My Husband Has Given Me a Cruel Ultimatum About Having a Baby. I Didn’t Think He Had This in Him.

Care and Feeding

I can’t agree to this.

June 14, 2026 8:00 AM

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Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column.  Have a question for Care and Feeding?  Submit it here .

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband, “Troy,” and I have been married for eight years, and we are currently building a house that is taking longer than anticipated. My husband is set on having a child, and I am ambivalent about it. I have severe tokophobia and trypanophobia . I have been working through these issues gradually with a therapist, and we have frozen embryos to “buy” time (this was extremely challenging for me). I have even been approved for a surrogate.

Recently, a friend of Troy’s visited, along with his child, which has made Troy emotional, and he is pressuring me to go through with the embryo transfer sooner rather than later. I had agreed to go through with the transfer when we were in the house we are building, which was supposed to happen in June. (Some of the delay is his fault, as he got into a fight with the builder—his father.) I understand that he perceives me as procrastinating, but I am suffering from a physical fear that is very difficult to shake.

It’s now June, and he is insistent on going through with the transfer. I told him I would go through with it in August, when we are closer to completion on the house, but he’s pushing this. He is actually threatening a divorce if I don’t agree to the timeline that he prefers. This seems irrational, uncaring, and honestly, a terrible space to bring a baby into. Frankly, a divorce is looking like the better option at this point. What do you think?

—Future Baby Mama Drama

Dear Future,

A divorce is the better option. Your husband’s overriding concern—his mission, if you will—is to have a child. Your ambivalence about parenthood alone—even if you had no phobias about pregnancy or anything else—might be enough to hit pause on this marriage.

But his threat to divorce you if you don’t do as he says is alarming. You may manage to work through your medical phobias and come out on the other side of them. You might even find that your feelings about having a baby change over time! Even if that happens, this is not the man to have a baby with. Get out while the getting’s good.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

I realize there are bigger parenting problems out there, but I’ve been having trouble with my husband using the R-word around our now-14-month-old.  He doesn’t call people the R-word, but he’ll say things like, “That’s R-word.” Yesterday, I was horrified when my son used the R-word after knocking over his apple juice.

I’ve tried talking to my husband about how inappropriate his use of that word is, but he says it’s fine because he’s applying it to situations and not people. Now I’m living in fear that our son will use it when we’re out in public, and people will think I was the one who taught it to him. He’s obviously too young right now to understand why this is a word we don’t use, so I doubt correcting him at this point would work. How am I supposed to fix this when my husband thinks it’s a non-issue?

—Trying to Remove the R-Word

Dear Trying,

First, let’s be clear: Your husband is dead wrong. Using a slur even to describe a “situation” is gross. It’s always wrong. He should be ashamed of himself.

But apparently, he is not. Certainly, it wouldn’t hurt for you to double down on your objection, to explain (slowly and in easy-to-understand words, the way you’d speak to a toddler) that invoking a word that was once used to describe someone with an intellectual disability to make clear that something is objectionable, disappointing, disgusting, annoying, or otherwise bad is itself an ugly thing to do. If he continues to use the word (I suspect he will), I’d correct him every time (again, the way you would a child). “Do you mean you didn’t like that?” you might say innocently. Or, “Are you trying to say you’re mad/upset/irritated about the referee’s bad call/getting a parking ticket/the guy who snatched that parking spot before you could?” Maybe he’ll get tired of this and finally grow up (and try to be a better person).

In the meantime, just as your husband is not too old to be corrected by someone who knows better, your child is not too young. If he’s old enough to use a word, he’s old enough to be told that the word is not acceptable and why (in an age-appropriate, limited explanation). “We don’t use that word. It’s a mean word that hurts people’s feelings.” If he’s precocious enough to ask you why, you can tell him that it’s a word that some people use specifically to hurt other people’s feelings—or because they don’t care about…