My college girlfriend and I (both women) were together for four years, through a pandemic, graduation, and almost a year of post-graduation long distance. It was a very good relationship; we basically never fought, treated each other very well, genuinely liked each other, etc. She broke up with me a few months ago after realizing she wanted kids-I definitely do not.
Throughout my engagement, people joked about how I'd lucked out in the mother-in-law department because my husband's mother was extremely chill and not obsessed with the idea of grandkids. My husband and I are dedicated to being child-free (he got the snip in college), and it was a relief to us both that his mother was fine with that. I never expected that the problem would be with my (younger) sisters-in-law!
A wily trial lawyer I once worked for delighted in asking outrageous personal questions, and people almost always answered him. "Never forget," he told me, "a question asked is not necessarily a question you have to answer." That got me thinking. When I was feeling tender, defensive, or vulnerable, I wasn't ready to explain my situation. Then I decided I had every right to skirt the subject, because my reproductive status was no one's business but my own.
