in thinking that lots of you must have had "surprise" pregnancies which were actually secretly deliberate?

[oliviadehavilland]

I have. Twice.

I was (still am!) in a long term relationship. DH wanted children but "not just yet". I very much wanted them, like yesterday, and got fed up of waiting for DP to decide he was ready (it had been several years since I had first proposed trying to conceive).

We had the space and money and I was very sure that he'd be a fantastic father once it was a fait accompli.

So I stopped taking the pill and blamed a tummy upset when I got the "surprise" BFP a few months later. He has never been any the wiser.

Then, two years later I did it again.

DH loves being a father, often says it's the best mistake we ever made - not that that is the point, of course. He would be beyond devastated and furious (rightly) if he were ever to discover my deception.

I'm not defending my actions. They were wrong and deceitful. I calculatedly decided that if I never told a soul (which I haven't, until now, and have namechamed specially) then he'd never know. I made a judgement that it would work out well for us - far better imo than if I'd spent years getting resentful and unhappy at his unwillingness to commit to actively trying to conceive.

I know several women who have had surprise pregnancies due to contraceptive failure etc. None of them has ever said to me that it was deliberate on their part but I reckon that for some (most?) of them it must have been, just like me.

I'm sure that this happens a lot, just no-one ever admits to it. So I'm wondering...are any of you prepared to admit to "tricking" a partner into a pregnancy? Or am I way off beam and in a teeny tiny minority?

There is a vast difference between a couple who both knowingly take a laissez faire attitude to whether or not they conceive, and a couple in which one partner deliberately stages an "accident". The first couple are jointly taking a risk and are both equally responsible for what follows. In the second scenario someone is being deceived.

My husband was ready for children before I was. I was on the pill. We later jointly decided we were ready and started to try to conceive. If by some convaluted means he had managed to switch my pills for placebos (I accept this is probably virtually impossible for someone who isn't a pharmacist) and I had found out, I would have left him. No shadow of a doubt.

The OP's situation hasn't worked out perfectly at all; she just hasn't been found out. I hope for all concerned she never is because the fall out could be huge.

I may have a slightly warped view of this for a different reason. Twelve years ago my childhood sweetheart and I decided to spend some time apart while we pursued our careers in different parts of the country. He met a girl and she got pregnant about three months in. I'm pretty sure she did it on purpose, she has told me as much since. She knew that he didn't want children (was very young then) and also that he didn't really love her. I think this was a monumentally selfish decision. They brought an unwanted child into the world, a child who knew that his parents didn't love each other. He stayed with her for years and did his dammdest to make it work, but ultimately couldn't and lives with constant guilt and regret. I always said that it was his own stupid fault for not taking charge of the contraception in a new relationship, but I feel he was trapped.
Things worked out great for me because I met gorgeous DP and have two amazing very much wanted children. Am still very close to my former love, hence I know all these details. I just think it isn't fair on the child. I could never do this to a man. I couldn't live with the insecurity of it.

Georgimama - that's exactly what I am worried about for my friend.
If he found out, he would blow his top and I don't think I could blame him.
DH feels particularly strongly about this and said to me if I had ever tricked him, as much as he loves me, he doesn't think we could be together anymore as I would have betrayed him and he would no longer trust me. If I could trick him into something as big as a child, what else would I be be capable of?

It sounds like a rather pragmatic thing to do to me. I have far too many friends who have ended up childless after waiting for their man to make up their mind (and then he decided he didn't want to after all). They might be polishing their halos and feeling pleased at how moral they are, but ultimately they've had to sacrifice the chance to ever have a child.

Men know how babies are made; if they're determined they don't want one and are stupid enough not to take control of contraception themselves they can't blame the woman if she ends up pregnant.

pishposh taking control of contraception is agreeing with your partner what contraception you will use. OP's DH agreed with her that she would take the pill. he did take control, she just didn't honour her side of the agreement. as far as he knew they were using contraception. is he at fault for trusting his wife?

Those friends of yours have made an informed decision to stay in relationships with men who didn't want children - it's a sacrifice they have willingly made. No one forced them to stay.

How many women would trust a man to take a hormonal contraceptive or similar where they could not tell whether precautions were being taken during the act?

I know I wouldn't, I always wonder how so many men can be so trusting

if i was married to the man of course i would trust him!

do you think people shouldn't trust their partners?

OP, you still haven't answered a question that has come up more than once on this thread:

If you're so confident that he wouldn't mind if he did know, why haven't you told him?

You know that what you have done is wrong, that's why you want others to admit it too and make you feel better. I am so ready for a 3rd DC, but DH isn't and I could never, never do that to him. Love means putting someone else first sometimes, not trampling all over their wishes and glibly bragging that you got away with it. This is just so depressing to read. Incidentally, DD1 was a 'heat-of-the-moment' surprise and people assumed contraception failure (we were living in my parents garage at the time...). We didn't correct them as it would have made us look like the imbeciles we were, but we were very, very excited and did everything we needed to in order to build a life for the 3 of us. She arrived and was so wonderful that DD2 was planned and longed for by both of us. That confused the people who assumed DD1 was the result of contraceptive failure. The thing is, we decided, we dealt with the fall out. To dump that responsibility on someone who trusts you deliberately is so callous.

No, I think taking semen from a condom would violate consent. As would sabotaging a condom.

But once your semen is inside a woman's body (with your consent) then you must accept pregnancy as a possibility, and one you don't get to consent to.

inside a woman who has told you she is using contraception!!! if he knew there was no contraception he may not have consented to putting it there. that's the whole point i am making. he didn't know the full extent of what he was consenting to. it isn't consent if he is unaware of the risk.

Actually no I wouldn't trust OP to take the male pill ever. Not because he'd want me to get knocked up but because he has a shite memory.

Be it road tax renewal, wheely bins, tax returns or whatever he always has to be reminded. I trust him in many, many ways but to remember to take the pill? No!

Can't believe no-one has picked up on the poster whos friend is spiking her DHs drinks! If he was spiking her drinks there would be outrage!

I don't think leaving contraception up to someone else counts as "taking control" of it.

Taking control means doing it yourself and making damn sure it is done right.

I trust DH not to trick me, but I wouldn't trust anyone not to forget. If I really, definitely couldn't deal with being pregnant I would not leave contraception up to anyone except me.

I asked DH about this, wondering whether as a man he would be appalled at what the op had done. He said it wasn't a very nice thing to do, but his main reaction was "what does 'ready' mean?".

why did he think it wasn't a very nice thing to do?

(being ready has nothing to do with it IMO. it is one of many reasons not to have dcs. regardless of the reason, there is no justification for taking this decision out of someone's control)

spidookly, the same DH who got you accidentally pregnant on purpose? I hardly see him or you as beacons of taking responsibility in the conception department.

"If I really, definitely couldn't deal with being pregnant I would not leave contraception up to anyone except me."

but contraception isn't 100% effective even when you are in control of it so surely if you really couldn't deal with a baby you wouldn't be having sex at all going by that logic?

I know someone who did this with her husband, who had made it abundantly clear that he did not want children. She came off the pill, got ovulation predictors and leapt on him when the time was right. To his credit, he didn't leave her, but by all accounts it was a close run thing.

She now has a 3 year old child and a husband who has never
*changed a nappy
*given the child a bath
*been at home alone with the child
*taken the child out without mum
*taken any kind of active parenting role.

He feels that his life has been ruined and although he fulfills his financial obligations he accepts no emotional or practical responsibility for the child. He still thinks it was an accident. God help her if he ever finds out it wasn't. (But he will. If she told me, sooner or later she'll tell someone else.)

i want another child. DP says we aren't ready, he is right.

but i have had to stop taking contracetives for health reasons so we are using condoms.
each and every time we have sex i hope he forgets to put one on.
i have often tried getting him over excited in an attempt for it to be too late. damn his self control

but i would never, ever lie about it or sabotage condoms in order to get pregnant.

that is very very wrong on a great number of levels.

I think it is th emost awful thing to do. Terrible.
Saddened to think that lots of people do it. But then affairs sadden me.
Leningrad said that a BOunty poll had been done. link ? what are the stats on how many women do this, then ?

Why don't you tell your dh OP ? Then the deception will be no more. If it was me, the marriage would be no more either. Because its deceit. But hey ho !!

gigantaur i was the same with EXp. i told him i wasn't going on the pill so it was condoms or a baby. he used the condoms each and every bloody time. because he was informed he got to make that choice.

fuzzy, that poor child. To have to grow up with an emotionally distant father because of the mother's deceit, selfishness and spinelessness. Does she think it is all worth it then, like the OP?

Somehow it feels different to have something fail when I did everything I could than if I left it all up to someone else.

I trust condoms to work and to normally give some indication if they have failed.

blueshoes you don't consider us to be examples of contraceptive responsibilty? :o

oh boo hoo, my shattered dreams.

We've been together 10 years and had no children until after we were married. When it really counted we were really careful.

I don't think agonising over being "ready" is any kind of virtue.

holy, surely OP has a voice in her head and is capable of saying "no DH i don't want to take the pill." he isn't delegating. they both came to a decision. unless you are sure that he demanded she take the pill and refused to wear condoms?