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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Father who doesn't want to be involved...

112 replies

HopeS01 · 15/09/2013 13:23

My unborn baby's father has decided he doesn't want anything to do with him/her.
We separated when I was about 12 weeks pregnant (now 20) and I haven't seen him in weeks. Every time we talk, we end up arguing because I find his attitude very frustrating. He has admitted that he feels no responsibility towards the child and has no desire to be part of his/her lfe.
He is being very difficult about maintenance; although he accepts that he will have to pay something, he is not willing to provide the same as he does with his other non-resident children who live with his ex wife, or anywhere near what he is legally obliged to contribute. He has refused to come to a family based arrangement and insisted that we have no contact unless it is through his solicitor... a lot of unnecessary stress and cost I could do without!

I am considering not listing him on the baby's birth certificate. This may sound like I am being spiteful and bitter but I am trying to prevent him from changing his mind in 10 years time and causing even more hurt/confusion for the baby. Will I still have the same legal rights to maintenance? Will he be able to see the baby without my permission?

I have posted this in the Legal Advice thread too, but do you ladies think I am being unreasonable? It was entirely his choice! Am I doing the right thing for my baby?

Please help ...

OP posts:
omwards · 15/09/2013 17:04

If a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy, there is no baby. If a man chooses to 'terminate' his involvement at an early stage, as you say, there may still be a baby. So, who pays for the baby?

Are the mother and child to be financially punished because termination was not their chosen option?

FlapJackFlossie · 15/09/2013 17:06

Is the father to be punished because termination was not their chosen option?

Original poster
HopeS01 · 15/09/2013 17:09

I'm finding it hard not to feel hurt, Broken, that you are still trying to suggest that abortion is an option for me.
How would you feel if you were 20 weeks pregnant and I made the same suggestion to you!?

What is wrong with some of you women?! I'm not asking for your opinion on whether my baby should be born, I'm asking for your opinions on maintenance and access. Jeeeeeeze.

OP posts:
ChunkyPickle · 15/09/2013 17:12

Good god, the man had sex, he wanted the baby, then he changed his mind - OF COURSE he should support it.

The man gets to choose whether he wants to have a baby when he has sex - it's an early choice-point for him, but it's a risk free one, all he has to do is not have sex, and there won't be a baby. Nice and simple, no moral or practical ambiguity there.

Once there is a fetus, he has no control because he has no risk - his choice point has passed, whereas the pregnant woman still has some control (in this country thank goodness) - this is because she is the one taking all the risk from this point, it's her body and her life at stake.

omwards · 15/09/2013 17:13

Punishment is not the axis around which the issue revolves though, is it?

Anatomy means that it is the woman's body that bears the child. And she will have the the birth and most probably all the day-to-day responsibility of looking after the child.

You are not punishing the father by not having an abortion, you are just not having an abortion. If the mother doesn't want an abortion, then the man becomes a father - it's written in all the biology books.

The man is merely a victim of his unruly penis.

FlapJackFlossie · 15/09/2013 17:13

Sorry, but you were the one that made the sole decision to continue with this (unwanted by him) pregnancy. In my book that means you made a choice alone and against his wishes and you should stand by it alone. That may sound hard, but you both did something willingly and only one of you is making a choice.

ChunkyPickle · 15/09/2013 17:15

OP, you can't predict the future, you don't know if he'll change his mind and seek contact at some point, so there's not really anything productive to come from fretting over it.

Maintenance is separate from contact here, so you need to go to the CSA and apply for maintenance, it's your child's right to have that financial contribution from their father.

omwards · 15/09/2013 17:15

Sorry for the derailment OP, this is just a discussion about the rights and wrongs of the issue.

omwards · 15/09/2013 17:18

Flapjackflossie do you really see abortion as such a tiny matter? Do you not know that many women feel connected to a growing foetus? Making the 'sole decision to go ahead' comes after the baby happens.

ChunkyPickle · 15/09/2013 17:19

FlapJack - they both did something willingly, she only has the choice because she only has the risk!

Why does the man get to have his cake and eat it? He has no right to sex, he chose to have sex, sex makes babies and here one is.

It's called body autonomy - no-one can force me to go through an operation, or take medication that I don't want to, and that includes both forced abortion, or forced pregnancy. Anything else is inhumane, and ridiculous to say that because a man wants to have sex he gets to dictate to me what I can subsequently do with my body to save him a bit of cash!

LondonMan · 15/09/2013 17:19

I agree with the recent posters: biology makes reproduction unequal, it follows that it's not unreasonable for there to be different cut-off points for each sex for heading off a birth.

Greythorne · 15/09/2013 17:20

londonman
What does 'heading off a birth' mean?

omwards · 15/09/2013 17:24

Londonman err.....Confused. It's not football, you know.

FlapJackFlossie · 15/09/2013 17:24

She chose to have sex, sex makes babies and here one is*.

So why should he pay for 18 years for something that is not his choice?

LondonMan · 15/09/2013 17:25

What does 'heading off a birth' mean?

A condom if you're a man, termination (in addition to earlier contraception options) if you're a woman.

But I may have missed the point, the discussion is about whether he should pay, not whether there should be a baby to pay for.

internationallove985 · 15/09/2013 17:25

You're considering not putting his name of the birth certificate well with the way he is behaving why should you. I don't think you sound bitter at all.
I know it may not seem like it but it's his loss if he wants nothing to do with the baby. I know the situation but perhaps he should have put something on the end if it as J.K would say.
I'm no expert but if his name is not on baby's birth certificate he wont have any rights but I think it also works that unless they're on the birth certificate then you can't claim child support, but like I say I'n no expert. xx

ANormalOne · 15/09/2013 17:28

'So why should he pay for 18 years for something that is not his choice?'

It is his choice, he chose to have sex.

Nancy66 · 15/09/2013 17:29

My God, poor OP having to read all this crap.

She's more than half way through her pregnancy and has stated that it was not unplanned.

The father of the child has decided to fuck off - how easy for him, eh? Not really an option for her is it?

internationallove985 · 15/09/2013 17:30

Sorry meant to say "Don't know the situation". xx

ChunkyPickle · 15/09/2013 17:30

Flapjack - it was his choice - she didn't make this baby alone, he was rather involved too! What he doesn't get to do is retro-actively change his mind about that choice, he's already had the sex, the baby is already on the way, he has no more choices to make.

Are you seriously saying that if something costs someone money they should be able to force someone to undergo a medical procedure? DP has huge feet, getting shoes is an expensive nightmare for me, so I should be able to compel him to get some toes chopped off maybe?

JoinYourPlayfellows · 15/09/2013 17:30

You can't name him on the birth certificate, and no more should you.

Of course he will have to pay for the baby he created.

That's the law and that is what is right.

The idea that a man should have the legal option to walk away from his parental responsibilities if he decides early enough in the pregnancy is just appalling.

Women who think up shit like this and believe it makes them cool and fair minded and balanced towards the genders really are idiots of the highest order.

omwards · 15/09/2013 17:30

Londonman I agree with you up all the way up to conception. After conception, you are asking a woman to terminate a baby she wants to keep, and that's not right on any planet even yours.

Perhaps instead of seeing it as an insistence to continue, you could see it as an impossibility of terminating?

BrokenSunglasses · 15/09/2013 17:31

HopeS01 I am sorry if my comments have caused you hurt, that really wasn't my intention at all. You have understandably taken my comments as being more personal to you than I have intended, as I have been talking about the whole issue for people in general for much of what I've said.

I did say after one of your posts that at 18 weeks, it's too late for your partner to decide he doesn't want to be involved financially.

I have not been passing judgement over whether your baby should be born.

Sometimes people's personal situations raise moral dilemmas for the whole of society, and when they start threads about their circumstances on the Internet, they can be taken in all different directions.

JoinYourPlayfellows · 15/09/2013 17:32

"DP has huge feet, getting shoes is an expensive nightmare for me, so I should be able to compel him to get some toes chopped off maybe?"

No, but you should be able to give up any financial or moral responsibility should any children you have together be hampered with his "big foot" gene. Wink

Sparklysilversequins · 15/09/2013 17:33

It IS his choice. May I direct you to my previous post where I say that no man is entitled to a risk free f*ck as though its just another leisure activity with no real risk attached. When he had sex he knew there was a danger that a pregnancy might result, no contraception is 100%. Tough if he's stamping his feet now its happened. His right to a pleasurable sex life does not top the rights of children that may be forthcoming.