Tl;dr My boyfriend ‘27M’ and I ‘26/F’ have been in a relationship for 3 years now’. When we started dating, we talked about kids, family, etc and we were on the same page about wanting children but I always openly expressed to him that the thought of kids does scare me as a woman because of body changes, losing myself, fear of f*cking up the children and most importantly due to the planet being a mess due to climate change. I do not want to bring children into this world if I believe the world isn’t going to last long enough for them to live a comfortable and happy life.
This fear has been growing in me steadily and between when we first started dating and now, I’m now starting to think that I cannot completely say that I’m 100% about kids – because I no longer am. The issue is my partner has always said he understands this concern but he always thought I would put it aside and have kids anyway.
He says he loves me more than anything and has always expressed that I’m “the one” for him. He speaks to me in detail about marriage and wanting to spend the rest of our lives together, however, we had this conversation again today and when I expressed how I’ve been thinking further and that I’m now not absolutely certain about kids – he gave me an ultimatum that I need to give him a certain yes or no answer. He says that he will leave me if it’s a no.
I always knew he really wants kids and he’s always made that clear but I’m still a bit taken aback by this. I understand that kids are an important part of life to him and I fully get that but I’m feeling quite hurt that he claims he wants to spend his life with me and that he sees no one else he’d rather have a future with but then he would up and leave this easily and suddenly.
I don’t know if it’s fair for me to feel as hurt as I am and I also don’t know how to just make such a big decision all of a sudden. I would prefer to not let our whole relationship go into the dump because of this, what should i do?