A woman recently wrote to Xuan to share her emotional struggle since getting married a year ago. From the moment she said “I do,” her husband has been eager to have a baby. While she isn’t against the idea of becoming a mother, the thought of pregnancy and raising a child fills her with fear and uncertainty.
She’s tried explaining her concerns — the financial costs, the loss of freedom, and how her body might change — but her husband always dismisses them. “Poor people can still raise kids,” he’d say. “Everything requires sacrifice.” And when she worries about her figure, he replies, “You can always recover later.”
Eventually, they agreed to delay the decision for two years and enjoy their time as a couple. But she admits he never truly let it go. He continues to bring up children indirectly, making her feel pressured and emotionally drained. “Didn’t we already agree to wait?” she wonders.
What hurts most are his comments that make her feel like a failure as a woman. “If we’re not having kids, why make love? Without children, a home has no warmth,” he once said. Those words left her questioning whether their marriage was built on love or just the expectation of childbirth.
“I’m starting to regret getting married,” she confessed. “Sometimes I even regret being a woman, because it feels like if I don’t have children, I’ve failed my duty.” She ended her letter with a painful reflection: “If I had known that to him, marriage was all about having kids… I might have made a different choice. But life doesn’t give us many chances to say ‘if only.’”
After her story went viral, netizens flooded the comments section with empathy and outrage:
“You’re not his partner — you’re just his tool for sex, childbirth, and childcare.”
“Raising a child is expensive, and even with money, there’s no guarantee you’ll raise them well.”
“You still have a choice now. Don’t have kids just to please him — once a child is born, it’s the child who suffers when the marriage falls apart.”
Many praised her for speaking up about the emotional burden placed on women in marriage, reminding others that parenthood should be a shared decision, not a marital obligation.
