Fine advice.
Most women who intend to have children will very likely have them by their mid-30s. After that, it's possible to have kids, but it's increasingly more difficult and expensive, especially when fertility treatments are involved.
@Otterly usually pops up to do the Lord's work about the facts of female fertility when the weird "no babies after 30" trope gets rolled out. If you have proven fertility (i.e. kidlets) by your mid thirties, you will remain pretty fertile up and through the perimenopause. (Make contraceptive arrangements based on that knowledge.) Women all around you have that suspiciously late baby for a good reason: the female reproductive system often gives a last hurrah in the mid to late forties before it goes gently into that good night. Don't worry about completing a family by mid-30s, but if having kids is vitally important to you, do try to get started by then. Once you get started, usually the rest follow pretty easily. Secondary infertility is not that common.
a man in his late 30s will start to have trouble with testosterone, low sperm count, and performance. These problems will continue into his 40s and 50s. These are also not impossible issues to solve
They are often very, very difficult to solve. Particularly low quality sperm, broken tails etc. The answer to his swimmers not swimming is often, for his female partner, a course of difficult and painful IVF. The physical burden of fertility treatment is borne entirely by the female partner. And IVF is not suitable for every woman.
Your mileage on a limp dick may vary, but be warned that impotence is pretty psychologically hard on a moid and you are likely to catch the blame or at least the edge of his temper about the limpness of his dick.
with any man, whether or not you want children - or want to be a stepmom to his kids - needs to be a priority when you are dating
It's The Question. You need an honest answer, and one you can live with. At least, you need as honest an answer as he is capable of giving you. See below. Moids are really, really bad at understanding what they want and meaningfully planning for their future.
not everyone may be okay with you as a stepmom
Pro tip: if the first wife had kids with him, she's always going to be around. Even if she is royally sick of his bullshit, kids are a tie that can never be severed. Some people have wonderful step relationships, and others... well, stepmothers in particular tend to be a lot more honest when they think they are anonymous. Parenting another woman's children is not for the faint hearted.
If he doesn't have kids of his own, he's going to want you to bear them. It doesn't matter what he says
They get to an age when they start to have thoughts about Legacy and The Value Of Family. This age is coincidentally the exact same age they finally swallow the blackpill over The Value of Their Fat Belly and Limp Dick. Once they can no longer convince themselves you are easily replaceable or upgradeable, they will lock you in as fast as possible. All moids, nice or nasty, know the most effective shackle for their woman appliance is a baby or two.
moids change their mind on this issue all the time, even after they tell you they don't want children.
I have a pleasant husband who was very keen, in fact quite desperate, to have children. After the second one, he got wise to the fact they were kind of cramping his lifestyle and started making loud noises about a vasectomy. He did not bother to get one, even though I have medical issues with reliable contraception. He was not at all keen on number three once they were on their way. This time he said he would actually book the vasectomy. He did not, gentle reader. Instead he continued to literally fuck around and find out, was astonished and enraged when his proven broodmare got knocked up again, and when we found out number four was actually going to be numbers four and five, went all in on trying to convince me to get an abortion.
Never be surprised by a sudden Damascene conversion on the joys of fatherhood, in either direction.
If you want children, unfortunately, you need to find a father sooner rather than later.
If you want children, you are never shopping for a husband, you are always in the market for a father. Take your eye off that and you are potentially inflicting a deadbeat on your children, as well as yourself. You get to walk away from an ex husband in a way your children will never be able to walk away from the shitty father you gave them.
You're going to devote your most healthy years to your husband and children.
You are also going to absolutely wreck not only your career prospects in the short term, but handicap them severely in the long term and mostly importantly, you are fucking your pension provision and savings up in a way that might not be recoverable. Your husband meanwhile continues to have his career prospects and pension savings entirely unharmed. This decision is going to cost you real money; for professional women, easily seven figures' worth of lifetime income. And the security that that brings.
I've seen too many men who were promising devolve into untreated mental illness, substance abuse, and addiction. This includes professional men.
The Nick Rekieta thread is right over there for the doubters. He's not an outlier. The male midlife crisis is a very real thing; they do not go gracefully into late middle age at all.
