Dad regret

[Lionsfan]

Hi all

First time poster here and I am in a bit of a pickle. Long story short:

My wife and I of 6.5 years have a 2 year old son. She is now expecting. To say we have had a rocky road of parenting is probably true, we have often fought and clashed and I have grown to realise that I don't love her and am in not love with her. She was desperate to have another child and I was less keen; not dead against it but reluctant for the main reason that I don't see her as the one for me.

I was quite ambivalent about having our first, but after a few missed periods and our relationship being in a better place then I got on board and was thrilled when she was pregnant. But the last few years I have started to wonder whether the life of 2 kids with my wife for life is really a life I want. I miss my days when I had more freedom and could explore my interests. I know that is a cliche and I bet 95% of parents feel the same but I simply regret the choices I have made. I am not happier than I was when I was single. I adore my son but I honestly believe that I would be a better parent if I was happier and alone/with someone else albeit the fall out of breaking up with my wife may well be very painful for everyone.

Over the last few weeks I again warmed to the idea of another baby and so we were trying but when I suspected (rightly) that she was pregnant I became remorseful and when she told me she was pregnant about 10 days ago I was crushed.

Now I am just so confused. Honestly, 10-15% of me is excited/positive and thinking may be this is for the best; that the next 2-3 years of more baby/toddler time will be tough but it will all be worth it. The difference is- that as true as that may be for every single parent- there is a love and a certainty with other couples that they are right for each other. And I am sure it's not healthy to feel as I do.

I may get shit for this in terms of how I would leave my wife in the lurch by leaving now or shortly after birth (or whenever) or by playing along and living a lie; but I honestly don't know what to do. Leave now and rip the band aid off to cause no more hurt or settle for a life that I don't think will make me happy and do my best to love, care for and provide for my family knowing there are far more people worse off than me and to live with my decisions. I could/should have made the decision to leave my wife or not have children long ago and I should live with the decision.

I see a therapist to talk through this very issue but she's away. My mom is aware of my feelings somewhat but not yet that my wife is pregnant. Any help or hard truths/constructive criticism is very welcome!

Thanks for reading.

Lions fan

Gosh I feel for you. What an awful position to be in. Wish I could give you a big hug.

Wait to talk to your therapist and then I think you are going to have to come clean. If I was her I would want to know.

"I honestly believe that I would be a better parent if I was happier and alone/with someone else."

But you won't be alone.

You will soon have two children, 50% of the time. (Which, when you're a solo parent - as you are proposing - is a lot of children to manage for a lot of time.)

That's assuming you're going to step up and share the responsibility equally.

Dramatic one, aren't you.

When did she stop being “the one”? She must have been the one when you proposed to her, married her, talked about starting a family together?

Im not being goady - this is a genuine question you should think deeply on? When did she stop being the one?

Was it when she was pregnant and you were having less sex? Was it when the first child was born and all her time/attention/love was diverted to the baby and you weren’t the centre of her world any more? Was it when you were both exhausted and sleep deprived with a baby and you got snappy with each other? When did your feelings start to change?

Honestly all of the above things happen in the best of marriages. Those first few years with babies and toddlers puts a massive strain on a relationship. It certainly did for me and my husband. It’s at this stage that you need to knuckle down, really try hard to be a good partner and make time for each other, on your relationship, be patient with each other, talk to each other. Get through those tough years and come back stronger on the other side. Now that my children are all at school our marriage is incredible again. We both understood it was a difficult few years and were patient that it would get better again.

A cowardly and selfish man walks away when times get tough, when his wife is struggling with pregnancy and babies, when he isn’t her centre of attention in those exhausting few years. A strong man talks to his wife about how he is feeling, how he is finding things difficult and asks his wife if they can come up with a plan together to improve the relationship, find child-free time together, to both do whatever it takes to get through the bump in the road, to see if you can get back to the good times.

Well of course it is. Surely it hasn't passed you by that men and women are different, and often have very different attitudes towards parenting? The number of women who are their children's primary carer compared to men? The number of men who leave their families and are lacklustre part time parents, or barely bother at all compared to women who do the same? Not in every single case, obviously, but its enough of a pattern of behaviour in the two sexes to warrant advice being skewed differently. Should we ever get to a point where women habitually make their children peripheral to their hobbies and interests leaving single fathers to do the childcare heavy lifting alone, then perhaps men can start advising them not to neglect themselves.

Exactly this. It’s so disingenuous to say ‘if a woman said the same she’d get sympathy’. Not comparable. Women do not habitually get bored of raising a family and leave, then claim they do their bit because they pay minimum child maintenance and have their kids every other weekend. Men do.

They are NPCs in his game of life.

I assume you are deliberately argumentative other wise you clearly lack the ability to learn when people have explained clearly multiple times. One last time and no more because if you STILL don't get it you are beyond help and should speak to a doctor about your inability to retain simple information.

89% of single parents are mothers, that is 9 in 10. Mothers in EIGHTY NINE percent of cases retain full time caring over the child regardless of who left.

Visitation or the odd sleepover is not 'parenting' regardless of who its with.

Of the 11% of men who retain full time parents it in a much larger percentage a result of unfortunate death of the mother or parental termination of the mothers rights (so where the fathers only other option is to give the child up for adoption).

Leave the husband yes but they’ll also still be primary carer. I don’t think I’ve ever read on here support for a woman who not only wants to leave her husband but wants to leave her kids too so they can be a Disney mum.

If a woman said she wanted to leave her kids because she still wants to live the single life I can’t see her getting much support for that other from other like minded immature posters.

You can be as patronising as you like, but you’re not answering what I asked and you’re ignoring what a poster has specifically said, instead choosing to quote statistics and decide he’ll behave like the “average”.

I’m not sure how many times I can say this but he has not said he’s leaving his kids. He’s specifically said the opposite. It’s interesting that so many posters either don’t read that, or just assume that “of course he’s lying”

Ok, live with at the family home.

Are you a man or woman?

If the OP feels the advice offered has a sexist bias he is entirely free to avoid this by posing his question to other men. If you feel the advice here has a sexist bias, you are entirely free to offer alternative advice of your own. We all get a go on here. Why not offer something yourself to help this man, instead of constantly jumping on other posters, saying the same things repeatedly despite having been answered, and effectively derailing this guys thread in order to tell women off? The people you are criticising have at least addressed the OP giving him the opinions and female perspective he no doubt expected from posting on MN, not just used him as a vehicle to complain about attitudes they dislike.

Well you don’t know the ins and outs. But he thought having children cut into his valuable ‘training time’. We agreed he would cut back when we had the children that he also wanted. He didn’t. In fact he saw me as a full time working parent, a housemaid and of course my role to do all the childcare around my successful career whilst he carried on cycling every evening and all weekends.

He checked out of family life.

How do I know he is sad and miserable? Because he says so and his friends do. It was his choice. I was gutted and upset at the time and financially we took a huge hit (he focussed on money and I focussed on stability for the children).

I’m not putting the boot in, 10 years ago when he emptied the joint bank account - that was putting the boot in. As was failing to turn up for court ordered contact - lovely. I didn’t put him down I encouraged contact and took the high road. He failed to pay CMS for a while as of course buying a new bike when you are on £50K cuts into your child maintenance- especially when you go without seeing them for 6 months as you are racing every single weekend. You know nothing about me or my family. Do I delight on his misery - no! But he is miserable and has told me so, 5 years ago he wanted me back. I wasn’t with DP them but it was still a no.

All I’m saying even if you walk away from the relationship - I offered a 50/50 split for everything but mine was too busy cycling. Soon the children realised they came second to the bike and they do.

He is obviously a bloke.

I’m assuming they are but it would be good if they could give an honest answer.

He said ‘I am not a woman’ in his second post.

What a surprise 😁 it wouldn’t be a reach to think if he has kids he’s not the primary carer.

Well just as well he did really, as at least he got to hear it like it is. But anyway I think that’s a bit rigid: there are stay at home dads - and dads in general should feel free to ask parenting questions. Different if he were asking what we all thought of some female tennis player’s boobs …

Dad's should be welcome here. But too many of them come just to push their men's rights agenda and tell women they are wrong.

@YouZirName no, the dramatic one is a man conceiving 2 kids with his wife and saying that if he doesn't get to dump them and go live his single life, he'll kill himself. Sure.