Can the dads out there help me understand please?

[lostmumma1990]

I had a child 11 years ago but the father told me he wasn’t interested despite already having a child. He was concerned the his child’s family would stop contact between them if he had another child.

Im going through a crazy time mentally right now and this has all come to the surface of my mind after all these years. Has any dads out there been in this position? I would really love to be understand his viewpoint more and what the reaction is likely to be if I gently reach out.

Or am I insane to even consider it?

Thank you for your input, I’m not sure the reason it happened is relevant? But if it is it was a casual relationship with a friend, and the pregnancy was an accident. I had never planned to have children.

It's entirely relevant because it will say a lot about how he feels about you and your child.

If you never planned to have children then I'm not sure why you didn't take full control over your contraception: MAP, abortion etc. Him not using protection is one thing, but ultimately a pregnancy completes or ends with the woman's choice.

If it was a casual relationship then I'm not sure what you were aiming to gain from having a child with this man.

Your DC is loved by you and leave it at that. You will get your heart broken all over again when you contact this man and either 1. Don't receive a reply, or 2. He tells you to leave him alone and reiterates he wants nothing to do with either of you.

Okay I can see your point to a degree. It was an accident, accidents happen. However, I think these details are getting in the way of my initial question.

Im concerned that he may think choices he made back then he might change now if he had the chance. Yes he could have reached out to me but there could have been many reasons why he hasn’t. Maybe the other woman still has control
of things and he’s still worried, or he may whole heartedly stick by his decision. I am only considering at this stage and wanted viewpoints from fathers that have been in this situation.

I'm not a father (or a man) but the theme thst keeps popping up in your posts is that this poor man is being kept from doing something he really wants to do and this has been the case for eleven years.

Are you still in love with him?
Are you in thrall to some happy ever after pipe dream where the veil falls from his eyes and he arrives one day on your doorstep with red roses and eleven years worth of birthday presents for his child?

Men walk away from their children every day and never see them or contact them or their mothers again. They do this because they do not want to have contact with the women or the children, and because they are cold and dead inside, without a shred of humanity.

You can look back on the years of friendship and the sexual relationship that resulted in the baby and for the protection of your own heart can only see that part of this man, choosing for your own reasons not to absorb the message he's sending by his eleven years of silence and distance.

Sometimes it is devastating to the woman or to the children, an abandonment that is almost impossible to fathom because your life is altered forever while his continues as if nothing had even happened. You gave so much more to him than he gave to you. You bore all the risks in your relationship and he bore none.

Therapy can really help you grieve the loss you e been living with for all these years amd help you get to the bottom of why you're giving this man so.much space in your heart of hearts.

Be proud of yourself!

A man that walked away before you were even born, has no right to be proud of you & his opinion, as a person that doesn't even know you, really is irrelevant

💕

You knew him for a long time before you got pregnant, presumably you thought he wouldn’t abandon his child then either?

You made an incorrect judgement of him while in a relationship with him. Why would you think your judgement of him would be any more accurate now, when he’s been out of your life for a decade?

I’m definitely not still in love with him, there’s not one bit about this that is about facilitating a romantic relationship with him. This is about there being an opportunity for my child to know their father and he having the chance to know his child. If he told me his stance remained the same I’d have to accept it.
I know what you are all saying and I get that I just struggle to fathom how they can accept one child and not another. I’d probably understand it more if he hadn’t accepted either child.