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?

"and I'll say again. the partner has a choice in whether to take those steps or not."

I know, but I still don't think it's fair to ask, and it's even less fair to pressure.

You're acting like we're in court and you're trying to trip me up to get me to admit that I'm lying.

"does accepting a man's semen mean a woman has consented to pregnancy should that occur?"

it isn't consent if the woman isn't in posession of what she is accepting. a woman who has sex with a man who has had the snip knows that pregnancy is extremely unlikely.

a woman who has sex with a man who hasn't had the snip knows that sex is extremely likely so she is consenting to that.

a woman who thinks her husband has had the snip is not consenting to pregnancy because she totally believes it extremely unlikely.

in possession of the facts about what she is accepting

spidookly i am not trying to trip you up. i think the terminology makes all the difference to the discussion though. you are phrasing it in a way that implies teh child wanting partner bears no responsibility for teh agreement they make.

spidookly i feel very much as though you are looking at this from how you feel about children (i.e; you want children and a pregnancy isn't a negative thing for you)

booyhoo, you've hit the nail on the head.

this is reminding me of the news story a few months ago about the lady in israel who filed a rape claim (which I think was upheld for investigation) when she had consensual sex with a guy claiming to be Jewish.. but he wasn't, he was a Palestinian.

The context of what you're agreeing to really, really matters in these things. What if my H didn't outright "lie" about not attending the vasectomy clinic? I just picked him up afterward, refrained from DTD for a couple of weeks, and assumed as per the original agreement that it had been done? I.e. he never actually said "i had the operation" - what if he just slying said nothing to the contrary/didn't correct me when I spoke of it?

spidookly, 2 children are given £1 each to go and buy sweets from the shop. on the way there, one child says to the other " can i have your money?" it is an unfair request. now the other child has a choice. they can hand over the money or they can keep it. if the child hands over the money, does the child then have the right to go back to mum and complain that they have no sweets? does that child have no sweets because the other child asked a question? or does that child have no sweets because he/she chose to give their money away?

cumfy, yes he was aware of it but the health problems I had occurred after we had made that decision, and we never got around to booking the GP appointment (couldn't get it through the family planning centre). Was still on the pill though - I was up until I fell pregnant.

booy

the answer to your question depends on so many variables

e.g.:

is one of the children older than the other?

is one of them bigger and strong, is the smaller child afraid of the bigger child?

is one of the children more popular and the other more socially awkward?

There are lots of situations in which if I were the mother I would think the child who had given away the money had been treated badly.

You can see the cultural expectation that women should look after contraception in action on this very thread.

There are people here who think it is some kind of break through to realise that it is wisest for young men to use condoms. I mean, WTF world are you living in if you are not already making sure your sons know that they need to take care of contraception themselves?

Do you really think all of my arguments on this thread come down to my own feelings about whether I want children? I find that quite insulting actually.

no, no pressure involved. a question was asked. lets say the child backed it up with reasoning "can i have your money? i would like to have more sweets"

teh same way a loving commited couple would discuss it, with no pressure. unless you are implying that all the posters who asked tehir partners to take the pill/have a vasectomy pressured them into agreeing?

and yes i do think you are discussng this with your own agenda in mind.

"unless you are implying that all the posters who asked tehir partners to take the pill/have a vasectomy pressured them into agreeing?"

I'm not implying that ALL do, I'm implying that SOME do.

"and yes i do think you are discussng this with your own agenda in mind."

What agenda would that be?

But you, presumably, are utterly objective?

You know what, I'm done.

You don't win an argument by out-psychologising the opposition.

Although you haven't even put forward a reason why I should be making these arguments other than some "agenda" you pulled out of your arse.

by agenda, i mean you are approaching this with how you feel about pregnancy and children in mind. you aren't allowing for the fact that some people do need to be ready to have children and they will not cope well with it happening before that point. and you also don't seem to accept that the partner who takes the contraception agrees to do that. they have a choice.

i don't know what you mean by 'out-psychologising'. i am no psychologist, far from it.

"you aren't allowing for the fact that some people do need to be ready to have children and they will not cope well with it happening before that point"

That is not a fact. That is an assertion. One that brings with it some pretty big assumptions.

I don't really see what relevance it has anyway.

In the OP's situation her DH did cope well with children before he thought he was "ready".

To me that's what makes it more of a con trick really. A decent person on being presented with their child will cope. They may even be able to wholeheartedly love that child, indeed that's what the deceiving partner is relying on. The 'if you don't know it's not a problem' line is what many many cheating partners rely on. But building a family on a lie, much the same as building a relationship on a lie is morally bankrupt and highly risky. Lies can grow over time, they can have adverse effects on both the person lied to and the person lying.

I was on the pill for many years. It was a mutual decision, I took them at bed time, and dh always checked (I'm of the less reliable persuasion). I think he was being perfectly responsible (although granted at the time neither of us wanted children).

If I had decided to trick him into fatherhood I would have had to pretend to take a pill or lie about taking it, most likely many times as just missing one wouldn't have achieved my aim, and as taking the pill whilst pregnant is a bad idea I would have had to lie for quite a while afterward too, plus for a planned pregnancy I would have been taking folic acid (in secret) in advance, oh and avoiding eating many things and probably not drinking alcohol either. So not just one omission, but a whole series of deceit.

"If I had decided to trick him into fatherhood I would have had to pretend to take a pill or lie about taking it, most likely many times as just missing one wouldn't have achieved my aim, and as taking the pill whilst pregnant is a bad idea I would have had to lie for quite a while afterward too, plus for a planned pregnancy I would have been taking folic acid (in secret) in advance, oh and avoiding eating many things and probably not drinking alcohol either. So not just one omission, but a whole series of deceit."

good point nooka. no doubt OP also had to do some of those things, so it isn't really lying by ommission. OP would also have had to have tell some lies to cover her tracks.

"That is not a fact. That is an assertion. One that brings with it some pretty big assumptions."

it is fact that not all parents cope with parenthood

Spidookly go back a step and acknowledge the same principle applies in the vasectomy example, otherwise the logic fails.

that the ends justify the means

NO never! Sorry!

As I said, I have no idea how my conception came about, but my mother told me at 16 that she didn't want me & that I should never have been born. What if the father/s here did the same? Told the child that is wasn't wanted? Regardless of the what facts that the father knows/doesn't know about the 'accident'...

Because, before she actually said it, it wasn't an issue. Oh I thought it, plenty of times before I was 16, but those thoughts could be put down to being a child & not knowing any better. Getting signals mixed up

But that day she told me, well I can't even describe to you how I felt. And those words made the occasions where she abandoned me stand out much much more.

But, in a way I understand why she treated me as she did. BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T WANT ME.

So regardless of how that accident happens, someone who doesn't want a child can not & should not be forced to love it, or try to love it.

Which is, quite simply, why I never would have tricked dh. Because living with the knowledge that your parent doesn't want you, is crushing. And having a parent there, that refuses to acknowledge you & your needs leaves you with a legacy of feeling worthless & unlovable. You can not start to even have a clue about what my childhood did to me.

All you see is a woman's 'right' to have a baby at all costs. But that baby will become an adult. And that adult with have conversations with it's father, and it's father's family. And what if one of them should say 'your father didn't want children'???

and I have given my posts a lot of thought

But that is all you have given thought to, isn't it?

Because you haven't thought about the children like me, who were forced onto a parent who didn't want them.

Which really, is what this debate is all about. The creation of a life, against the will of a parent.

A life that will grow with the awful legacy of now being wanted.

My mum never considered what it would do to me to be told, she merely thought it was 'best to be honest'.

And you know what, I don't have to put a lot of thought into my posts here.

Because I live it.

Every. Damn. Day

No disrespect different but your mother sounds harsh/strange..many parents initially do not want children some run or give up their children but most don't spend their lives hating the child..thats some other kind of damage..

Does this mean that I tricked him by not disclosing that I would keep any baby conceived by us even though we were both aware that my pill-taking

The thread is about a woman who stopped taking her pill to get pregnant without the knowledge of her husband.

So no, you didn't trick your dh/dp because he knew how crap you were at taking the pill reliably & still went ahead with having sex with you.

And in answer to the other poster who said it, I wanted a child badly for 6yrs. Not once did I forget to take my pill. It's not that hard, actually!