Ask Amy: A husband grapples with his wife’s child-free choice

Dear Amy: My wife and I have been married for 13 years. We both recently turned 40.

Before getting married, she had always expressed wanting to have two kids. I wanted that, too!

We put this off for a few years to gain a good financial standing.

Her younger sister had two children, and the inevitable questions started flying regarding when we would have kids.

It was mostly a question that I regarded as rude, so I did not answer it.

Over the years, my wife has gone from saying: “We have dogs” to “We don’t want kids,” with no conversation ever occurring between us about it because she regularly avoided that talk.

In more recent times, she has told others that we don’t have kids because I don’t want them, which could not be further from the truth.

She is now set that she is too old to have children, and bringing up the idea of adoption gets scoffed at because she believes that these kids are “problems.” She has said extremely derogatory things about adoption.

This has caused a huge rift in our marriage, and I don’t know if it’s capable of being fixed because she is unwilling to go to couples counseling, meet with adoption agencies to actually get factual info, or discuss it.

Am I being unreasonable to think that her shift in thinking, with no conversation about it, is unfair to me?

— Childless Husband