Do childless couples regret it when they reach their 50's?

........either that or they have a lot of dogs.

Marriages don't fall apart because of kids. Marriages fall apart because of parents who happen to have kids. If you regret having kids because they changed your life, you screwed up by having kids. It has ZERO to do with them.

mr38 wrote:

My longtime girlfriend and I had a few discussions over the last year about whether we should have kids. We're rapidly reaching the age where it won't be possible (and maybe we're already there).

Well we found out yesterday that she has stage IV lung cancer. So she's somewhat thankful she doesn't have to worry about the kids.

:-(

Just saw this and had to tell you, though i don't know you, that i am sorry. a

56, married 29 years, no kids - absolutely no regrets. Never for a moment did either of us want kids and we've always been great with it. Nothing against them at all, just didn't see myself as a parent at all. I think there is enough of them already...

Loaded question. I'm in my mid 50s.

My wife and i didn't marry until we were in our late 30s and we just wanted some time with just us. Neither of us wanted them really bad and couldn't understand the desire. But since all of our friends were having them, we decided that there must be something good about it. " we never should have had kids" says nobody, ever. So when my wife was in her early 40s, we went for it, miscarried and that was the end of it. We weren't devastated by it, which we probably should have been. We also didn't want to go down that path of treatment if in fact she was just too old.

Do we regret it? I think it's one of those cases where you don't miss what you don't know. People with kids can't imagine life without them but those of us without them filled our lives with other things.

i remember the great Flagpole saying you're not a REAL man until you have at least 2 children.

where's that list again?

This might be a surprise, but some people can’t get pregnant.

I have 3 kids. I tried my best to raise them well. I am exhausted and poorer for it. They are doing well and have a real shot at a good life.

I have a couple friends in parallel without kids. They seem sadder. Not jealous though. They both travel a lot and have great stories.

Stating an outrageous claim multiple times doesn't make it any more true. It's always suspicious when someone speaks in absolutes (e.g., always capitalizing ZERO). It sounds sort of like when people say that masks and social distancing have NO effect, or that a vaccine carries ZERO risk. Perhaps the risk is 0.00001%, but it's not zero, just as maybe social distancing wasn't the only solution but was part of it...not to get distracted by COVID, but it shows how claiming absolutes is just a way of trying to overstate a weak position.

If you think that raising a kid, which takes up more time than training for a marathon, has absolutely ZERO affect on the quality of a relationship between two people, I don't know what to say.

None of this is to say that some people don't absolutely adore their children. Their marriage may suffer and they have less time to travel or to get that promotion and may still be perfectly happy that they chose to have kids. That's fine. But it has an effect on those other parts of your life, clearly.

"For around 30 years, researchers have studied how having children affects a marriage, and the results are conclusive: the relationship between spouses suffers once kids come along. Comparing couples with and without children, researchers found that the rate of the decline in relationship satisfaction is nearly twice as steep for couples who have children than for childless couples. In the event that a pregnancy is unplanned, the parents experience even greater negative impacts on their relationship."

"Worse still, this decrease in marital satisfaction likely leads to a change in general happiness, because the biggest predictor of overall life satisfaction is one’s satisfaction with their spouse."

One of my biggest regrets in life is not having kids. I'm in my mid-50s now, and wife is late 40s. We kept on putting off kids (well-it was primarily me), thinking we would always have time later, so let's travel, save money, buy toys, now. Time passed quickly and wife went through menopause and now we'll never have kids, as wife isn't open to adopting. Really wish we would have had kids some 20 years ago when we got married! I definitely feel a void in my life, and so does my wife.

I remember when Grote used to post that he was never having kids and now he seems to be a happy and super proud dad. The world changes and so do the majority of us.

i have an childless aunt who, according to what i've heard through the grapevine, wanted kids but her husband who she married right out of college did not. they're in their mid 50s now and i hardly see them, but they just seem kind of bored. i'm probably projecting. personally i look at the next 50ish years of life just hanging out with my wife and our cats as everyone around me ages and dies and that's kind of a bummer to think about. so we are trying for a kid. it's an arrow of hope that you shoot into the future. i have no pretensions about this kids comforting and/or taking care of me as i die. but living for something other than myself is an appealing thought. i honestly don't know how i would maintain the motivation to work for a paycheck otherwise.

I'm in my late 40's, two kids. Raising kids is like having a second and third unpaid full-time job; it's busy, stressful, chaotic, expensive and throws a monkey wrench into the best of marriages. I can understand why some people don't want to do it and I get that. But it's been worth it to me. It's hard to explain, but it just is. I suppose it's a little easier to say, since my kids are turning out to be great kids (12 and 15).

But I knew from the moment my first kid popped out and I saw her face and she looked exactly like me, like a member of my clan, that it was worth it. And it happened again with my second. The love you feel for your kids is massive, overwhelming, near instantaneous and never goes away. It's really hard to explain. You're literally creating and making a new family member that you like just as much or more than your favorite family members in the world. It's a weird thing, really. Difficult, overwhelming, but really amazing, all at the same time. I've never regretted it for a minute. I'd do it all over again.

But I also get why some people don't want to. Because it's a tremendous amount of work and dominates all aspects of your live for about twenty years. So if your heart isn't into it, don't do it. But if it is, do it. Either way, decide what's best for your and have no regrets.

The purpose of any species is to reproduce. With mega-rare exceptions I think it is needed for a complete life.

dad of three wrote:

When our old friends get together and we all have kids except one couple, that couple seems to be lacking something. Sure things were easy for them in their 30's and 40's but now they are missing out. I can't imagine life without my kids.

I have to wonder if they regret their decision.

People who decide not to have children do so for a lot of reasons:

Don't like children

Have genetic disease in family and don't want to adopt

Infertile and don't want to adopt

Had horrible childhood and don't want to bring a kid into the world because of that

Want financial and physical freedom

It's not a given that people who don't have children miss having them. Just because you can't imagine not having kids doesn't at all mean others are like that.

nature says: yes! wrote:

The purpose of any species is to reproduce. With mega-rare exceptions I think it is needed for a complete life.

Wow. That shows zero thinking. Humans have evolved beyond just propagation. People can have complete and fulfilled lives without childen.

Many say there is a true happiness in serving.

Serving spouse or partner isn't so great cuz I expect reciprocation right away.

Serving children has a passing along what I know feeling.

It has also enabled me to realize a final stage of adulthood.

I became a leader in my community to help out the kids school. I started to speak out politically as my kids were there to see if I would walk the talk. I would never have stepped out/ up if not for the kids.

Some kids abandon their parents in old age, or become estranged.

I would have no kids at all than feel what it’s like to experience the above.

What you can't conceptualize because you never had it, is the bond you feel being in a family that you and your wife created. My wife and I had a wonderful relationship before kids. But with kids there is a richness in our family bond that we hadn't experienced. And yes there are more stresses and even more fights but you also share so many deep and meaningful joys that its difficult to explain it to people without kids.

Its like trying to tell a blind person how pretty colors are.