Help! My Husband Changed His Mind About Wanting Kids

“His dramatic change of heart has shaken me a bit.”

Today's episode of BuzzFeed Daily features another edition of DM-911 with our own Stephen LaConte, plus our thoughts on the top pop culture headlines. You can listen below or scroll down to read a bit from the podcast!

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So let's dive right into it! Today Stephen gave some advice on what to do if your partner suddenly changes their mind about wanting kids, how to handle "irresponsible and unstable" friends, and what to do when you get ghosted after catching feelings.

"Hey, Stephen, I wanted to reach out for some advice. Less than 3 months ago I married my partner. We've been together for years and for the whole of our relationship we've been on the same page about not wanting kids. Sadly, his mother unexpectedly passed away a few days ago. Since then, he's been talking about changing his mind and really wanting children after all. I've asked that we revisit this in several months to give space to grieve before making any giant decisions, but his dramatic change of heart has shaken me a bit. If he has truly changed his mind, how should I approach the situation?"

Universal / Via giphy.com

Stephen LaConte: Okay, well, first of all, I think your advice to him to pump the brakes here and revisit this conversation in a few months is very wise advice. I think you should give yourself that advice to to put a pin in this conversation and wait on it for some months. You know, his mother's death was only a few days ago. You note that it was a completely unexpected loss. He's probably not in a super clear-headed state of mind right now. I mean, who would be? I know I would not be for that reason. 

I don't think you should take everything he's saying right now at face value. He's clearly having big feelings about family. It sounds like those big feelings are very much a product of his grief. So instead of trying to argue with that grief, I think you should just let him process it and give him the space to actually unpack what he's feeling, which is almost certain to evolve over time as his grief evolves. I can totally understand, just to be clear, why it would be jarring, alarming, scary to see your husband do such a 180 on something as major as having children. 

And I definitely want to echo that your choice to not have children is 100% valid and you should stick to it. I don't one minute blame you for being concerned about your husband's sudden change of heart, but I think you have plenty of evidence to suggest that this change of heart may be very fleeting. You have several years of history with this man where he has consistently said he did not want children. His sudden desire for children was brought on by an abject crisis, a crisis that you're still very much in the middle of. And I wouldn't be surprised if, as the trauma of this loss starts to subside, so do his feelings that he needs to have kids. So wait a few months and then see where he's at. 

If it turns out that his desire for children is still there and he feels strongly that it isn't going away, I think you can only cross that bridge when you get to it. Would you be at an impasse? Probably. Would it end your marriage? I don't know. Possibly. But you're not there yet. I don't think you're even close to there yet. So don't put yourself there. Don't define your brand new marriage by its worst possible outcome. Instead, I think you should focus on helping your husband process his grief and heal from the loss of his mother. That's the right thing to do. And in my best guess, it's also probably going to make this problem go away entirely in time.

We also talked about Melissa Joan Hart's recent breakthrough COVID diagnosis with fans — along with a plea for mandatory masking in schools.

Lisa O'connor / AFP via Getty Images

Melissa said she thinks one of her kids has it as well, that she believes it came from her kids’ school, and that she’s “really mad” that her kids didn't have to wear masks while they were there.

She also said: "I'm mad, I'm really mad, because we tried ad we took precautions and we cut our exposure by a lot, but we got a little lazy."

In other news, Mindy Kaling recently opened up about a moment in a writers room that took a toll on her body image and self-esteem.

Jon Kopaloff / WireImage

Basically, one of her fellow writers suggested that their character tell Mindy's character that she could lose 15 pounds. Mindy said: "This is my greatest insecurity, and someone just called it out. It's really devastating. When that moment happened, it was so huge to me."

As always, thanks for listening! And if you ever want to suggest stories or just want to say hi, you can reach us at [e-mail] or on Twitter @BuzzFeedDaily.