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@grandma – what more do you want from your son/DIL? They have very kindly and diplomatically made it crystal clear to you that they do not want any more paintings as gifts. PERIOD. It is rude and intrusive for you to continue to try to force paintings upon them, and petulant and childish of you to be upset about this. As others have pointed out, giving a gift is about the RECIPIENT, not about YOU. You should be thinking about giving them something THEY would like, not something YOU would like. How would YOU feel if your DIL started giving you “silly” bubble bath EVERY birthday and Christmas? With your logic, she likes bubble bath, so therefore you should shut up and be grateful for the 20 bottles of bubble bath cluttering up your bathroom counter. Well, that’s what you’re doing to her, but in reverse. Except a painting you don’t want is a MILLION times worse than bubble bath you don’t want. If you don’t like the bubble bath, you can toss it and she’ll never know. But if she doesn’t like the painting, she’s either forced to store it somewhere and deal with your questions about why it isn’t up or else she feels obligated to put it up so as not to hurt your feelings, even if she hates it. Because what in the ever loving fuck do you expect her to do with a painting besides hang it up? The point of a painting is to display it. Quit pouting and respect the eminently reasonable boundaries they have so politely asked you to respect. You are 100% in the wrong here.

Thank you Ron for saying what I was thinking. LW, this man let you GIVE UP YOUR EDUCATION for his convenience, and now can’t be bothered to hold us his end of the bargain because he couldn’t afford to live in a nice enough place if he did. That’s a special brand of selfish douchebaggery, messing with your livelihood like that. I mean, just that alone is a full stop MOA situation. Add on that your long term goals don’t align in terms of where you want to live, and it’s even more of an MOA.

I mean, obviously I can see how being a birth parent is different than being a step parent just in terms of the experiences/workload/stages of life you do/don’t experience. I guess it just seems counterintuitive to me to say a stepparent isn’t a parent. I mean, we always see the “my guy wants to marry me but wants nothing to do with my kid” posts and say things like “if he’s not willing to step up and be a parent you need to break up” and so on, but here we’re saying “eh, they’re just your stepkids, no big deal, it’s not like you’re really a parent to them, they’re not your biological kids so they don’t really count toward your ‘mom-ness’.”

But do i go my whole life never getting to be a mother?

You ARE a mother. To two kids whom you say you love.

I need a baby AND them.

But you can’t have both, so you have to pick. You’re not “wrong” to want another child any more than he is “wrong” to not want another child. But he is 100% correct that you have a choice to make – stay with him and the kids with the understanding that that’s it, or else leave and find someone who wants kids/more kids (or go the single mom route). And you are 100% correct that having a kid with a man who doesn’t want it is a terrible idea. You definitely need to see a therapist to help you decide. And in the meantime quit pestering your husband about it. Accept him at his word that he won’t change his mind, and focus your energy on therapy and deciding if you want to stay or go.

I’m on the @Kate side of things – never wanted kids, perfectly content not having kids in my life in any way. I’m only 38, but I haven’t had any regrets about choosing to opt out of parenthood. Probably the biggest advice CFers usually give those on the fence is get as involved with kids as you possibly can. Offer to babysit for your friends for a night/a weekend/a week – they get a break and you get a small taste of “being a parent.” Volunteer with something like Big Brothers/Sisters where you spend a lot of time around kids. If you are really serious, and don’t have kids in your life to try the long-term babysitting plan, consider going through the process of being certified as foster parents – you don’t have to foster, but if you are certified as a foster you can provide respite care for actual foster parents, where you take their foster kid(s) for a weekend or a week when they need a break. (If that sounds daunting, think how much more daunting an 18+ year minimum commitment is to raising a child.) The upside to the latter is, for you, since it sounds like maybe you can’t have biological kids, you’d already be in the foster/adopt system if you DID decide you wanted to adopt.

Lots of good advice, but I think the best ones are:

1. Don’t be a prude, have as much sex as you want with as many people as you want, but yes double up on that birth control!!
2. Sunscreen.
3. NO DEBT. Do not purchase anything on a credit card unless you have a plan in place where you are buying things on a credit card and IMMEDIATELY paying them off because you are trying to build good credit. If you don’t have the cash on hand to immediately pay off the thing you want to put on a credit card, DO NOT BUY THE THING.
4. Start saving NOW for retirement. If your work has a retirement plan, contribute the maximum. If you don’t have retirement through work, open a Roth IRA and contribute. Do not wait to do this.
5. Don’t be afraid, be yourself, take (calculated) risks, don’t put up with BS. Life’s too short.