Dear GhanaWeb,

I am a 34-year-old woman married to a 40-year-old man, and we have been together for eight years. Within these eight years, we have been blessed with five children. Our youngest child is only 11 months old.

The truth is that I am exhausted. While I love my children dearly, raising five young children has taken a toll on me physically, emotionally, and financially.

Unfortunately, my husband wants us to continue having more children. In fact, he wants us to have ten children because he says he is doing it to honour his father.

As things stand now, I cannot continue like this. Because of how overwhelmed I feel, I secretly went for family planning so I would not get pregnant again so soon. When my husband realised that I was trying to avoid pregnancy, things at home became very tense.

He has become aggressive, sometimes hitting me and threatening to divorce me if I refuse to continue having more children.

What makes the situation even harder is that we are already struggling financially. My husband is a teacher, and the little money he brings home is not enough to properly care for the family. Sometimes we struggle to feed the children, yet he still insists that we should keep having more.

When I raised concerns about our finances and the number of children we already have, he told me he has land in his hometown and that if things become difficult, we can move there and start farming.

But I do not want that life. I have a diploma in Early Childhood Education, and my dream is to eventually go back to work when the children are a bit older. Right now, I cannot work because the children are still very young and need constant care.

We currently live in a single room with a porch, and managing five children in such a small space is already extremely stressful. Thinking about bringing more children into this situation scares me. I married my husband out of love, but lately the pressure and constant arguments have made me regret my decision.

The hardest part is that there never seems to be the right time to talk about this issue. Whether I bring it up early in the morning, during a calm moment when we are alone, or even through text, he becomes angry, calls me names, and shuts down the conversation.

I do not want a divorce. I want us to pause and stabilise our lives before bringing more children into this world. I believe I also have a voice and a say in this marriage.

Please, how do I communicate my concerns to my husband without triggering his anger and aggression? What should I do? I really need help.

FG/EB

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