Forced Parenthood AIBU?

[FP22]

First off I completely acknowledge that this will divide opinion, i may be criticised but I’m looking for genuine thoughts and feedback.

The situation is this, the beginning of last year I was casually seeing a girl. We were both of the knowledge it was casual. She told me she was on the pill and that she was allergic to condoms and never wanted kids, everything seemed fine. 3/4 months in she tells me she is pregnant and I find out she was never on the pill and that now she wants a relationship with me.

This came as quite a shock to me and I felt betrayed, used and tricked into something I never wanted and to that point I was clear about. I made it clear I wanted to have nothing to do with it now or in the future and she decided to go ahead.

Fast forward and I’m now being chased for child support and being told to take responsibility.

I consider myself a good person. I have a 3 year old who I fought to have 50/50 custody of who I absolutely adore and would do anything for. I work hard, I’m a firefighter and consider myself to be a socialist. I care about people and I have actively sort to improve the lives of women in my industry in my role as a union leader.

My over arching question and battle I’m having with myself is why should I be held responsible for something which I was effectively tricked into and something I then had no control over?

Help!!!

OP, whether or not you were clear about not wanting a child, a child has happened.
Get the DNA test, and if you are the father then you are financially liable for some of the costs of raising that child.
You don't need to step up to be a Dad. You don't need to maintain a relationship with this woman whom you had a fling with. But you do need to provide for some of the basics.
We can't really comment on whether or not you were tricked, or gullible, or whether she was deliberately trapping you, or if accidents do happen. And to be honest it doesn't really matter: you have financial responsibility either way. Beyond that you can choose your own level of involvement.

Also, some of the responses on here are despicable. If a man lied about using contraception it would, quite rightly, be viewed as a terrible breach of trust and an unforgivable act. We should hold women to the same standard and not simply tell the OP that he was stupid or irresponsible for trusting her.

It’s possible to recognise that OP should rightly pay for his child and at the same time condemn the lies and deceit that led to his ex getting pregnant.

Man has no say but has to pay." - of course men have a say! It's just that men like this don't like when they have to have their say. They get to decide where they leave their sperm, and whether they take any precautions to avoid a pregnancy. Of course they don't get a say in what women decide to do with their own bodies, if a pregnancy results

This.

Your position is that you should be able to have sex and take no responsibly for the chance that there might be a child if you don't want it to.

So your position is that you should be able to have sex for your own pleasure without any responsibility if you don't want the child that is the result of that.

Do you think it is a reasonable position that you should not be responsible for your child because you only wanted to have sex just for pleasure.

Do you think if you decide that you want sex just for pleasure and tell the woman that you therefore have no responsibly for protection?

I doubt you can see it because you're so busy walking around thinking what a good guy - but you are deeply misognyistic in your view that you should be entitled to responsibility free just for pleasure sex.

To be very clear - this is about the mans responsibility TO HIS CHILD - not his responsibility to the woman.

Lies and deceit did NOT lead to her getting pregnant. OP chose not to use condoms.

It is utterly unlike a man removing a condom. She would need to have sabotaged a condom for that to be true.

Honeydukes92

The reality is that YOU deserved the truthful information upon which to decide whether to have sex. A woman lying about contraception is the same as a man lying and saying he’s put a condom on

this cannot be disagreed with, surely?

i do think that OP needs to pay maintenance and support his child. there should be no issue there at all, and OP suggesting otherwise doesn’t sit well with me. as their father, you are responsible for your child.

but, is a woman lying about her contraception ok? is it not the same as/as bad as a man lying about keeping a condom on?

if you are looking for logical ways to deal with news that you don't like OP you do already have those. To say that you didn't have to have unprotected sex if you did not want to risk having a child is not 'making it black and white' - at it's core the purpose, and drive of sexual intercourse is to produce a baby, and there was a point in time that you took the risk hoping you would get to enjoy the sex but that it wouldn't happen to you, and that has, unfortunately backfired for you.

You cannot change this and it's not an issue of 'men's rights', she could have told you anything she liked and you are still responsible for ejaculating into a woman, unprotected, knowing what it may result in. Of course deliberately tricking anyone, over any issue is morally wrong but ultimately that is why it is a bad idea to sleep with people we do not know well, or trust people we don't know intimately with things as big as this. Contraception is your responsibility and you can't absolve yourself of that responsibility just because the other party did something you don't like.

Would your ideal outcome here to be to be able to end the life of a baby without the consent of the woman carrying it? Obviously that is a ludicrous sentiment. The point at which you could have prevented this was offered to you at the start as a going risk and you declined it.

in terms of being logical, viewing your second child as an interloper on the life and success of your first 'proper' child is unhelpful, both these children are just as legitimately yours in any way that will matter to them growing up, and in any legal regard, so what you think of that is neither here nor there. I would not think much of a man saying what a great parent he was if he had two children and only bothered with one. If your first child ends up with less opportunity because there is a second, that is the fault of the two adults having unprotected sex, and not any fault in an unborn baby. You can be a parent to both children without engaging to heavily with the mother if you so wish, there is no excuse, and you cannot wish away an inconvenient truth with any of the justifications you have so far offered up which do boil down to - poor me, its not fair. Not all things are fair, you were not forced to copulate.

I suggest that you reconcile with the idea, decline her offer of a relationship and contact seek a DNA test for this child. You are legally required to pay whether you like the idea or not if the child is yours, whether or not you wish to see it, so I am not sure what point there is in disputing it other than causing yourself a whole lot of emotional grief. The victim ultimately will be your second child here i suspect.

Could have at least tried to spunk outside

Some things in life aren't fair. Tough shit

Ill make sure I use that quote when a self emiyed dad manage to work his accounts so that he pays nothing in child maintenance despite a good life style...

I wonder how many will agree then!

Writing thus that us your only option OP, find a rich girl and go self employed. Just kidding, that child deserves a decent life, consider welcoming that baby in your life, she is not just the making of that woman, you can build a loving relationship with your child with little to do with her even if it will be hard work to get to that point.

Literally noone is saying that it's okay for the woman to lie about being on the pill.

The fact is that you helped to make a baby. Therefore, you have to pay. That child has a right to know his or her father. That is not saying that you need to have a relationship with the mother - you don't. But you do have a responsibility to that child.

Any time you have sex, you accept that there is the potential for pregnancy. Even if it's "safe" sex. (No sex is ever guaranteed to be safe. I have heard from the women involved of cases where a couple was using two types of birth control and still got pregnant.) That means that you accept that you may need to take responsibility for a child. End of.

Child maintenance isn't there to punish the father or reward the mother. It's to provide for a child. The details and circumstances surrounding the conception are irrelevant.

Sorry but you need to take responsibility. You chose to have sex not taking precautions, as others have said accidents happen. Whilst I agree what she did is not on, she may not have planned it, it could have been an accident, and she could have not gone through with a termination when it came to it.

Perhaps you should also put yourself in the shoes of the child. How would you feel if you had a father who was not prepared to help bring you up because he didn’t want you, how is that going to make the child feel?

I think you need to get a dna test. Then if it is yours you need to have a relationship with that child and help influence them growing up, support them and help them.

Then learn this lesson for the future!

The thing is, Op, you didn't do anything to prevent anything. Your actions were the same as a man who did want more children.

In every relationship your responsibilities lie in preventing or creating pregnancy. You get no say in the actual pregnancy, the baby is in the woman's body and therefore down to her to end or proceed. After that your responsibility is to support your children financially at the very least.

It may not seem fair, but you failed to control what you could control and now this is the outcome. A human being.

If this had been a contraceptive failure, would you have stepped up? What makes this any different? At the end of the day, yes you were tricked, but there's still a baby and it didn't ask to be brought into this mess.

Step up and look after your child OP. You say you're a good man, you're not if you don't step up.

Man has no say but has to pay." - of course men have a say! It's just that men like this don't like when they have to have their say. They get to decide where they leave their sperm, and whether they take any precautions to avoid a pregnancy. Of course they don't get a say in what women decide to do with their own bodies, if a pregnancy results

Gosh yes this.

You have no choice in how to go forward. It's not the child's fault, it's yours so you have to pay for it.

You're perfectly entitled to be angry about it but that has nothing to do with an innocent child that you're the dad for.

Sex has consequences and sometimes we don't want them. The consequences still exist.

OP I haven't RTFT yet but the first 20 or so that I did seemed to be ridiculously harsh, knee-jerk reactions - just ignore those!

I feel so bad for you as this is so premeditated and cynical of this woman and you have been very manipulated.

What man, as PPs have suggested, rifles through a new partner's bag checking for pills and then wears a condom as well if the woman says she is on the pill??

I think you should ring a solicitor and get some advice, or ask them to recommend someone whose best placed to advise you

Good luck. You sound like a nice person and you don't deserve this rubbish.

I can see why you feel betrayed. It was a terrible thing that she did to you, tricking you into parenthood when you didn't want it.

At the same time, you must have realised you were playing a high stakes game when you had casual sex without a condom. You didn't know this woman well enough to entrust her with such a huge responsibility, that of using contraception honestly and carefully. You took a huge risk. Now you have to take the consequences. It's your child who will suffer if you try to walk away.

Yes, what she did was truly awful. But now you have to pay the price for your own poor judgement when you gave her the power to do this. Unfortunately this isn't just about you and her.

You sound very woke, not.
Why did you fight your babymother for custody, couldn't you reach an agreement, sounds like you are an arse or make bad choices.
This is not about you, who do you think should support, and be a father to your child? Grow up.

My over arching question and battle I’m having with myself is why should I be held responsible for something which I was effectively tricked into and something I then had no control over?

Do you forgo condoms with every casual fling you have? You're lucky you don't haveAIDS. You great galloping Idiot.

Anyway, I'm not surprised your socialist ideals don't extend to the child you created.

What man, as PPs have suggested, rifles through a new partner's bag checking for pills and then wears a condom as well if the woman says she is on the pill??

Men should wear condoms with all casual sex partners. Pregnancy is only one risk. HIV is pretty serious.

When will men learn that contraception isn't all the woman's responsibility?

Grow up, accept responsibility, dont put your cock in unprotected.
"But she said she was on the pill...."
So?
Every man's responsibility to make sure they are protected, don't just take someone's word for it.

Wow, some really nasty posts here! & so many saying "duh why didn't you use a condom" however it seems to me that this girl was determined to get pregnant so she may well have sabotaged condoms if you'd insisted on using them anyway! Plus they're only 99% effective at the best of times.

She did a shit thing to you, and unlike others on here I don't think it was your fault, however that fact is that you are going to have a child, & that child is innocent and deserves a decent father like yourself. Please don't take your hatred of the mother out on your child.