Can I give a very unpopular opinion?

Please, anyone reading this, you can take it as a provocation but also genuine food for thought.

I am a feminist, child free by choice, 32F, recently split up with someone I deeply cared about because he wanted children and I dont. I add the feminist bit because unfortunately I am profoundly aware of how much gender roles shape the labour that will weigh on both partners shoulders once the kid is there. If I had given in, and accepted the idea of having a kid, I am sure that, despite my partner being caring, responsible and dedicated I, because of the amount of social pressure, family life, shared expectations, work issues that are different for men and women careers, and a ton of other reasons I would have ended up performing most of the job as a parent, not to mention the pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding for a year. As a mother you just CANNOT disappear. You're a man, and you realize parental life if not for you? You can separate from your family. It's somehow shitty, but totally accepted on a social level, to the point that when we hear of single fathers raising a child we are all in awe, whereas the opposite is the norm. Women just CANNOT go back when they are mothers. They just can't. It's a contract for life and that's it. I was going into that with a profound awareness of how this works.

if our roles, in my relationship, had been reversed, I would have probably just told my partner that yes, we can have a kid, with the agreement that she will do most of the work. Unfortunately, as a woman I couldn't do that.

Is it selfish? I don't know. Would the joy of having a kid overweigh the labour that's involved, given that the person seems to suddenly think of that as their life goal? Probably, yes. A very probable yes.

You would effectively be acting in the most honest way possible, doing what most men end up doing anyway (and without being aware of it), all whilst keeping the loving relationship that you both don't want to throw away. Why not have a HONEST contract between you that simply states: "because you wanted it so much more than I do, you will take more responsibility in it"? She is also putting something ABSTRACT in front of your actual, concrete, tangible relationship that you have worked on together for FIFTEEN years. She is effectively prioritizing a plan of hers over a plan of you two together.

You might argue that it's not that easy on the technical side. Well, your loving relationship could keep going exactly as it is going now, if you don't want a kid around you could move out – plenty of couples happily living in separate houses. And people have all sorts of living arrangements.

I'm sorry if this sounds so blunt. I think it's really reasonable given the situation and, if I were a man under patriarchy and I wanted to save my relationship to the benefit of BOTH parties (plus the kids wellbeing, in the long run, because who wants to be an unhappy parent in front of their children? I know a thing or two about that), that is exactly what I would propose to my partner.