AIBU - insecure about pregnancy and being unmarried

[meccacos2]

I’m 6 months pregnant and it’s become very noticeable.

Strangers look at me when I’m walking about and sometimes stare.

What has also become noticeable is people looking for my wedding/engagement ring and colleagues/family asking when I’m getting married.

The thing is, he hadn’t asked. He has brought it up himself and said the reason is because he hasn’t found a ring. Except he’s not looking for a ring. He hasn’t even asked what rings I would like.

He hasn’t proposed.

He said that he didn’t think I would want to do it “as you are now”. And that is so true. I just look huge.

I haven’t nagged or dropped any hints.

I feel entirely unimportant and inconsequential to his life.

I’m walking around getting fatter and fatter and feeling really insecure.

My boyfriend has even pointed out people staring at me.

I hate this scrutiny. I hate being so obviously pregnant and unmarried and constantly sick and he gets to walk around, still drinking, still completely unaffected by the entire thing.

He wants to go on holidays before the baby is here and all I can think about is the cost for a maternity wardrobe plus the time off work which I can’t afford.

I feel so resentful and sad.

I’ve told him I don’t feel secure and I feel very vulnerable.

AIBU to feel this way?

@timshelthechoice

So is he still married to someone else as well? And you think he's going to propose?

Please do try and keep up with the posts before you get clever and start posting something nasty. He isn’t married and and no stage have I said I think he is going to propose.

You’ve entirely misunderstood basic comprehension if this is what you have gleaned from reading this thread.

@HuloBeraal

I never said that I wanted to abort my baby.

I don’t need to be reminded of a thread to know what I was thinking a few months ago.

But yes, the joke was in very poor taste.

Literally that entire thread is about you calling a clinic, planning a termination, begging him, changing your mind. If it didn’t happen like that then you were making up a story for MN. I didn’t write that OP, you did.

HuloBeraal
Was that the thread where the poster and her DP were arguing over moving into a flat before the baby comes, why he should be paying private healthcare because it's better than public?
If so I remember that thread. Most people identified a range of red flags then and they seem to have been right.

I'm afraid OP that you really need to be preparing yourself to do this on your own.

Yep. That’s the one.

Im 8 months pregnant and very noticeably pregnant. I havent seen anyone looking for a wedding ring. (Im not married). You sound like you may have anxiety and youre making a bigger deal of it in your head than it is actually is. This could be down to your pregnancy hormones!

I was pregnant and my baby's father left when I was 6 weeks pregnant. I was also 19 but looked a lot younger and people didn't really stare, nor did they when I went out with DD when she was born.
I did visit a school today for DD who will be starting next year and it's a Catholic school and I felt like people would know and judge me for not being married. Then I thought God that's mad I'm not looking at anyone else here to see if they have rings, it was myself judging myself, and in turn them for thinking they'd be thinking that about me. This is your own insecurity OP, so many people have babies when they aren't married, it's okay.

OP I'm not going to bother to reference any comments about your previous threads , emotions and responses change almost daily through pregnancy.

However , I do think there are two separate issues . I was married for three years and spent ten years of them married , through both children. Ultimately it's no guarantee , my marriage ended. What did make a difference was that I ensured my ability to earn money stayed as much the same as I could.

Not deliberately because I had no idea my marriage would end. What made me feel secure was that when my children were born there was no way on gods green earth that I wouldn't ensure I could care for them. It took a lot of hard days and sacrifice but when my marriage did end, that's when I felt more secure as I knew my DC and I would be ok. Whilst I do still believe in marriage and do believe it has a protective factor, let me be clear...its not concrete.

Trying not to be offensive but he is already reluctant, my exdh and I when we were married absolutely were both fully committed , we both wanted marriage , and we both wanted the DC all the way along. It still didn't stop the marriage ending.

The other side of it is how insecure he makes you (or you choose to feel I am genuinely not sure which it is) , now yes that is a concern.

He should be reassuring you , and if he isn't then that is definitely a problem. However I guarantee that will not change with marriage. People dont change and suddenly become loving and reassuring when you walk out of the ceremony.

Marriage will not fix this , either find your own way to be secure that doesn't base on him , or speak to him and lay down boundaries.

Dont kid yourself, if he proposes tomorrow and you marry , I very much doubt you will feel secure for more than two minutes. I was as secure as you could possibly imagine for the first 5 or 6 years. Still didn't save the marriage.

I also found barely anyone registered that I was married, and now I'm not half the people think I am married to my DP and half dont and noone actually cares. I really dont believe it is an issue these days. This is you projecting your insecurities. People stare because they do at pregnant women.

Hes a knob for telling you people are a staring at you. You need to get hold of your shit. Your pregnant your gunna get fat. End of. Stop moaning and enjoy your pregnancy. Not once have you mentioned the baby. For fear of making you more worried this selfish streak needs to go. The world dosnt revolve round you princess. If u wanna be married tell him and do it.

Threatening to make you homeless on a regular basis is stepping up, is it?

Okey dokey.

Nobody is staring, nobody cares about your marital status but you!

I'm pregnant (very early on) with my third child. I have two already from my first marriage. I'm engaged but not married and at 39 in a few months, we were aware my fertility doesn't have years and years to wait. We will marry, but not a financial priority for us. No hurry.

I'm a teacher and known as Miss *. The kids know I have a fiancé and I don't for one second think any of them will bat an eyelid.

I remember the old thread too.

OP you are in an emotionally abusive non-relationship.

It will not last.

Get out before he has rights to your baby or you will regret it forever.

@Verily1

He will have rights to the baby as he is their father.

I’m not going to keep him from his child because he might not love me one day.

His family is lovely and I want our child to always know who his people are.

I’m completely realistic about this.

That’s just silliness.

I was worried before but some of these responses about how terrible my relationship is and how he will leave me and take our child have really given me perspective.

I’m not after his money, he’s not planning to take our unborn child away from me.

We are both professional people with similar values. Whilst I might be insecure and worried on occasion, I don’t think he is going to take our child away from me.

The same way I’m not going to take our child away from him.

@meccacos2 - thanks for answering the questions.

I dont know your posting history, and i wont look it up. It does sound like this guy is taking you for a fool, but you need him as you have no money to sustain yourself and the baby (for now). Basically you need him to look after you both whether or not he wants to be with you - he's holding ALL the cards. You are fully reliant on him, for money, for shelter.

Is there you could get some sort of housing? i mean, subsidised housing for single mothers now? And child benefit, can you get that? Any family you can ask for help? Look - i dont think he wants to be with you and sorry, but its best you move on and keep think amicable - for the childs sake.

dowehaveastalker
It might be useful to look at the previous thread though. I was on the last thread but hadn't put two and two together until someone mentioned it

It wasn't a healthy relationship then. There were arguments over finances, moving in, private healthcare etc then. There were issues of trust and commitment then too. There was loads and loads of good advice, and few grips handed out, to help the OP move forward and it looks like most of it has been ignored. That's entirely the OP's choice, but it affects the current situation and the likelihood of well-meaning advice being taken on this thread as well

It's relevant, not to bash the OP, bit because she really is in a vulnerable position and seems more bothered about getting a ring and confirmation of commitment from a man who has shown for months he won't do it.
She really does need to see what's going on here and wise up a bit, which must be scary whilst pregnant, but people can't pretend it's going to get better when the evidence over time suggests this probably isn't going to turn out with a lovely little secure family.

Your threads are hard to respond to become you come across as both very lucid and very naive.

Very lucid because deep down you've worked out that he doesn't want to become a dad but that he would ideally not picked you to be the mother. You are clearly massively in love so it must hurt. I'm not that sure that the pregnancy wasn't planned conveniently happening at the time you were ready to go your seperate ways.

What can't be taken out of context is that you'd only known each other less then 6 months when you got pregnant and he was freshly divorced. The chances that all was going to go smoothly was so low.

And this is where you come across as very naive, that you'd think that a man who has just gone through the trauma of a divorce would be jumping at the prospect of marrying you when he hardly knows you just because you are c the woman who carries his child. Times have evolved and it didn't work like this any longer.

Just about everything is against you making it out as a happy family. If you think you are tired now and that things are hard, you are in for a shock when baby is here.

Saying all that, couples have made it successfully through worse start than yours so who knows maybe it will have a happy ending. I hope so for you more more importantly your baby.

You do sound paranoid
I'm married, and pregnant, I rarely wear my ring (esp now my fingers are a little bit swollen). No one stares at me. No one cares!
I even have a different surname to both DH and DD... No one cares! (And I live in a bit of a conservative backwater!)
Anway- it sounds like You really want to get married. Does he know how important it is to you?

You come across as not very emotionally stable, quite honestly. This guy certainly isn't helpful in that respect. This guy is a total wanker and sadly, there's now going to be a child involved in this.

I’m completely realistic about this.

The mind boggles.

I agree, swingofthings. It's all very dramatic and up and down, surgeries, meds that can cause issues, moving in and now his making it clear he is holding all the cards.

It's actually really sad watching you rewrite reality on your own thread, contradicting your own posts in your desperation to convince yourself everything is wonderful.

Really, really sad.

@dowehaveastalker

Is there you could get some sort of housing?

*No, I can get an apartment privately - but that wouldn’t make sense to do that now.^

And child benefit, can you get that?

I’m working, I’m not entitled to anything

Any family you can ask for help?

Absolutely not

I think he has made some comments without thinking, but he has done everything he said he would.

We are in a normal relationship, he calls me every day he’s at work. He sends me texts throughout the day. He pays for a cleaner, even though he’s not even in the house most of the time. He cleans up after my cat.

I got upset about some comments while I was emotionally fragile.

I honestly thought people would say I’m imagining it.

He’s not gaslighting me, he’s not abusing me. I don’t understand why everyone is yelling me to leave?

*telling me

@timshelthechoice

If I was emotionally stable I wouldn’t be posting to mumsnet. If you were emotionally stable you wouldn’t be replying.

Thus we have something in common 😉

OP
Nobody is yelling at you.
What I see on this thread are lots of posters (including posters who may disagree on other relationship threads which is important for you to know) almost unanimously saying this is not a healthy relationship.

Those of us who have followed both threads as well can see that things haven't really improved between the two threads.

Nobody on here can tell you what to do, especially if you're determined to view this as a normal healthy relationship with a good chance of success in spite of all evidence saying otherwise. It's hard because you clearly love him and want it to work out, but the rest of us as outsiders at probably being a bit more objective.