After a breakup in her 30s, a therapist stressed about when she'd start a family. She set a deadline for kids — and stuck to it.

• When she was 30, Beth Gulotta broke up with someone she was sure she'd have kids with one day.
• When she met her current partner, they both wanted kids, but he wanted to wait longer.

At 30, Beth Gulotta ended a five-year relationship with a man she was sure would one day be her husband and the father of her kids.

The pair were part of a big friend group made up of many other couples. "I watched everybody get engaged and married and have kids, and that was really difficult," Gulotta, now 43, told Business Insider.

Gulotta, a licensed mental health counselor, tried to embrace being on her own in her 30s but worried about her timeline for starting a family. "I was fluctuating in trying to be in gratitude about being single, but also being very sad and wondering if I would get married and have kids," she said.

After meeting her current partner at 34, Gulotta's experience pushed her to be firm on her timeline for kids — even when she risked another big breakup.

In her therapy practice, Gulotta said she's seen a lot of women who are suddenly single when they want to have children. Gulotta now focuses her work on the anxieties women in their 30s and 40s face around their fertility because she's been there — and feels like a lot of the burden falls on women to start conversations around kids.

She assumed her relationship would lead to marriage and kids

Gulotta started dating a close friend in her mid-20s. Due to their strong bond and long history, she thought the relationship would naturally lead to marriage and kids. "We'd never gotten to a place where we were talking about timelines or rings, but we had definitely planned a life together," she said.

But things unraveled when he needed to financially and emotionally support a family member. "That was really the priority, and I didn't see where I was going to fit into that," she said. They broke up when she was 30.

She wishes she was more upfront about kids when dating

After the breakup, Gulotta started dating again, but it took time to figure out what she was looking for — and how to ask for it.

She recalls trying to be a "cool girl," worrying that she would sound too demanding if she brought up kids early into dating. As a result, she ended up dating emotionally unavailable people who weren't capable of discussing the future.

"If I were to go back and be dating in my 30s, I would get really clear on what I wanted," she said. From her work as a therapist, she said she's seen so many cases "where you're even further into your 30s, and you end a six-year relationship, and then what? You're starting all over."

Being upfront, she said, makes it easier to avoid regret later on. When she met Rob, her current partner, she felt more urgency around her timeline for having kids. She was 34 and wanted certainty about her future. Rob wanted kids, too.

But there was a snag: Rob didn't want to start a family as soon as she did.

She was willing to break up over kids

Gulotta said it was difficult not to be aligned on when they wanted kids.

"I was 37, 38, having these conversations where he's not sure, and I'm like,' I don't have much more time for you to continue to be unsure,'" she said. "As much as I tried to explain it to him, I don't think he understood: I was up against a clock."

She froze her eggs at 37 to strengthen her sense of security. This decision also sparked "a lot of really hard conversations" about when to have kids.

She didn't want to walk away from the relationship. But she was also willing to break up, thinking about what she would need to do if she moved out of New York and had a baby on her own.

In the end, she gave birth to her son at 40. Looking back, Gulotta said everything worked out.

"It's deeply emotional, but you have to have these conversations because it's your life," she said. "It's the timeline that feels good for you."

Plus, being able to broach these topics says a lot about your partner, she said. If your partner is avoidant, it signifies bigger issues.

"At the end of the day, it should be two adult mature people making life decisions," she said.