To ask the biggest thing you have forgiven? And whether you could forgive this?

[hakai]

2 years ago my partner and I (while I was pregnant) had a fucking awful time. We argued and it was massively due to circumstance. He ended up leaving me to give birth alone and only started seeing our daughter when she was 8 months old. Since then we’ve met up regularly and he’s been entirely the man I knew and loved. Last week we met to do something Christmassy with our daughter and he had bought me a gift too and some flowers. We had a nice day. I still love him, I never really stopped. I have dated in the last year but my heart has never really been in it. I’ve no idea how he feels and I have no intention of raising anything. But I feel bloody crazy to even feel partly like I COULD forgive what he did. We were fully fledged adults at the time so no excuse for being too young etc.

AIBU to think I’m crazy to forgive what he did?

I have a friend who forgave something very similar. Nearly 9 years on they are married and have another 2 children. But to answer your question, no I personally could not forgive that. I agree with a pp that you actually have already forgiven him as evidenced by your going along with family outings. But that is a separate thing altogether than hitching your cart to him again. Tread carefully OP.

Not only did he abandon you, but he abandoned your beautiful baby, his child. I couldn't forgive anyone for that.

He's not exactly a great dad, is he?

Or a great partner?

Don't romanticise. He's a bit of a pathetic excuse for a man, abandoning you like that.

I don't mean this unkindly but... are you lonely? It would be better to focus on other things in your life, IMHO. Your child, friends, family, work...

@Sapphire387 i didn’t think I was lonely but I think I actually am now I consider why I am feeling like this. I mean I must be to even be harbouring romanticised glasses about someone who could do this. I hope these feelings fade and I remember what he did to me. I went through hell and I know deep down that someone who truly loved me would never have done that.

The problem is that if you got back together and there was even a slight disagreement the chances are that one or both of you will take up the past and it will end up in a cycle of resentment and mistrust.

Rake up not take up

I don’t think forgiveness is the issue here. I could probably forgive someone, in that I could lose the anger and allow them to see our child etc.

But I could never get close to them again. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who was capable of abandoning their child in that way. Loving your child is such a primitive instinct, and I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t have that basic quality from the moment the baby was born.

This.

When it got tough he bailed.
As someone upthread said, it's so fucking easy to look brilliant when you're just doing the fun stuff-this is why you've caught feels again but you need to remind yourself it isn't real.
Wait for some bullshit to present itself, as is life, then watch how he behaves -bet those feels fuck off rapid then.

What kind of man just goes off and completely abandons his baby? Never mind yours and his issues - there was nothing to stop him still visiting the baby but he chose not to. It takes someone pretty callous IMO to do that. Like, I’d think he must be seriously lacking in some care/empathy gene or something. Did he not even try to see you or your dd?

Nah, I wouldn’t entertain ideas of getting back with him. What you’re feeling now is the emotions you had towards him back when you were happy because you’re not living together and in a relationship any more and because over time the memories fade and the hurt decreases because it isn’t so fresh. He’s “fun” again atm and it’ll be like you’re dating. Just keep in the forefront of your mind the despicable thing he did to you and his child and how cowardly he was in a crisis and when you really needed him.

If he's behaved like that once, he could easily do it again.

Any time I dare think about my EXDP looking attractive, I remember how he left me to miscarry on my own over the course of 3 days. Never once even made me a cup of tea, and allowed me to go to 6 out of 7 hospital appointments on my own (3 while bleeding heavily). The 7th appointment my lovely relative took me there and brought me back home as I was having D&C under GA. EXDP only offered to take me "as otherwise he'd look bad".

Think about you having to GIVE BIRTH ALONE, THEN LOOK AFTER A BABY BY YOURSELF, because this man had walked out. Personally I'd be too worried to get back with him on the basis that when the going gets tough again (and it will), he'd most likely get himself gone without a backward glance.

Does he pay child support/maintenance?

If you bring him back into your life then when he does it next time it will be to your daughter too, as in she will be old enough to know and be upset and not understand where he is.

No .

Forgive? Sure. Forget? Never.

He's immature, unreliable, can't handle his emotions, difficult moments or stress.

Don't have sex with him.

Op, DO it. Not to be a bitch but mumsnet generally won't advise you to go there again as mumsnet advocates being single and miserable if it means not giving in to a man. You have a child together and you managed without him before so as long as you bare it in mind that you could if you had to again and it really was a one off chance you were giving him then yes do it, you only get one life and nothing is garunteed, not even tomorrow! If you're considering it then go for it :)

He didn’t see his child til she was 8 months old, that’s really terrible. I couldn’t forgive that. It’s incredibly cruel.

If someone I knew could forgive that and felt love for a person who did that, I’d think they had problems keeping boundaries and with their own self esteem.

I could forgive for the sake of your dc and a chance of a coparenting relationship.

But don't ever forget he is capable of just walking away from you both without a backward glance and he cannot be trusted or relied on.

@GirlsAloudReturnMadeMyYEAR

Many women on mumsnet try to help otherwomen, to let them know that they don’t have to accept bad behaviour from men. They encourage them to keep their boundaries.

Then you get others who encourage women to do things that will likely end in heartache for others and say women who don’t encourage this want everyone to be ‘single and miserable’. 🙄

OP can make whatever choice she wants, but I think she needs to hear, as she has asked, that for many women, this man has done something that has gone too far.

No, you aren't crazy. People sometimes react terribly to circumstances around them, but they learn and grow from it

Always try to give another chance. But keep your wits about you

How much support is he giving you with your daughter? Is he acting like a coparent or a boyfriend? You can forgive him for abandoning you without going back to how things were before. I would be very cautious and protective of your child.

I don't understand what circumstance, short of you having done something absolutely unforgivable to him, could have led him to walk out on you, leave you to give birth alone and not see his own child for eight months. I genuinely don't. And he can't even explain it to you, which means that however much he wishes he hadn't done it, he has no insight into why he did, and for that reason I would see him as very likely to do it again. Your daughter should not have to cope with a live-in parent leaving her for months even once, let alone multiple times.

I don't think you're mad to want him the way he is right now. If it was just you I'd shrug and say it's your party. But you know, now, that that is not how he always is. He really let you and his child down in one of the worst ways that a man can let their family down. And you are making decisions for two here now, not just for you. And so I think that for the sake of your child - your child who had no father for the first eight months of her life - you need to be very careful about this.

There are times when I read the advice about relationships on here and think it's a bit bleak and pessimistic but here I really just think it's very realistic.

What would he have done if you weren't there???

I understand your feelings, we can't always control that. But I've never known people to change. They always repeat behaviors or get worse.

I caught my wife cheating. It was terrible, I would not have expected it from her. Totally burst my bubble as we hadn’t even been going out that long. I was completely blind to it. It’s only when I saw her take that extra Monopoly money out of the box that it all clicked. She wasn’t even that sorry about it. Now I never let her be the banker if we do play or we play the electronic version. I’ve forgiven her though.