AIBU to feel sad and deflated about having a baby with my partner?

Very easy for a man to say he wants more children when it’s most likely that the woman will be carrying most of the workload 🙄

Great post.
It is often the case.

So many men with children finding kind, soft, always solvent, usually house owning women.

The overwhelming of which regret their choice, often sadly AFTER having had a child, which these men encourage to entrap them.

I really hope the OP thinks long and hard about how she is feeling and doesn't ignore it.

Actually feel for you because I wouldn’t want this either but you obviously accepted the situation when you chose to not only enter a relationship but go as far as marrying him. I think the most important thing is to remember how much of a great dad he presumably is. Your DSD’s mum sounds abysmal but at least your DH has stepped up despite barely knowing her mum at all. This bodes well for any future children you would have, even if you split one day.

People have sex with people they hate all of the time, it’s super common. Sex isn’t always wrapped up in emotions, it’s primal.

Certainly is! But we live and learn.

Happened to me, @MixedFeelingsNoFeelings! It’s the pits isn’t it.

It's hard to get an idea of someone from a MN post, but having been in a situation with some similarities to OP's, I'd think hard about what kind of person DH is and might be in the future.

Are you a pretty dependable type OP? Educated, professional, comparatively stable financially and emotionally? It sounds as if you are. Did you have a whirlwind romance with this guy... found his chaos, for want of a better word, new and kind of appealing... admired the way he tries to support the DD he had by accident with a crazy ex? Did he propose at the height of your romance? Did you find accommodation together and both contribute equally, or is it essentially your house?

Everyone's circumstances are different of course, but I'm just trying to share a few red flags I didn't pick up at the time. Your gut reactions may be telling you what your lovestruck and compassionate mind won't - that this man could be a threat to your security.

My step child was the result of a uni on-off thing rather than a marriage or long term relationship and actually, on reflection, that's been better than if it were a long deep financial and administrative entanglement between them pre baby. The focus has been on co-parenting not on their previous relationship. I get on well with my step child's mum and already knew her pre baby. She came to our wedding. I'm saying all this because I absolutely don't think the issue here is that they weren't in a proper heavy grown up long term relationship before the baby. The issue is that you don't like or respect your step child's mum. That's the challenge.

On first reading I was like "yeah, she sounds awful" but there's nuance and context that we miss on posts like these. Maybe she is a terrible mother, maybe she is selfish. But also, maybe she wants the overtime at work because she needs the money, maybe she needs to look out for her mental health because she recognises that she's had mental health challenges in the past and needs to take care of herself.

If you don't want a baby, that's totally up to you and you need to listen to what your head, heart and body are saying.

If you have a baby with your partner, this other woman will be in your life long term. My step child is 20 and we still communicate with and meet in person with her mum.

My husband had been at the birth of his first child but it didn't matter that he'd been through it before. It's better that he's the kind of person who was there, who supported his child's mum and helped with nappies and all sorts, that's what good Dads do. Also, my birth experiences were completely different to hers so even though he thought he knew what he was doing, it was new to him in many ways.

My main worry for you is that you're already giving off vibes of jealousy and resentment and apprehension. I think it's really brave, sensible and mature of you to recognise those feelings and think twice about what decisions you make next.

You're grieving an ideal. Let yourself mourn the vision of what you thought your future motherhood life would be like and then see how you feel and what it is you truly want and if the essential parts perhaps marriage are still possible with this man. We have feelings for a reason. From there, we take our cues and weigh them out with facts and careful consideration. Take care!

Sorry but dont get it. You have married him although he had baggage. Nothing wrong with that. .You have a step daughter you seem to love.
If you cant accept your husbabds past ,you shouldnt have married him should you?
Your experience of pregnancy will be unique to you and him. You cant change his past. Dont let it spoil your future.

It sounds like you’re allowing your feelings towards DSD’s mum to colour how you feel about your relationship with your husband and your DSD and it’s weighing on your mind about a potential future child being affected by the chaos. I think it would be good to talk to your husband and discuss your fears and worries. Would it be possible for you to take DSD on more permanently and protect her from the environment she’s in with her biological mother?

I think that's you having a strange mentality! It's perfectly fine for people to get into new relationships and have blended families? So if you have kids with a partner and then he leaves, should you have men hate you and refuse to date you for the rest of your life because they consider you to be repulsive because you have kids from another relationship? That's what you are saying, that men and women are scum if they've had kids with someone else? That's hardly mentally healthy to think like that!

I wonder if seeing a empathic counsellor and beginning with the contrast between feeling fine with your own father’s first family and not at all fine with your DH’s previous child might be a really valuable starting point. You have some really profound feelings going on here, judging that by your language, and unravelling them might be useful before trying to conceive x

Your feelings seem irrational. You can't change the past. You decided you love this man enough to marry him and knowing he has a DD. You have always wanted children. And yet these feelings of sadness at the prospect of having children with your DH. There is more to explore here. These feelings will be telling you something. It sounds like counselling may be a good bet, to help you unwrap where these feelings are actually coming from. Not being able to tell your DH how you feel is long term not sustainable. But maybe get more insight first, before you do talk to him about it.

Yep same. And that’s fine. Explore why or just decide that it doesn’t work for you

I feel for you OP. Being a step parent throws up all kinds of complicated emotions. My husband had 2 children and a 10 year marriage with a "difficult woman" who always put herself before her children and we would always be there to pick up the pieces. The boys were tweens when I met them and I knew I would never be their mum but now they are grown I can grown I can honestly say it doesn't matter a jot. Children love their parents, but they also know when they are loved and supported, and now my boys love and support me right back. When my husband and I started trying I was filled with so many complex emotions about his wife and life before me, and the shock horror.... I couldn't even get pregnant. He would always have that with her, and never with me ..... I thought I would never get over that. But I have, I feel like a mum in all the ways that counts, our kids ignore us and take us for granted exactly as they should 😂 and we are the first port of call when they are struggling or need something.

Parenting/step parenting really it's not the label it's the feelings involved. If mum is unreliable, the kids will figure that out on their own. If you are not they will figure that out too.

One thing my husband always says about raising kids with someone he loves and trusts is how enjoyable it is having had the experience of raising children with someone he was ultimately not in love with and VERY different too.

We are now foster parents, a whole new type of parenting, full of all the same love and grief and complications as parenting/step parenting, I no longer feel less that his ex, or like they had something we never will, although I did for a long time, the fact that his sons look just like him and his ex no longer tugs at my heart strings. It has been a journey but I would say if you love this man and this little girl and you want children then build a family together, children need as many loving adults as they can get In this crazy world. I have 3 parents myself, a mum, a dad and a step mum, I feel blessed to have them.

I know my "step" sons are grateful for me, I am "softer" than their mum, more "easy going" they also have my parents as an extra set of grandparents whom they feel loved and supported by. Blended family's can be wonderful. Don't resent what they had together, what you will have will be totally different.

Good luck

For the OP, it might be like having a husband who already has 2 children not 1. The mother sounds a right handful of irresponsibility and maybe her DH is reminded all too often of his entanglement with her. Obviously when a child is involved none of it is the child's fault but she needs stability, she didn't ask to be born but by the sound of it her mother is a nightmare.

Obviously things are already strained between OP & DH, and OP is struggling to even look at him never mind have a baby with him. Of course he wants a baby to cement the relationship but somebody has to be the adult and not risk just bringing another child into an uncertain relationship.

Did he ever see the DNA test results?

I don’t really understand the problem. You don’t want to have a baby because he has a daughter from a ONS with a questionable person? Depriving yourself of children isn’t going to make the ONS lady any better.

A jointly planned and much wanted pregnancy and child is a completely different arrangement within the relative security of marriage, than he had before . Talk to him about you feel about the difference between your feelings as a first timer and that fact he's done all this once before and it didn't work out as a happy ever after, even though you have his lovely daughter in your lives, and ask him how he really feels about another baby.

This response seems insightful and I agree professional help is needed to unpick and move forward. Whilst I agree about the fear (it is really hard to be so entwined with a person who is unpredictable and whose actions you have no control over but impact your life) its ultimately resentment. Resentment fot the current situation youre in and resentment for possible complexities in the future that involve a new person. Resentment can be very hard to work through, but i suppose first you need to make a decision about whether you want to work through it?

OP - how would you feel if the mum was completely out of the picture and you and your husband had full parental responsibility?

I'm wondering if it is more the impact on your family life rather than your DH having a ONS which is causing these feelings?

My partner has a son from a previous 'relationship' and I had my first baby with my partner last year. He was present for all scans and was excited all the way through. He has been so supportive, even going to antenatal classes with me even though he's done it all before. He was so amazing and we're expecting baby number 2 this November!
It is clear your husband wants and is so excited for you both to start a family. Don't let these feelings stop you!

There's no right or wrong here as far as I can tell (despite some judgy comments!)- but you do need to be able to tell him about these feelings- if its how you feel, its how you feel, and thats ok. He sounds like a decent one from what you've said, and you may well need him to hold your hand while you try and have a poo after a baby (if you decide to do it.... definitely not speaking from experience or anything....!) So any embarrassment at the way you feel will need to take a back seat- might as well test the waters! Good luck. X

You're not being unreasonable and your sadness is very understandable.

It's perfectly normal to grieve for things you hoped for - whether consciously or unconsciously - when you have to let them go.

I've never wanted my own children, but I sometimes still feel very sad that my DP had children with someone else. He will always have a bond with their mum and have shared experiences with her that I will never share with him.

I think you have to accept that these are feelings you might always have. That doesn't mean you love him or his daughter less, or that you won't have wonderful experiences with him on your own motherhood journey.

Be kind to yourself. We are all human and our emotions aren't always what we'd like them to be.