

There is nothing left to obsess over. There is no mystery. She’s 40, she was in a hurry to have kids, you weren’t. Nobody is wrong here, it’s just incompatibility. A normal thing that happens all the time. Move on and try not to overthink simple things.

[Els]

6 hours ago, Lamron300 said:

At the time I didn’t read too much into the marriage thing. She would say a lot of different versions, only after a while I understood she didn’t want to get married. We had a phone conversation where I had said can we get married in Nigeria one day (as a joke) and she was like we aren’t the same Christian domination and we need to figure out stuff like moral compass and what each others family are like etc etc, any excuse under the sun. Where having kids applied to that stuff too! She would then confuse me the next time by saying she is against marriage and isn’t saying no. And like I’ve said, I didn’t have a timeline on marriage but I didn’t want to have kids first then marriage. One time she said ‘I’ve had a bad experience with marriage’ 

I’m upset but it’s on different levels and working for myself it’s a bit of a disaster as I can’t focus atm. I think it’s mostly because of the effort put in, the way it’s ended and what I’ve taken from it. I don’t like surface level things and I’m not looking forward to getting to know people again, trying to suss out their attentions, potentially dealing with past issues. I know any relationship you have to work on but I’m realizing there is a limited window even though there is millions of people in the world. I’m pretty sure her past experiences meant that the likelihood of things working out between us were slim. 
 

I’m now obsessing over her motives. I refuse to believe all the arguments she started were for the reasons she said. 

I understand that it's upsetting, but respectfully, obsessing over her motives isn't going to help you one bit. What's done is done, and fortunately you're able to leave it with your only "loss" being less than a year of relationship time. 

Imagine if you had actually gotten her pregnant? Then you would be in the same situation as you are now but with 18 years of having to pay child support and possibly co-parenting with a woman whom you're not married to! 

You were pretty lucky IMO. I know it doesn't feel that way now, but it could have been so much worse.

Edited Wednesday at 02:47 AM by Els

[Lamron300]

10 hours ago, basil67 said:

So she said "I'm leaving the relationship because I've never said I don't want to marry you" as a break up?  That's very odd.

To be honest, your approach of taking your time and gauging compatibility for a future wedding is great for if you're dating a woman who's, say 25-33.   But as ex is about 40, she simply doesn't have the time to wait for an undisclosed date because of her fading fertility.  Are you aware how much fertility is dropping by this age?   That's not to say that you should have rushed in and married her.....but rather, if you're going to date a 40yo who wants babies, you need to do things a whole lot quicker.   And if your timeline and a woman's fertility aren't a match, you should move on.

Your assumption may well be wrong.   I've got exactly the same story as your ex and, like her, found that marriage was a piece of paper to get in and a piece of paper to get out.

I moved on after that relationship and met my partner and father of our children in 1992 and we are still together.  We couldn't agree on what type of wedding to have and it wasn't important to us anyway, plus my country has legal recognition of defacto relationships so we skipped it.  Anyone who thinks that I didn't marry because he was the wrong person would be very wrong.

Someone can be in love and also start a heap of arguments.   It's not may way of doing things because I like a calm relationship....and I would have broken up with your ex just a few months in, but having a fiery temper as well as love are how some people do relationships.  

I think that a lot of what went wrong here is that the two of you don't understand how each other thinks and then you both go on to make assumptions about the other.

But that isn’t why we broke up. We were actively trying for kids from September to like November. I bought her an apple watch just to take her temperature. But then the silly arguments would happen and then obviously sex is the last thing on mind. Her favorite buzz words would be ‘ this isn’t healthy or showing up for me’ like I said the not spending Christmas wiith her even though I did and NY (she was the one away with her family) is the nail in coffin or drum she kept beating. Expensive holiday booked for end of January (which I paid for) doesn’t matter to her, heartfelt and expensive Christmas presents doesn’t matter to her. We literally went to a cinema where you can order gourmet food the day before she went away with her family for NY and then everything was ‘fine’ and then days later  it is not normal to say you are upset and don’t feel prioritized because I wished you a happy NY 30 minutes earlier. 

She is just full of contradictions as when we first started talking about kids, she said to me she doesn’t want IVF as if god doesn’t want her to have kids naturally it is what it is. Then months later, she said to me if we haven’t got pregnant by may 2026 let’s start IVF investigations (which obviously I would have to pay for). 

The final argument happened on Monday. I hadn’t seen her the whole weekend as she was away or working, we were booked in to see each other on Wednesday but I thought it would be good to catch up before. She got home at 9pm for work. I said my eyes are really sore now and the storm is very bad, is it ok if I see you another day. She got very angry and said my words don’t match my action etc and she’s disappointed and don’t message I want to see her then don’t turn up. I explained that it would be dangerous to drive in that state and if I didn’t want to see her I wouldn’t have brought it up. 
 

Next day we start talking on WhatsApp and after a while I could see she was being passive aggressive not outing kisses at end of messages as we usually do or giving me short answers to my questions. I then asked if she is mad at me and she then finally admitted she’s disappointed by me not turning up. I then explain myself again and she was like this isn’t working not sure how this can move forward. 
 

So the whole breakdown starting from Xmas wasn’t actually to do with kids. 

[Lamron300]

6 hours ago, Els said:

I understand that it's upsetting, but respectfully, obsessing over her motives isn't going to help you one bit. What's done is done, and fortunately you're able to leave it with your only "loss" being less than a year of relationship time. 

Imagine if you had actually gotten her pregnant? Then you would be in the same situation as you are now but with 18 years of having to pay child support and possibly co-parenting with a woman whom you're not married to! 

You were pretty lucky IMO. I know it doesn't feel that way now, but it could have been so much worse.

Yes, but we didn’t break up because of the marriage/kids thing it is because of the pointless arguments she kept bringing up. Like me saying happy new year at 11.30pm instead of midnight being a huge problem. She also kept saying crudely, what commitment have you shown to me apart from cumming inside me? Like what other commitment am I supposed to show after 8 months? She’s the one who didn’t want to get married but wanted to move into my house and have kids…

[Lamron300]

9 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

She started those arguments because she was unhappy in the relationship.

She wanted kids ASAP and didn’t care for marriage. You wanted marriage and didn’t want to have kids ASAP. For both of you, these incompatible goals became a deal breaker, so you broke up. 

There is nothing left to obsess over. There is no mystery. She’s 40, she was in a hurry to have kids, you weren’t. Nobody is wrong here, it’s just incompatibility. A normal thing that happens all the time. Move on and try not to overthink simple things.

Also, she is already 40. Doctor informed me before I did semen analysis that female fertility declines a lot after 35. She doesn’t have money to do IVF, so what she is going to try find a random guy and trap him? Her wanting kids couldn’t be biologically fast forwarded by me. We were trying and having sex for months then the arguments cropped up. One time I didn’t get very errect no idea why and she then asked if I even fancy her. Everything is always my fault! She left me in a hole for the holiday I booked, luckily air b n b have let me cancel it!

[FredEire]

On 1/13/2026 at 8:37 AM, Lamron300 said:

What is stressing me out is usually there is two sides to a story but her side doesn’t make sense. She would fall out with me for basically even breathing. The first 6 months were blissful, so I’m thinking which one is the real her. 
 

You’re the same age as me, you know how stressful dating is. It’s not that I settled, I thought things were good at first and because the arguments were over little things, I thought they could be fixed. Although, they weren’t little as everything was poised negatively. For example, her flat she is renting she has to renew by August, and on one hand she was expressing dissatisfaction with me on many levels, another hand she will say I’m waiting for you to ask me to move in etc. So she basically wanted to move in and try for kids and even go down IVF route, however when it came to marriage (which I clarified I don’t mean right this second) she would have all sorts of excuses. 

A random thing happened recently where she would say ‘I don’t want to run two households’ I’m not going to come to yours and put your sofa cover back on or cook or do anything. I never asked her to do these things and when she did do them I thought it was out of affection. I felt very uncomfortable as I don’t ask anyone for anything, then for her to do stuff and then almost begrudgingly make a bizarre point about not doing that stuff. Something has definitely gone on with her. 

Im now at the worst point in my dating life. I don’t go around dating people in their 40s, I’ve dated people in their 20s and 30s. I date people I get along with. But I am juxtaposing this with another person I dated in her 40s, lovely woman, never had an argument but she said to me that she unlikely can have more biological kids at this age, but would be willing to adopt with me. Both situations are very different in terms of people’s attitude and I guess overall kindness, but still if I say I want kids and marriage and do the opposite or something which makes it unlikely or stressful I guess I am to blame. 

Dating at the early stages can be stressful, absolutely. But personally I am looking for someone things just flow with, which is easy and pleasant and we're largely on the same page apart from some superficial stuff. My friends in happy, solid relationships always tell me thats how they knew their partners were the one for them.

The point is if something in the early stages is bringing more stress and questions than ease and flow, I know it's probably not a good fit for me. At this stage I just dont bother pursuing it if it gives me that vibe because a relationship shouldn't be some kind of Rubiks cube you drive yourself mad trying to solve, and certainly shouldn't start out that way.

My frustration is that it's very hard to meet someone where there isnt some sort of catch, but I'm coming to accept that's just the nature of it and you only need it to work once. Pursuing things that half-fit because you feel frustrated or running out of time isn't going to work.

And philosophising about her reasons for doing what she did won't really achieve anything either. She had her own stuff going on, its not all going to make perfect logical sense.

[Lamron300]

4 hours ago, FredEire said:

Dating at the early stages can be stressful, absolutely. But personally I am looking for someone things just flow with, which is easy and pleasant and we're largely on the same page apart from some superficial stuff. My friends in happy, solid relationships always tell me thats how they knew their partners were the one for them.

The point is if something in the early stages is bringing more stress and questions than ease and flow, I know it's probably not a good fit for me. At this stage I just dont bother pursuing it if it gives me that vibe because a relationship shouldn't be some kind of Rubiks cube you drive yourself mad trying to solve, and certainly shouldn't start out that way.

My frustration is that it's very hard to meet someone where there isnt some sort of catch, but I'm coming to accept that's just the nature of it and you only need it to work once. Pursuing things that half-fit because you feel frustrated or running out of time isn't going to work.

And philosophising about her reasons for doing what she did won't really achieve anything either. She had her own stuff going on, its not all going to make perfect logical sense.

That’s how it felt for the first 5/6 months. Everything was like on autopilot. Usually, in the past, arguments have been for a more substantial reason. Then arguments started out of nowhere (caused by her as I’ve derailed above). It wasn’t a disagreement of what we wanted as she said she wanted the same thing many times (just not meant it).  Then because they seemed like misunderstandings I would always try and fix stuff. Like explain it's not that I don’t want to see you at 10pm, my eyes are sore and don’t want to drive in the storm. Nothing sinister about it and someone who regularly says ‘ I love you very much’ would understand that. 
 

It is just not only that there is always a catch, I go into dating with a negative that only applies online. For example, most online conversations fizzle out so I don’t expect them to go anywhere. Women I have ended up dating have said that they got so much crap and degenerate messages. I think how do I even sustain a conversation with people who are being bombarded. This then translates into being nervous on a first date as it’s not necessarily hard to get a date but, very hard to get a good date. So when you meet someone half decent, you tolerate a bit more as it isn’t easy to meet people online. 
 

Even when tempted to try rekindle things with her, I then remember all her behavior. I’d be less upset in short term if I was still with her, but I may be deluding myself into thinking she could change.

[Acacia98]

10 hours ago, Lamron300 said:

Usually, in the past, arguments have been for a more substantial reason. Then arguments started out of nowhere (caused by her as I’ve derailed above). It wasn’t a disagreement of what we wanted as she said she wanted the same thing many times (just not meant it).  Then because they seemed like misunderstandings I would always try and fix stuff. 

That was basically the turn my second relationship took (I was in my early 20s). We seemed to get along okay for the first few months and then seemingly out of nowhere, it felt like every other conversation was booby-trapped. And I too thought I was dealing with misunderstandings and would always try to fix stuff. Sometimes, I even apologized when I hadn't done anything wrong.

Long story short, it became an emotionally abusive relationship. If you had stayed in your relationship and had continued twisting yourself into impossible shapes to please her, you would probably have found yourself in a similar situation. And I can only imagine how much of a nightmarish situation that would have been to bring kids into.

You did well to end things. Yours was a lousy relationship. Don't second-guess yourself.

[Lamron300]

1 hour ago, Acacia98 said:

That was basically the turn my second relationship took (I was in my early 20s). We seemed to get along okay for the first few months and then seemingly out of nowhere, it felt like every other conversation was booby-trapped. And I too thought I was dealing with misunderstandings and would always try to fix stuff. Sometimes, I even apologized when I hadn't done anything wrong.

Long story short, it became an emotionally abusive relationship. If you had stayed in your relationship and had continued twisting yourself into impossible shapes to please her, you would probably have found yourself in a similar situation. And I can only imagine how much of a nightmarish situation that would have been to bring kids into.

You did well to end things. Yours was a lousy relationship. Don't second-guess yourself.

Yes, that is what is getting to me. Even the last argument on day of the break up I tried to ‘fix things’. I thought it was a small misunderstanding. But everything seemed like a trap for last few months. We would have a normal day like went to Costco last Thursday and in my head I’m thinking, what will the argument be about today. I know she wasn’t really upset I wished her happy NY 30 minutes early. It is tormenting me trying to figure out why someone would suddenly start fighting for no reason over anything. Once I literally just said don’t take the dogs off the lead till can see the other dogs in the park, this is because my friends dog has been attacked. It didn’t turn into an argument but she kept saying that I don’t trust her with my dogs.

i have never lived so close to someone I have dated. 15 minutes, something we were using to our advantage. Then the first argument ever happened because she didn’t tell me she wanted me to come to her flat more. I had no problem with that. Only reason she was coming to mine a lot is because I have dogs and she isn’t allowed dogs in her flat, so when I came to hers, I would have to get there late and leave at 4am to get back to my dogs. 

I supported her with her issues, I helped her out with loads of stuff, but nothing was ever enough, she would just turn against me for no reason. 
 

It isn’t just like a ‘I’m sad I’ve broken up’ phase, I’m really confused how to move forward in a positive way as a lot of negatives have come from this. 
 

[Gebidozo]

14 minutes ago, Lamron300 said:

I’m really confused how to move forward in a positive way as a lot of negatives have come from this. 

The way to move forward is to understand that these negatives are behind you now and date a person who’ll be less negative.

She behaved the way she behaved. Judging by your description, it was really getting unbearable. I’d be annoyed too. Because of that, as well as general incompatibility issues, you broke it off.

That’s it. There should be no long-term negative consequences. No more than, for example, eating poorly prepared food that doesn’t agree with your stomach would mean that you’ll never be able to enjoy food again. At most, you’d be sick for a while, and then you’ll just become more careful with what you eat and enjoy good food more.

 

[Lamron300]

2 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

The way to move forward is to understand that these negatives are behind you now and date a person who’ll be less negative.

She behaved the way she behaved. Judging by your description, it was really getting unbearable. I’d be annoyed too. Because of that, as well as general incompatibility issues, you broke it off.

That’s it. There should be no long-term negative consequences. No more than, for example, eating poorly prepared food that doesn’t agree with your stomach would mean that you’ll never be able to enjoy food again. At most, you’d be sick for a while, and then you’ll just become more careful with what you eat and enjoy good food more.

 

The problem is I did that last time and now this is an even bigger setback. I don’t go around purposely dating people with issues or incompatibilities. With my previous ex I was 27 and she was 32 when we first met. It started off normal, then the same thing silly arguments and unhinged behavior (raising voice for no reason etc). Everything was in my court and pressurized ( it was move into my House, work for MY business) there was nothing in it for me. At the time, I thought I was being nice and these things were making us closer, but it was just manipulation. It wasn’t like I’m srupid, for example, a big argument was messages from her ex, she claimed she hadn’t spoken to him in 4 years and even went on to get a new number to prevent that happening again. The whole time she was texting him behind my back. She said she hated kids and also only gets naturally aroused once a year, but wouldn’t tell me what is the actual issue or cause, she would make out she didn’t want to have sex because I didn’t wash the dishes or didn’t shower or anything. 
 

The same thing with my current ex. We didn’t break up because of marriage/kids but she would never just say the truth which is she has been married once and doesn’t want to get married again. Not only did she want to have kids even by expensive IVF that id have to pay for, she was insistent on moving in with me. Why? She would always make out I’m doing something wrong, yet wanted to move in. 
 

As @FredEire said, dating shouldn’t be dreaded or stressful but that’s how I feel now.  Imagine having the conversation of moving in or kids in the future with someone. Everyone is different but I’m finding it hard to connect with people and trust them on a deeper level as people as they say one thing and mean the other. 
 

For example, my dream job is to be a sports agent, I kind of know what I need to do to make it happen. In relationships I feel like there is no control as people obtain things from me via deception. Or if they’ve had an experience (kids or previous marriage) then they don’t want it anymore with me and then try and convince me I’m wrong for wanting what I want. 

[Gebidozo]

9 minutes ago, Lamron300 said:

As @FredEire said, dating shouldn’t be dreaded or stressful but that’s how I feel now.

If you keep repeatedly dating women who you feel manipulate, mislead, and treat you badly, then perhaps you should start pondering why you’re attracted to such women in the first place and why you can’t discern this type of character earlier on.

Or, at the very least, why you stay with those women even after the red flags have begun to pop up.

Either that, or perhaps there is something you keep doing that keeps making those women react in those strange ways.

We can’t really tell, because we only know your side of the story.

[Lamron300]

56 minutes ago, Gebidozo said:

If you keep repeatedly dating women who you feel manipulate, mislead, and treat you badly, then perhaps you should start pondering why you’re attracted to such women in the first place and why you can’t discern this type of character earlier on.

Or, at the very least, why you stay with those women even after the red flags have begun to pop up.

Either that, or perhaps there is something you keep doing that keeps making those women react in those strange ways.

We can’t really tell, because we only know your side of the story.

The thing is I’m not attracted to those characters, it only comes out later on and then in this case I was trying to relive the first 5/6 months of the relationship. When we first started dating she said she likes living on her own, she wouldn’t do IVF etc. I hang on because it isn’t easy to meet people nowadays, so I don’t want to feel like I’m being flippant and ending things abruptly. In this case, it would be three normal days then two bad days. I thought things were misunderstandings hence why I didn’t believe the advice in this thread. If someone gave me the explanations I gave her (even though not necessary) I would accept it. 

Another example is she was brought up Mormon, but then came out of the religion with her family. She was spiritual/religious but not an exact denomination . I’m evangelical. One day she would say can she come to church with me and we should pray together and bible study etc. Then few weeks later when I would tell her my family expect me to get married and want marriage for myself, she would say ‘well I’m not religious’. Which is weird, as 1) you don’t have to be religious to understand it’s not unusual to want to get married before having kids with someone you’ve known for 8 months b) she is religious when it suits her. 
 

So to answer your question it’s not like I know these things and accept these things. I choose to believe people and they say whatever they want. That’s the lesson I need to learn. I haven’t said I’m perfect but there is nothing I have done/did to gain these reactions. It’s not just simple like if she isn’t happy then walk away. She wasn’t happy for whatever her reasons are and would just start fights to cover for it. Her ideal would be if I had started paying for IVF, no intention for marriage etc, that’s what would make her happy. 
 

She has a rich lawyer friend who is 39 and was paying for IVF herself with no male partner. She met someone who was ‘divorced’ yet still lived with his wife. He got her pregnant without knowing. He then said he didn’t want to be involved with their kid. Her friend no longer needed IVF but is now going to claim child support from this guy. Since all this happened my ex would always tell me this story and its development and I felt it made her want kids even more. 
 

She has her own reasons or psychological difficulties which I will never know the full extent of, but it’s not like I purposely go into this pattern. I fended off her moving in with me as I had learned from last time. I’m not stupid, just unlucky. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Lamron300
Context

[Sanch62]

11 hours ago, Lamron300 said:

The problem is I did that last time and now this is an even bigger setback. I don’t go around purposely dating people with issues or incompatibilities.

The common denominator in all this lengthy mistreatment is you. When healthy people encounter such bizarre and abusive behavior, they exit. The first time. You keep sticking around, allowing it to escalate to the point where you're traumatized, and now you want to believe that this is a characteristic common to the general public. It's not.

Odds are that each of us will encounter some bad matches. But instead of overlooking the dealbreakers these present, most people recognize them as clearly unacceptable and move forward. You've refused to do that, and so you've suffered the fallout each time to the degree that you have.

That's the difference.This isn't about blame, it's about taking the pearls from the learning experience so you can move forward with confidence that you will not repeat the useless rigors of wishing for another person to change. When someone toxic shows you who they are, believe them and leave them.