AITA for thinking my relationship is doomed?

Writing this anonymously so nobody can link this to me. I feel I know what the overall answer is here but I think I'm looking more for advice/support, questions to make me think in another perspective, or stories of experience.

There is a decent bit to unpack here so I will start with basic context and back story. I (24F) have been with my girlfriend (25F) for about 2 years, so we met when we were 22 & 23. Our relationship is relatively great. We get along fine, share similar views, and have fun together.

Shortly after we started dating we had the healthy conversations about the future. Marriage was both something we liked the idea of, traveling is something we are both interested in but she is more against traveling overseas - which is something I really want to do, and we also talked about kids. She originally said that she wanted to start a family by the time she was 25 - no later. I was very upfront and told her that I wasn't sure I would ever be ready for kids or if I would ever have them. I mentioned how I don't know if I am mentally capable of caring for another human being like that considering I have a hard enough time taking care of myself half the time. I have pretty severe depression which causes me to go into episodes of bad self care, no appetite, lack of motivation, etc. We did talk about therapy maybe helping with those feelings. Due to occupation I don't have health insurance and cannot afford a therapist out of pocket. With that being said, I will specify that I wasn't trying to "wait out a clock" or anything along those lines. I just unfortunately have not been able to receive therapy.

During these two years I have felt myself leaning more and more towards living a child free life and spoiling whatever nieces/newphews my sibling gives me along with friend's children. I am almost certain she is leaning the opposite way and still wants at least one child of her own. She brings up a future child still and will point out the children's clothes in stores and talk about how cute they are and reference "when we have kids" or "our kids". I don't say anything really or I end up doing the whole topic avoidance thing my family taught me growing up, which I know isn't fair to her at all.

I know we need to sit down and talk to figure out where we both stand on the subject and move forward from there. I feel like I am wasting her time and mine the longer I don't, and it is running my mind crazy thinking of what might happen. I feel that neither of our positions will have changed over these two years and we will end up having to call it off. I think she is going to take me staying firm on this a lot harder than the first time. I think she thought I could be persuaded into wanting children or that I would grow up and decide differently. I like children, I just don't want to be the adult responsible for them 24/7.

On top of that, the last thing she wants is to have to move back in with her parents. I also would have an extremely hard time living with only my income due to having no family or friends in the area to rely on. I don't want her to feel obligated to stay or that she is stuck with me because she doesn't have anywhere else to go. Just getting through each day recently has been a struggle of it's own due to being broke recently.

I know I am a coward for not talking to her already but my life has been blown up more times than I can count and I am scared that's about to happen all over again. I also don't want to blow up one of the only good things in her life so abruptly.

I need to be able to have this conversation with coherent thoughts and maybe some solutions in mind for if things take a turn for the worst. I don't want to leave her hanging or feeling like I ruined her life if she wants to break things off. I want to offer options considering our lives are so intertwined. I genuinely do love her, but I don't want to hold her back from true happiness if a family is what that means to her.

Posted May 5, 2025, 12:27 AM UTC

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