Do you have experiences that you would care to share of creating a family where your romantic partner (or at least your primary partner) was not a co-parent, or at least not a major one? My partner and I disagree on the kids question, but we're curious about other models than the nuclear families we grew up in. Lots of details beyond the jump.
I am currently two years or so into the best relationship I've been in. I love my partner, and I have never felt so safe and comfortable in a relationship. I feel like we communicate very well, and do things to proactively encourage honest communication, like practice drawing boundaries and saying no. We share a lot of values, interests, and visions for how we want to live together (we are currently long distance, though we've had a long stretch of joyful cohabitation).
However, we are facing a pretty enormous hitch. I want to have kids, probably within the next five years or so, and told her that this was likely a necessity for me. I recently was lucky enough to finally get a job that I think will give me some of the resources I need (time, money, stability) to be parent. She was initially uncertain of her feelings around this, but earlier this week told me that she is probably a no, although she has since said she needs more time to think about it again. I'll include her thoughts here not because anyone needs a justification for being childfree, but just because it helps in thinking through what alternative outcomes might be good for us.
She has been waiting her whole life to have some time for herself, in which to try to find something in life that feels like her own pusuit - a career, or a passion - and feels like she is finally just beginning to get this time. She also does not want to undergo the life-overtaking amount of effort being a parent would entail, and is uncomfortable with the concept of nuclear families and the societal/gendered expectations around motherhood. She does enjoy being around children, and if she was around other people raising children would be pretty happy, and might even want to contribute herself, albeit on a smaller scale than the full "parenthood" as she conceives of it. She said her mind might change in a decade, but she has no way to know that now.
The question - we discussed another possibility, which is that we could have an alternative family structure. For example, I could find another person or people to be co-parents, either friends or other romantic partners (we are not poly, but have discussed the possibility of being so at some point). My partner and I are cautiously optimistic about this option. Another possibility was to live as part of a larger community of co-parents (my partner and I met in a co-operative community, so we have both some fondness for them and some awareness of how difficult they can be). I think we agree that any situation we would want to bring a child into would have to be a relatively stable one that we were both comfortable with - it would have to make sense in its own right.
My question is whether any of you folks have had experience with building non-traditional families in this way. My partner and I are both only children, who have pretty strained and physically distant relationships with our parents, so I'm especially interested in cases where people have built families with friends or other romantic partners as opposed to extended family - though I am interested in those cases as well. I'm also open to just general thoughts on our situation. Thank you for your thoughts, AskMeFis! |
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