Stop thinking you’ll be the one to change him

A couple I have known for a number of years broke up a few weeks ago. Reason being that he wants children and she doesn’t. What I found interesting is that this isn’t something that just came up. He has always wanted to have children at some point while she has been very clear that she does not. In fact, this was one of the first things I knew about her when we first met years ago. Still, they dated for months and lived together for years, each hoping that the other would change their mind somehow until the bottom fell apart.

I have a polygamous friend, an artist in his early thirties. No, he is not a play boy dating a string of women. For as long as I have known him, he has been dating just one woman at a time. When he finally does marry, however, he is clear that he will not stop at one wife. He doesn’t think that he can get everything he needs for life from just one woman. Interestingly, I see him aggressively pursuing friendships with women who prefer monogamy, perhaps hoping they can see the error in their ways and hop onto the polygamy bandwagon with him.

What is bound to happen in the end in a situation like this is frustration when you can’t get your partner to want the same things you do or see the world through your lenses. There also maybe accusations, how this person strung you along yet they knew they didn’t want children or they couldn’t commit only to you.

I will be lying if I say that people don’t change; they do. This, however, should not be the basis that you get into a relationship on. Just like a woman should marry the man in front of her in flesh and blood and not the man she thinks he has the potential to become, when it comes to these major life decisions like polygamy and whether or not to have children, listen, when a man says his truth.

One of the things that make one an efficient relationship partner is being able to compromise, to meet your love interest in the middle. Unfortunately when it comes to polygamy and being a parent, there is just no way to compromise. You can’t have half a baby or a part — time other wife.

If you are dating with the intent of settling down, why waste precious time with someone you know does not want the same life you do? Save yourself the heart ache. Before you get to what you would term as a point of no return, make sure that when it comes to major life goals, you are on the same page as your significant other.

And woman, do not fall pregnant for a man who doesn’t want to have children or who wants them but not with you or not right now. The world is cruel enough as it is, do not subject your child to the torture of having a father who doesn’t want them.