Guest Author - Previous BellaOnline Editor

Reading an article in a magazine reminded me of a friend of mine who was faced with a dilemma that more and more of people are facing. She is certain she does not want children. She has been upfront with her boyfriend from the beginning. However she feels that although he says he is OK with that decision when the time comes he will try to dissuade her. She loves him absolutely, equally she knows she does not want children. She is 40 years of age, has a high flying job with late nights , frequent trips abroad, and does not have a maternal instinct ticking away. That is not to say she is not a caring, loving person because she is.

She has drifted through life, hopping from one career path to another, short term boyfriends, in a sense not knowing where her life was going to take her until she met 'the man'.

As she cried on my shoulder I couldn't help but feel sad for her. She certainly was at a crossroads in her life. What I do know is that she has never swayed from her desire not to have children. For what ever reason she cannot figure out how children can fit in her emotional, spiritual and material life. I admire her strength in the knowledge she knows herself.

We talked about how she could move forward with her boyfriend. He wants marriage, in essence he wants her. Friends have said to her finish with him, he will change his mind want children and if she is certain she wants to remain children free then she is only storing up more hurt.

I asked her to look at her dilemma a different way. She has met a man who wants to commit to her, she has been upfront with him and steadfast in her decision. Maybe she needs to trust him to know his own mind and what he says is true. He loves her and will not pressurise her to have children. That his life will be complete with her. We can all live in the if, buts and maybe's.
He was saying to her. 'I respect your decision and I want to be with you'.

I also asked her to reflect on her decision;why for her no children. This was not to question or get her to change her mind but to reflect on the whys. I think we all need to ask ourselves why we make the decisions we do. How we got our selves into whatever situations we are now facing?.

She told me that from a very early age she knew that she could not invest emotionally in a life that relied on her. She felt she was a free spirit, happy with herself and had no need or desire to pass her genes down to the next generation. I asked her to reflect how her story may have defined her over the years. Had the story become so entrenched in her thinking she had not allowed any alternative future into her mind?
I asked her these questions because I care about her. It is the easiest thing in the world for friends to say leave him there's no future for you, or the alternative remark 'you'll change your mind a few years from now you'll have two kids in tow'. I was asking her to trust herself and trust her boyfriend to work things through so they both could hear one another.
As she left she said she felt clearer in her own mind. They could both get bogged down in all the maybe's for the future. They loved oneanother, now they had to trust oneanother.