Can you imagine being loved not for who you are, but for the child someone wants you to give them? That’s what she has been feeling lately.
According to #XUAN解忧树洞, there's a couple that got married a year ago, her husband has always been bringing up the ideas of having a baby non-stopping which is actually quite annoying to be honest. It wasn't just a casual suggestion, it was constant, almost like a goal he will need to tick off by the end of the year or his life goal of having a baby on his age…..
However, she isn't against of having children but as a woman is just that she's not firm believer in living child-free either. As a woman, she can't ignore the fears that come with pregnancy, the pain, the risks, the changes made to her body, and the way life would never be the same again. Of course, this is something that every woman considers before having any children right? There will be worried and concerns of course. Him as a husband or a man wouldn't understand these she guess? Nevertheless, every time he brought it up, she hesitated, not because she didn't love him, but because she wasn't ready to be a mom. It definitely a big changes made to her life from a girl to a mother right? She even tried to explain her worries and concerns to him every single time he mentioned about it. For example, raising a child is very expensive, including their pampers, milk and all.
He argued and say “Poor families raise kids too.” She said she would lose her freedom, he replied, “Everything requires sacrifice.” She's worried about her body changing, he said, “You can fix that later.” They talked in circles, neither convincing the other. Finally, they agreed to wait two years to enjoy their time together before taking that next step. But he never truly let it go. Now and then, he’d drop hints about baby names, about friends who were already parents, about how “empty” the house felt. Each time, her heart sank a little more. Wasn’t this supposed to be their time together? Why did it suddenly feel like she was just a means to an end?
One night, he said something that left her speechless: “What’s the point of being intimate if we’re not trying for a baby? A home without children doesn’t feel warm.” She didn’t know if it was just a careless remark or what he truly believed. But ever since then, something inside her began to crack. She started to question everything, not just their marriage, but her worth as a woman. Was she selfish for wanting to wait? Or was he selfish for reducing love to reproduction? Sometimes she wonders if she would have still said “yes” to marriage had she known that, to him, a family wasn’t complete without a child.
Because the truth is, she doesn’t fear motherhood, she fears being invisible in her own marriage.
Jovy Jing (ndreagoh@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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