Lizzie Cleary

In therapy, we talk about the differences between making an emotion-driven decision versus a value-driven decision. The idea is that values tend to be more stable and “true,” while emotions are shorter-lasting and aren’t always accurate predictors of the future.

I could imagine it being helpful to have a conversation with your partner in which you each articulate your values. Then you two could explore how having a child or not relates to each value (e.g., we have a shared value of community and here’s how we imagine having a child would contribute to our sense of/activities related to community and here’s how it could be in tension with that value by impacting our time, availability, resources, etc.).

Another conversation could focus on the *emotions* associated with this decision (e.g., fear, anxiety, excitement, curiosity, envy, ambivalence, etc.). As you talk through and receive feedback from each other on each emotion, you may understand better the thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions feeding each one.

Some of those emotions may be “addressable” — i.e., for anxiety, you may identify specific fears, such as experiencing clinical depression, and create plans to mitigate these possibilities (e.g., having proactive conversations with your medical team, naming between you and your partner how you balance/divide up parenting tasks, identifying support people, having conversations with current parent friends about what they found most helpful, etc.).

This framework is agnostic to any particular outcome, but identifies a process by which to explore how you’re approaching the decision.