A strange one… and that’s why I don’t know how to handle this?!

And I considered that but if he is doing the right thing then it serves no purpose to tell his wife.

If he's being a goof father and husband now that would just be spiteful @MyNDfamily. Why would you want to tell her?

You have done so well to put your DD first and try to move on from what he did. He is her Father, they need to have a relationship. I don't think it matters if he'd on the BC. Put DD first and be the bigger person. I can imagine you are angry inside about this. One day he will need to explain to DD why he is not on there. He's scared of the commitment for sure. I had a termination after an AH did this to me, the pregnancy was entirely accidental. He moved countries and said he didn't want in. I thought everything was perfect, we were really in love. Just goes to show you what men do. He has a wife and child now and I sometimes want to tell his wife.

My comment was a bit pointless

Presumably, then, if you're in the UK, your child's father bothered to turn up to register them... because legally, that's the only reason as to how he could be.

My kids father and I aren’t married and he’s on the kids’ birth certificates

I think the bigger picture here is, if you put him on the birth certificate he will have PR, there are 2 sides to that. 1. If your child has unsupervised/overnight stays and something like a medical emergency happens (and you are not available) he will be able to deal with it from a consent perspective, such as medical procedures, he will also have a voice in things such as which school your child goes to and any other important decisions, as well as the financial responsibility that you say he is covering anyway, but if he didnt pay you would be able to persue it.
The other side is. If you don't put it on there, he will not automatically have these rights, and nor will you. So for instance...if he decided to stop paying, you would likely need to go through the court process of dna tests to be able to claim child maintenance. If the relationship became strained, he disappeared again, came back and was an unstable influence for your child you could refuse contact and he would have no rights , unless he fought it through the courts
Unfortunatly I suspect all of the above is what he is considering. Which isnt what a genuine caring parent would normally do. It would be a no brainer, of course you would want that official confirmation they are your child.
I would be very cautious what you wish for, and I do understand totally your reasoning for wanting it. But it doesn't sound like he is on the same page as you. X

This 💯

Regarding the birth certificate issue:- just as an aside if you are married either one of you can register the birth without the other one there and you both go on the birth certificate.
(If you are not, only the mother can register the birth and the man can’t be on the birth certificate if he’s not present. As lots of people have already said).

If a father freaks out and leaves then feels well enough to come back and support his child, then he should. But he has to be 100% sure he will stick around for the duration.

If you're not married you need the father to sign - otherwise you could put King Charles on there if you felt like it.

So your ex has behaved reasonably for about a year after walking out on you when you were pregnant and going AWOL for a year before that. I would want a lot more time to decide whether I wanted him on the birth certificate.

My husband does a lot of work with people who often make unexpected discoveries about their family history. It is not unusual for people to find out that their biological father is not the man who raised them. He always tells them that for all practical purposes the man who raised them and whom they always thought was their biological father is their "dad".

I don't think your ex is your child's dad in those terms so I wouldn't be super keen on giving him parental rights. What if he has another breakdown and picks up the child and goes who knows where with her? It won't be kidnapping will it? I simply wouldn't give him that level of power without seeing a few more years of reasonable behaviour to your daughter.

So when I was MASSIVELY freaked out finding out I was unexpectedly becoming a mother to my fifth child, it would have been ok for me to walk away?

Nice to learn that now!

Oh wait......

Maybe he got spooked when you told him you were pregnant - some men are like that. Were you actually trying for a baby or did it just happen? Maybe it's not what he wanted but couldn't bring himself to say so - there's lots of reasons why he might just disappear but only you know the circumstances of your relationship.

Maybe he doesn't want to explain the why's of anything - but why turn back up on the scene when he'd already walked away? Having said that, nobody owes anyone an explanation and you can't force people to tell you what they don't want to share - it would just be nice to know what happened so you could try to understand. I'd just be careful how involved you get with him x

No if was to get him to marry her. It certainly wasn't because she thought he'd support me.

When I registered my children, I cited their surname as my middle name (which was my mother's maiden name) hyphenated with my paternal last name. No one batted an eyelid. In 1996 and 2004. I know, from a registrar friend that if I, an unwed mother, Smith, had gone in there to register a baby by Bloggs, their surname, legally could well end up Bucket. No one would be able to stop me. The only thing is that I, Smith, would be on the birth certificate, but unless Bloggs' arse was sat there, too... his wouldn't be.

Giving you the same surname as your father may not necessarily have been to manipulate him into marriage. It may well, especially during the 70s (I'm from that decade, too) have been to try to shame him into supporting you as you grew. My own mother (born 1950s) was born to a single woman whose mother bullied her into giving 'the baby' (ie my mother) "their" family name. In later years, my grandmother said that my mother would have had the surname of the man who got her pregnant - so that he'd cough up maintenance. My biological grandfather, who was on the periphery of our lives until '99 when he died, was married with 3 kids by the time their affair took place. And he stayed married to the same woman until he died... but because my mother didn't have his surname, he didn't pay towards her. My grandmother didn't have the fight to take it to court -or to stand up to her mother, in turn, and state that my mother needed some proof that she was this man's baby. However, I do know that even then, Miss Jones could have registered her baby as Baby Bloggs...

Thing is, even when we hyphenate mother and father's surnames together... we're creating new family names, aren't we...?

That's the thing, though. Nothing about this relationship with him has been traditional in any way.

There isn't going to be any happy families with this guy.

No. They weren't even together for long really.

My ex and I broke up when I was pregnant too and it was clear he was going to be useless.

I did put him on the birth certificate because I felt it was the right thing to do but I have questioned it since, many times! I absolutely gave her my surname though, it was never a consideration to include his.

He's her father, and it was right for the documentation to reflect that, but being family is very different.

Ps. I'm sure it's been covered by now but I haven't read all the comments.

To register the birth
For married couples - you can do this solo
For unmarried couples - both people need to be present. You cannot register a man you're not married to, as the father of your baby, without him being there to register it with you.

No, absolutely just to get him to marry her. I'm just surprised she could give me a name completely different from hers and with no dad on.

I suppose it was because she hoped he'd marry her.

She has been no parent to me.

what you should be concerned about is why she did that? she should have given you her name. She was your parent. you deserved her name.

I was born in 1972 to unmarried parents. My birthday certificate has a ---- where the father's name should be. What I'm confused about is my mother was able to give me his surname. This makes me wonder whether a mother can give her child any surname she wants. Of course I have no idea if she told the registrar it was actually my father's name.