Dear Carolyn: I’ve been married only a year, but it has been far from the honeymoon experience. 
Before marriage, my husband and I talked about children, and I thought we were on the same page. We discussed how we would raise our children and even considered a prenuptial agreement around our future children.
He mentioned that one of the reasons he was willing to marry me is because he could see me having his kid(s). This is a man who broke up two prior long-term relationships because he was too young and couldn’t imagine having children with those partners, so I took his word seriously.
He is now 39 and had been single 2½ years before he met me.
Our marriage has been tumultuous since Day One because of cultural differences, miscommunication and our continuous triggering of each other.
We’re now into our second therapist and things have gotten slightly better, but he changed his mind about kids. He is up in the air now. Our therapists can’t even get a straight answer from him, but he mentions the unstable relationship as a factor.
I intended to have children in my early 30s, but this is affecting me now as I approach 30 and enter a one-year lease with him. I’m wondering how long do I wait, or do I start mentally checking out within this next year?
Help me please!
— Stuck in Limbo
Stuck in Limbo: Allow me this, upfront: The only right answer for a volatile couple is to change their minds on kids, even temporarily.
Even if it feels like a broken promise, even if it makes the roiling worse for a while, even as windows are closing.
As upsetting and unwelcome as this development has been, it also presents a useful opportunity.
Instead of multiple possibilities, problems and plans to sort out between you, you have one: Find a way to get along. Give that your full attention, and you’ll get to the answer sooner on whether it’s even possible — which then will tell you what options you have remaining for what comes next.
The kid question, with him, could be moot.
This will feel counterintuitive, as if you’re ignoring something vitally important.
Children are a valid dealbreaker, a legitimate priority for people who hope for them, and they involve a decision that can’t wait forever — but right now, potential kids are blocking a bigger picture.
I obviously don’t know your husband. But you do, better than you realize, maybe?
Your description reveals someone who was not afraid to get into long-term, committed relationships — since you’re at least his third — but who found reasons to get out of them that were on the fearful side of the ledger. Too young, too much, not ready, eek! kids!
These tumultuous newlywed months could be his latest expression of the same deep, apparently unaddressed fear — eek! not ready! — his age and willingness to marry you notwithstanding.
