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Adding to the above: Biological children with your spouse is not the only option. Adoption or fostering are two other. But again, it sounds like this is projection more than anything else and your mental issues are not actually caused by you not having had children.

It sounds very likely that even if you magically had a baby with your SO tomorrow, this would not be the "solution" you are looking for. Maybe it wouldn't be long until you feel the same level of regret over having had a kid, only now with an additional level of guilt.

Raising a child should be about the child first and foremost, not about you trying to resolve your existential crisis.

As I understand it, Mr & Mrs OP agreed they didn't want children; only OP has changed his mind. Unless Mrs OP had the much more specific objection to childbirth and indifference to children in general; non-biological children don't help OP.

> Sometimes I fantasize about leaving my spouse, who I love to death, find someone who I can have a child with.

A lot of comments here are along the lines of, “how you’re feeling is not really about what you think it’s about.” I think that’s very dismissive. Just because some others can’t relate, that doesn’t mean what you feel is not valid. We are biological beings, and the drive to procreate is very strong. It is existential. Some feel it more than others. I am very sorry for what you’re going through.

I really don't agree. Going from one extreme of not wanting kids to waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks caused by the idea of not having them? Hell, hints of borderline suicide ideation? That looks like a significant struggle with mental illness to me.

Forty is often that turning point in life where the end starts to look closer to the beginning. You have a lot more of your life to look back at and less to look forward to. We joke about mid-life crises, but they're a real thing.

The OP sure sounds to me like they're going through exactly that, and children have become a fixation.

And if they're struggling with anxiety and depression now, I can't imagine what they'd go through as a parent.

At minimum, they should not be making any decisions until they get a little healthier. First, it's very unlikely any decision they take, today, would be rational. And second, if they did choose to become a parent, they'd be doing so at a time when they're incredibly mentally and emotionally fragile, which is a recipe for disaster.

> Going from one extreme of not wanting kids to waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks caused by the idea of not having them?

I'm not going to psychoanalyze someone by a single text message, but I also thought it was unusual to swing that hard. Probably the decision was not thought well and hence the regret, maybe the neighbors have beautiful babies and FOMO brings regret, maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy, only they know.

I can only contribute my experience deciding not having kids. We both agreed to not have them, we're 50 now, the window has closed indeed for us, and we don't regret that decision at all. It's fantastic to age together and be the center of our own little family. What little need for forging a malleable mind is left, is fulfilled by the sporadic visits to/from our nephews and nieces.

Whatever OP does, I hope he doesn't do it on impulse. It's immensely better to regret not having kids, than regret having them.

> maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy

It makes me laugh when people talk about having a "legacy"

99.999% of people are unremarkable. There are currently just over 1M Wikipedia articles about living people. Meanwhile, there are 7.7B people on the planet. Even if you made the incorrect assumption that all 1M were about living Americans, with the US population being nearly 330M, that means you'd have to be in the top 0.3% to even have a Wikipedia article about you.

Unless you become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or at least a state-level politician, or become a high-profile criminal, you will probably be forgotten entirely within three generations of your death.

It surprises me that some people have a hard time coming to terms with this.

Even CEOs and most head of state will be forgotten in a couple of generations unless they do something really bad or really good. And most don’t!

They might at least end up with a Wikipedia article that doesn't immediately get deleted for not being notable.

Such a worthy goal!

Very true, but I think people associate the word "legacy" more with their children and community rather than their social status in the world. "legacy" is very important to me as I want to have an impact on my friends, family and community.

I might never have a wikipedia article about me, but at least I had kids and they will have kids and so on. Of course, I will eventually be forgotten (I don't know who my great great grandparents were) but if it weren't for them I would not be here today. One of the defs is " something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past".

Even worse than that.

Your children will have 1/2, or .5, of your DNA. Your grandchildren will have .25, great-grandchildren will have .125, then .0625....after 10 generations (about 300 years), your descendents will have 0.000977 of your DNA. After 30 generations (900 years) your descendents wil have 0.000000000931 of your DNA.

What kind of "legacy" are people thinking that they are leaving behind? All traces of your DNA will effectively disappear from all your progeny. You are gone, not a trace. Your DNA vanishes.

I agree 100%. As I got older and my father died and other older family members I realized that I was taking for granted my family and all of the energy around me it generated. The things that made me happy such as working, traveling and hobbies felt like they needed more. Also this is weird but just seeing guys locked up in prison that were the coldest people that ever existed weeping over their kids really got me feeling it was something special.

It is something special. I have a kid now and another coming in the next few weeks. It is both the most time consuming and expensive thing I can do but also the most meaningful. I never thought I would feel this way 5 years ago. It is definitely dismissive to tell someone hey your feelings are rooted in other problems. It is not like OP is longing for a cupcake or something. So I support the OP and if it is really something you need, do it!

This seems like a classic midlife crisis filtered through a different lens. My wife and I missed our window to have children as well, but the solution wasn't to attempt to rewind the clock and "hack" the situation. (though that was almost attempted). The key here is to accept things you have no control over and identify the ones you do - and then control those. Meaning can be found in many forms and not having kids actually frees one up to do a lot of things.

To OP: This opportunity can be leveraged even though it wasn't necessarily the situation you thought you would be in at this age. Life is funny that way.

On the other hand, it's possible that one is simply "depressed" (sad) because one can't achieve ones goals.

The solution, then, is to figure out a way to achieve them.

That is absolutely true. The question, though, is whether the OP's fixation on having kids _is_ a goal, or if it's just a manifestation of dissatisfaction with the status quo. They're at a stage in life where probably most of their friends and family (of their generation) are parenting. It's easy, when depressed, to look at others who you see as happy and ask, "what do they have that I don't?", and in this case, the most glaring answer may be "they have kids, so I should get kids too!".

This isn't to say that the OP is wrong, but rather that in their communication, they focused more on their longing than their parenting, implying that the want of parenting is more important to them than the parenting itself.

Consider also that this thread didn't come from a day's ponderings; it's a reaction to another article about how most of the time spent with children is before the child reaches 12 (as quoted in the OP). Such a trigger could suggest more fear-of-missing-out than inherent regret.

> they focused more on their longing than their parenting

I never wanted to parent (that's simply a necessary constituent part), but I've always wanted to have kids, a family, a legacy, teach them, raise them, provide them a warm safe cozy family environment (that I remember from my childhood).

So far I'm very happy with the decision and 0% regret (only 10 months in though).

This is a thoughtful and helpful answer.

The key is to find out about yourself first, and only then decide what you want to do. If you have not found your inner peace yet, it is very difficult to make good life decisions.

My own background: self-harm and substance abuse. The key to leaving these things behind was to spend time doing hard work on myself. We all hate hearing this and I hated it too at first, but there is no way for things to get better without hard work. The miracle cure will never work, no matter how hard we wish.

I got a lot out of this Buddhist lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-jiIpcYMZw

Paraphrasing the video: a cure that works instantly without having to do any work is really a person saying "give me a drug that feels good forever."

This is the answer I was inclined to give upon reading.

In addition to the importance of a sense of community and purpose (whether derived from children or not), I'd also like to contribute another lens through which to view anxiety and depression.

Things like lack of exercise, poor sleep, nutrient deficiencies, caffeine/nicotine/alcohol abuse, under-exposure to sunlight and nature can all cause physiological cascades which result in depression and anxiety irrespective of ones life achievements or circumstances.

And yet, at least in my experience, when feelings of depression and anxiety are present, the first thought is of life circumstances. If only I had a better job, better spouse, loving children, fame, fortune, I would not be anxious and depressed.

It's all too easy to latch on to a perceived lack of something in your life and blame it for any and all of your negative emotions and moods.

Like most human beings, I struggle somewhat significantly with a few specific regrets from my past, as well as the anxiety of navigating important life decisions as they come up.

When I'm feeling particularly anxious or depressed my mind is more inclined to ruminate over past regrets, or to dread upcoming life events. If I'm not present, I still often fall into the trap of believing that I'm depressed and anxious BECAUSE of these regrets or upcoming circumstance in my life.

What I've learned though is that at least for me, it's helpful to first attribute feelings of anxiety and depression to core fundamental needs like sleep, exercise, nutrition, sunlight, etc rather than to jump to and ruminate over regrets and fears.

I suppose a way to refer to a framework like this would be something like 'physiological anxiety and depression' vs 'circumstantial anxiety and depression'.

I believe it is totally possible to have anxiety and depression caused by issues to do with sleep, nutrition, substance abuse, and for your brain to trick you into believing that you're unhappy with your life circumstances.

This all being said, I in no way want to downplay circumstantial anxiety and depression and insinuate that they are not real. It's vital to have things like purpose, community, and to be generally satisfied and excited about ones path through life.

Get into teaching. You'll be skint, but happy.