u/pissedoff_potato

(28F) always assumed I would be child free. When I pictured my life in my 30s I imagined it would be like an episode of sex and the city, living somewhere lavish like New York, maybe a long term partner, maybe not, certainly full of amazing friends and parties and traveling and freedom. I feel like a part of me was always waiting for my life to begin when I reached a point of growing into myself and my freedom, that my 30s would look like my 20s but with money and no kids.

Now I’ve fallen in love with a man, and he wants kids desperately and is ready to settle down. At a certain point I told him I loved him enough that I think we could have a child and be happy, but now he’s talking about having kids and getting married and I’m beginning to panic. I have doubts about our relationship (we’re so different) and we fight more than I’d like to, but he’s convinced we can work through our issues, I’m scared he’a more concerned with having a family than a healthy relationship, and sometimes I get overwhelmed because all his hopes and dreams are on me to give him the life he wants.

I love this man, he’s stable and consistent and gives more love than I’ve ever imagined possible, and I want to make his dreams come true, and I want us to have a life together, but I’m terrified. This isn’t something I ever considered before him, and now I feel overwhelmed and like I have to commit to having a child with him or walk away so he doesn’t waste his time on me.

I never thought being a mom would make me happy, and the idea of my body, my life, my identity changing so significantly is overwhelming, and I literally never gave it any consideration until I met him. Then I think maybe it’s not so terrible and I can be a mom and still live my life in a way I imagined.

I’m sorry if this post is a mess. I would love some advice/personal anecdotes/ anything the community feels like would help guide me. How do you reconcile becoming a mom and losing who you are? How do you decide you can be happy being a mom?

I (28F) went NC with my family when I was 16 years old, it was supposed to be just my parents I cut off but with the help of my mother’s manipulation my entire family basically said that if I don’t want my mother in my life I won’t have any of them. So since I was 16 I’ve been basically alone, and though it was hard and lonely at time I managed to build a good life for myself. I have an amazing home, incredible friends, a loving partner, and a steady job. Nobody hits me or screams in my face, my life is peaceful, though I’ll admit it was a long road to get to this point.

Anyways, my mother always expected/hoped that I would crash and burn in the world and come crawling back to her and my father begging for forgiveness for leaving, I think she wanted me to tolerate their abuse for the sake of not being on my own, and I think at a certain point she realized I was never coming back and that made her panic. She will occasionally send gifts to me or letters, she sends verbal messages through the one family member I still talk to, I know she’s desperate to talk to me again.

The sad truth that I think my mother fails to grasp is that I only have one reason to see her: to scream in her face and curse her out and tell her all the ways she failed me as a mother. I don’t want to reconnect, I want to dump all the anger on her that I’ve been carrying around and say things that haunts her until she passes. I want her to cry, I want to say all the things I never said because I was 16 when I left and did not possess the language to explain my anger. I just want to word vomit everything. It’s awful, which is why I can never speak to her again, because I just want to hurt her and nothing positive could possibly come from that, and I don’t want to be the kind of person who enjoys inflicting pain on someone, so I stay NC.

Does anyone else feel the way I do?