Can we stop talking about men being trapped?

Yes.

But that doesn’t mean men shouldn’t use condoms

Again, if a man, even in a stable relationship, one hundred percent wants no more children, then he should have a vasectomy, wear a condom, or accept that accidents might happen.
Of course some women may come off the pill and not tell their husbands, which is wrong, but men have to accept that if they want control over the amount of children they have it is THEIR responsibility and no one else's.

I imagine the number of women who are able to get pregnant to a man who is taking responsibility for not having a child is vanishingly small.

It isn't going to be effective at all if she is lying about it.

Why do you have no expectation of honesty in a relationship?

I do know a number of married women who "accidentally" got pregnant with a third child which the DH definitely did not want. They said they were on the pill but had stopped. Having children in a stable, loving relationship should be a mutual decision. It isn't a woman's right to press ahead regardless.

Aaaahhh, poor naive and trusting men, ensnared by all these terrible women...instead of just being responsible for their own lives.

@SouthLondonMum22

Why do you have no expectation that a man should take control of their fertility?

So what if a women says she's on the pill. It's not 100% effective. That's well known.

Why do men not play their part in preventing pregnancy?

In my marriage, I am the one who is adamant that I do not want children, DH is more ambivalent. I could not imagine DH having sole responsibility for us not getting pregnant. Even if DH wore a condom each time, there's no way I'd give up control over whether we'd have a baby or not. And yet so many men seem happy to make it their partner's responsibility/problem.

But did they also use a condom or not?

It is mindblowing to me that if you don't want children that you would place 100% of the responsibility for that not happening on another person.

It definitely isn't reliable when you pretend to take it because you want a baby.

When I see someone saying a person was trapped with a pregnancy, I've never seen it as trapped into marriage, rather trapped into parenthood. That does happen and I've known it personally a couple of times (all confirmed by the pregnant woman, definitely not just an assumption).

Maybe people are meaning this. Not marriage related at all, which I agree, a pregnancy definitely does not trap someone into!

If only people didn't lie about something so big in what is supposed to be a trusting relationship.

And how stupid/irresponsible some women are, not protecting themselves from conceiving a baby with a man who doesn’t want them or the child. 🙄🤷‍♀️

It takes two - both should protect themselves against any unwanted results.

I didn’t say anything about abortion. I was talking about contraception.

Women should be able to talk about what they want without anyone trying to silence them OP.

Plus if you're so dead against it, it wasn't really a wise choice of thread subject, was it?

This has been done to death but I know of at least two friends who did this to their husbands - assured them they were sorting contraception and then a “whoops how did that happen?” pregnancy 🙄

The pill isn't 100% reliable though.

No it's still trapping him because he's trapped into paying for a human being he didn't agree to. He's also tied to that woman whether he likes it or not, for the next 18 years, through having to communicate about the child etc.

If you think some women don't lie to their partners saying they're on the pill when they're not in order to get pregnant against his wishes then you've lived a very sheltered and naive life.

If you mean 'trapped' as in society at large will expect him to 'do the right thing', then yes it's a pretty much an antiquated idea. Unless there are family, cultural, or religious pressures then no he's not 'trapped'. Even then he can still walk away, it's just that he'll pay a price for it in being alienated by his family, church, or cultural 'group'.

I think the only 'trapped' other than that is what the man may feel himself, if he does feel anything. A man in a bad marriage may feel trapped at walking out on his wife and/or other children. A man with a conscience may feel trapped because he does feel some sense of responsibility for a child he's 'created'. But those men will also realize that it's at least partly of their own making by failure to use contraception.

And no, I don't feel that walking away but having to pay child maintenance is 'being trapped'. That's just the 'price' you pay for having sex.

But from time immemorial men have walked out on unwanted children without a backward glance, it's nothing new. And it was pretty rare that that man was completely 'ostracized' forever, they've always been able to get away with it after a period of finger pointing and tut-tutting. I'm from the generation of 'shotgun marriages' and it was always the girl/woman who paid the price in the end. The man or boy was forgiven after a bit because 'She must be no better than she should be. A nice girl/decent woman would have said NO in the first place'.

If only someone would invented something so that men could control if they have a child or not.....

Every man I have ever known has known that with unprotected sex there is a risk of pregnancy, so yes agree

That's how I always envisioned it too. So many couples end up having a child (intentionally or not) in a hope that it would "fix" the marriage just to end up making it far far worse.

There's no contraception other than condoms which doesn't have health impacts, and condoms fail, so that's not even possible.