I Didn’t Want to Have Kids. My Husband Did. Could Our Marriage Survive?

When Helena de Groot was a child, she pictured an exciting future for herself: living in a big city, getting an apartment with lots of plants, having a creative job and going dancing on the weekends. She never saw becoming a mother as part of that future. When people asked, she told them she didn’t want children. As she grew up, got married and watched her friends become parents, she stood by that decision. But, deep down, she had doubts. The question of whether she was making the right decision for the right reasons consumed Helena’s thinking, and had profound implications for her life and marriage. This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, she discusses how she navigated uncertainty, how it changed her life and how she imagined her future. Helena de Groot’s podcast about her experience, “Creation Myth,” is available from the CBC. How to submit a Modern Love Essay to the New York Times How to submit a Tiny Love Story

You can listen to I Didn’t Want to Have Kids. My Husband Did. Could Our Marriage Survive? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

I Didn’t Want to Have Kids. My Husband Did. Could Our Marriage Survive? is an episode from Modern Love by The New York Times.

This episode is 00:53:04 long.

This episode was published on Feb 25, 2026.

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