# "I want children, but the love of my life doesn't": How do we choose between the life we have and the one we long for?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dial-emma-5229217/i-want-children-but-the-love-of-my-life-doesn-t-how-do-we-choose-between-the-life-we-have-and-the-one-we-long-for
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dial-emma-5229217/i-want-children-but-the-love-of-my-life-doesn-t-how-do-we-choose-between-the-life-we-have-and-the-one-we-long-for.md
Podcast: [Dial Emma](https://stenobird.com/podcast/dial-emma-5229217)
Published: 2025-11-03T00:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://dial-emma.captivate.fm
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/bf85feeb-4513-4f44-a01e-ed0167a22748.mp3?aw_0_1st.showid=55a7e298-840a-4d74-83ea-9b2f7b730a36&aw_0_1st.episodeid=bf85feeb-4513-4f44-a01e-ed0167a22748
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Duration seconds: 1729

## Resource

Welcome back to Dial Emma! Each week, I'll be answering your dilemmas with honesty, empathy, and a few therapeutic truth bombs to help you make sense of life's stickiest moments. If you've ever wished you had a therapist in your back pocket, Dial Emma is here to help. In this week's episode, I explore the sharp end of love - those crossroads where heart and future pull in opposite directions. Two listeners share life-defining dilemmas that ask the same haunting question: What do you do when your heart and your future don’t want the same thing? In our first letter, a woman faces the agony of wanting children, when her long-term partner does not. To answer it, I unpack the difference between change and self-realisation, how resentment grows in the spaces where love stands still, and why sometimes two truths can both be right but no longer fit together. In our second dilemma, a happily married listener confesses to falling in love with someone else. I delve into the anatomy of emotional infidelity, the unmet needs that lie beneath attraction, and the difference between a relationship that’s wrong and one that’s simply outgrown. If you have a dilemma for Emma, please fill out this form.  --- Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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