‘Pregnant but my older husband isn’t happy, which is stressing me out’

Resident agony aunt Coleen Nolan has advice for a pregnant woman in her 30s whose husband isn’t fully on board with the news, and she’s shocked by his immaturity

Dear Coleen

I’m a 36-year-old woman and I’ve been with my husband, who’s 49, for three years. When we got together, he admitted he wasn’t sure about having more children (he already has three with his ex-wife), but we never discussed it much after that.

I was focused on my job and not thinking too far into the future, but I suppose I hadn’t shut the door on having kids at some point.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling off-colour and my period was late, so I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. We usually use condoms, as I can’t take the Pill, and I think I got pregnant on holiday when we were a bit slack about birth control.

While I’m happy about the baby, all my husband seems concerned about is how stupid we were to let it happen, and he’s been quite moody and sulky. I’ve been shocked by his level of immaturity and resent that he’s making this a stressful experience for me.

I understand that he probably feels he’s past this stage in life, but we’re here now and I want us to be positive about it. It feels right for me at this point in my life. What do you suggest?

Coleen says

Well, I’m shocked that, at 49, he didn’t expect that not using a condom might lead to a pregnancy. However, leaving that aside, I think the problem is you didn’t have an honest conversation about your expectations in terms of having a family. This is where lots of couples run into trouble down the line, especially if there’s an age gap like yours.

But you do need to talk now about how you each feel and about how you manage it together.

He can’t just opt out. It’s fine to admit he’s worried about how he’ll cope or how it might affect your relationship, but it’s not OK to make it your problem and punish you for it by sulking.

The age gap is a factor and perhaps you both had different expectations of the relationship, even if you hadn’t expressed them to each other (or even acknowledged them yourselves). Maybe deep down you both realised you wanted different things, so it was easier to avoid the subject.

But you can’t avoid it now, so my advice is to start talking – and that might be easier with a therapist – to try to work through it. Maybe he just needs to get it all off his chest and adjust to the idea, but it’s happening and it’s important these issues are resolved before the baby arrives.