I recently broke up with my partner after a little over a year. It is really sad for me and I am sure for her too. From my perspective we had a major communication issue. It started in about month three. I am 43 and she is 41. We went on a trip after two months and on that trip I brought up to a friend an experience i had with a woman who after 1 month told me she had a 3 year plan to have a family. I felt this was too much pressure and the relationship quickly died. My partner was with me when I was having this discussion with my friend. My partner expressed hurt that I would talk about another relationship like this so openly and express such disdain for a woman and her want for a child. I told her it was just a conversation, that I had come to this far land to visit with my friend and we had shared a similar experience and were only talking about it. At this moment I realized my partner was not just ultimately wanting to have a child, as i was, but really wanted to have a child asap and that my comment hurt her more because of this.
From that moment things were not the same. I basically could not have a discussion with my partner around anything to do with our relationship without it turning sour fast. From my perspective, she would quickly shut me down, expressing pointed skepticism and critique for anything i said especially around my feelings, in general. There were always questions that were geared at defaming my feelings, finding fallacy with them. I was constantly inturrupted and shushed. i felt like my emotional voice had been taken away. I told her early on that this was a deal breaker for me. I explained clearly what the issue was, the dynamic and what would work better for me. But there was never any change from her.
We were on a trip recently where the same dynamic happened. She asked me if i was ok and i said i was. she proceeded to question me pointing out how what i say i feel and what i exhibit are inconsistent. That's fine, i can dea with that, but when I try and answer or explain, I get interrupted and shut down. To me it feels like she needs to walk away feeling like I am a liar. I have no voice in this situations. She says shes just asking questions to understand but how can one understand another person better if they wont let the person talk?
So i gave up. I walked away. I had had enough. We met back at the hotel. She wanted to get into it. I knew that if I did it would be more of the same. So not only would we be fighting but I would have to endure this kind of dynamic and be fighting to try and get my perspective and feelings across, ultimately to no avail. So i remained silent. This infuriated her. I hated doing this but i had to take care of myself. I did engage the conversation a few times and each time it just exploded! Like pouring gasoline on a fire. In the end we cut the trip short 2 days, took separate trains home and thats that.
I've been thinking about it and I am wondering if the underlying issue was her biological clock, as it were. From the first trip i mentioned where i talked to my friend about women's biological clocks, her desire to have a child escalated dramatically. she went from "i feel like you do, once we have a good relationship it would be great to have a child" to "i want to have a child now and the fact that I cant is making me very sad and angry". i also felt blamed for her not having a child because for me, I want to work on the relationship first. Once thats solid, then lets have a family. Remember she's 41. And she said it was only from about 40 that she felt so strongly about it, before that it wasnt so much an issue for her.
What got me thinking was that often when we'd argue about something, it would often end up on the topic of us not having a child. for example, i couldnt do a home reno on my house without her pointing out it was a sign she wouldnt have a child with me because it meant i wasnt going to move. even if we were arguing about something completely different, somehow the conversation would get to the baby issue, by her.
so i am wondering, maybe the issue wasnt just the communciation dynamic where-by i felt like she was shutting me down. maybe underlying that was her pain around not having a child, driving her motivation to cut me off. i am not sure what the reason would be because i told her many times that i wanted to work on the relationship first and a family second. so doing this is counter productive to the relationship and so we'd never get to having a child. why would someone be so counter productive?
a friend of mine says that he's convinced that its her biological clock causing the issues. that it wouldnt be an issue if i just would have a child with her. that, yes, its reasonable and responsible to work on the relationship first but if i was simply inclined to have a child with her, the issues would be significantly less. its a bit of a catch 22 then.
so moving forward, i am not sure what to do. how to handle this, with her or with someone else. i am 43 and i am likely to get involved with someone in the 35-45 range where the issue of a biological clock can be pretty critical. my friend says to either date someone who is a lot younger, someone with a child already or take my chances.
what say you?