To not have sympathy for my friend?

[lurkinglittleladybug]

I have an old school friend who’s been complaining about her partner taking zero interest in their children. She’s a stay at home mum and her partner works full time and is in a well paid job. He pays the bills and for anything her and the children need but she complains he’s not emotionally present with them. He doesn’t spend any time with them or help out at all with childcare.

I would normally have a low opinion of a man who can’t be arsed to spend time with his kids, and it is a shame for the children. But it’s so difficult to be sympathetic with my friend. I kind of feel like she made her own bed with this situation.

After a year of her being with her partner (at this point they had a really good relationship and lived together) , she knew he was strictly childfree and had no interest in children. So I was surprised when she announced her pregnancy but congratulated her as she was clearly happy about having a baby. She later told me that she knew her partner wouldn’t want to start a family so she just stopped taking the pill without telling him. He stays with her but becomes somewhat emotionally distant, I expect he was in shock. Friend was confident he would change his mind once their baby arrived.

After the baby is born he just takes zero interest, but she has lots of support from family. Nothing changes for a couple of years and then she announces she’s expecting her second child. I congratulate her, again I’m surprised, I had no idea they were trying. She then confides in me that she sabotaged the birth control again, this time the condoms they were using. At this point I make it clear I disapprove of her doing this. She becomes tearful saying what choice did she have and that her child needed a sibling. So I let the subject drop. Not wanting to be the asshole making my pregnant friend cry even though I think it’s a shitty thing to do.

Anyway now she has 2 children and she is complaining about how her partner has just emotionally checked out, not just with her children but also with her. He’s not interested in intimacy and is just going through the motions. It looks like their relationship is well and truly headed for the rocks this time.

I just find it so hard to be sympathetic with her, I mean what did she expect would happen? 🙄… Although obviously I’m very sad for the 2 children who face growing up with an emotionally distant dad…

Am I a terrible friend for not having sympathy for her?

I’m really struggling to stay friends with her knowing what I know, I just feel like I have lost respect for her. Although its difficult to end the friendship because we have known each other for such a long time.

@lurkinglittleladybug - your thread has been picked up by the Daily Mail, so be prepared that your friend/her OH may well know about it soon.

I wouldn't be very sorry for her either tbh. It's a bit of a "made your own bed, now lie in it."

While it takes two to tango, we'd be ripping this guy to absolute SHREDS if the situation had been reversed, and HE'D sabotaged the birth control, against the verbally given wishes of the OH.

Of course, the major losers here are the children.

Your friend is sick in the head. Though if this is “normal” behaviour in her family then she has no hope.

Also, there are so many couples where the man wants children and the woman doesn’t! (I don’t want them, my DH would be happy either way). Imagine if a man did this?! There’d be calls to jail him!

@Dervel Sorry this situation has brought back unpleasant memories and triggered you to think about your situation. You sound like you have been to hell and back in your previous relationship and it’s admirable how you not only found the strength to get through that but also to raise your child. I’m so glad you have a good woman in your life now though and wish your family every happiness in the future! X

Even though it’s a horrible thing to talk about I think it’s an important thing to discuss and I guess if there’s a man out there reading this recognising red flags maybe it can prevent this scenario playing out for someone else. Also important men take responsibility for their own contraceptives maybe (I’m not victim blaming) just because not every partner can be trusted. Men perhaps need to be careful what happens to the contents of condoms too judging by this situation.

Also I’m going to go low contact with this friend now, I have a feeling she won’t be contacting me any time soon anyway from our last conversation.

And she’s not the kind of person who reads the news so doubt she will come across daily mail tbh.

Also had no idea peoples posts on mumsnet get picked up by newspapers… How strange is that 😮

This is the Daily Mails modus operandi and their version of 'journalism', ie other people write it and they print it.

DM so low on substance they have Maureen Eyers...to generate their bile. 🤣

Must have been a slow day for news or something 🙄

MumsNet must be a place of censorship to suit their chosen narrative.
My last post & account got deleted.
WTH?

OP - your friend should be in prison for this.
If a guy had purposely tampered with contraception he’d be put away.

Nope, they do it all the time. Every week they have at least one thread from here as one of their “articles”.

We all make mistakes - some are so obvious to others and when we're out of the situation it's easy to see - when sometimes we're blinded by our own stupidity. Yes I feel sorry for the whole situation, it happens. What's done can't be undone all you can do is offer your support and try and encourage her to end the relationship which clearly isn't healthy.

This exact thing happened to my partner in his very early 20’s. Partner older than him, she wanted a child he didn’t. She said she was on the pill. Then claims after that he knew she was coming off of the pill to get pregnant. Relationship with the DC has always been strained and awkward, so really only the child ends up losing out which is unfair as the child didn’t ask to be born.

It’s never just a mistake to lie about or sabotage contraception. It’s an awful unforgivable thing to do. I agree it’s a bad relationship but not because a poor woman who was victim to her overwhelming desire for two babies made a couple of “mistakes”. It’s unhelpful to paint people as helpless when they’re anything but.

If you're the previous PP I suspect you are, you weren't censored, you were put on the naughty step for stupidity or hate speech. If you are not - I apologise.

You haven't thought this through.

Consider the implications of setting a legal precedent.
It would be unlikely to get established in law, as the burden of proof would be ridiculous.

But let's just pretend that your wish to rain down the hell of Gilead on all women for the stupidity & selfishness of just one woman punish OP's friend came to fruition (see wot I did there? - bet you don't).

Would you seriously want to be living in a regime country where any pregnancy could be challenged by a man denying responsibility for it? It's a wide open goal for any twisted, unethical, controlling man to knock a woman up, then deny responsibility. Using your totalitarian principles idea, a really sick fucker could even tamper with his own contraception, get a woman pregnant, then sell the narrative that SHE was the tamperer, & he the innocent party who should now be allowed to walk away, while she goes to jail for the 'crime' of being impregnated by him.

What's you next bright idea - abortion bans?
That could be a really neat double whammy if you enjoy thinking like an incel.
It'd keep us "barefoot, pregnant, & in the kitchen" all right. Or prison if we dare to kick off about the draconian nightmare of your 'reasoning'.

I said was that she should be locked up.

For no one to even mention ‘all women’ or women’s rights and you to start on a rant about it, abortions, controlling behaviour & being ‘in the kitchen’.
You need some fresh air.

Not one part of what she did is ethical, or moral.
There is no narrative here, we were told she purposefully stopped taking the pill - that’s a fact, not a narrative.

She IS the twisted, unethical, controlling person and IS the tampered and she SHOULD be in prison for it because he IS the innocent person in this.

He CONSENTED to s*x with her on the understanding she was taking the pill.
He did NOT consent to it on the understanding that she WASN’T taking the pill.
(Flip it the other way: a woman CONSENTS to sx with a man on the understanding that he DOES wear protection. For him to then take that off without her knowing mid-way through, makes that sx where he does NOT wear protective & NON-CONSENSUAL.)

If a guy puts holes in a condom and then gets a woman pregnant, he goes to prison.

Women* have *put holes in condoms before to become pregnant on purpose and they got sent down for it. Same principle here. End of.

Firstly I think your friend is a hideous human being. Anyone that deceives another person re: contraception is a sack of in my opinion. If it were a man taking off a condom mid-sex there would be outrage. This is no different. He wouldn't have consented to sex if he knew there was a risk of pregnancy, disgraceful behaviour.

At the same time, unless it is all she talks about I wouldn't care too much. She made the situation and she has to contend with it.

I do think deceiving your partner about contraception is deeply morally wrong and while I can see the argument for this being illegal, I don’t know how a law like that would actually be implemented. Would be an impossible thing to prove in a court of law I would imagine🤔

You seem to have misinterpreted my post by a mile, so it was unnecessary to get so het up. You can go back as many pages as you like & see any post of mine - all of them are from a stance of outrage about OP's friend's disgusting abuse of her partner.

The only point we differed on was giving her a prison sentence for it.

I explained WHY very clearly, yet funnily enough, that's the only point you failed to pick up on, preferring to assume that because I disagree with you about the wisdom of enshrining 'female-perpetrated steathing' in law, I must disagree that this woman is very much in the wrong.

Maybe think more about the implications of setting legal precedent, & less about scolding me for views I don't hold & haven't expressed? Cheers.