Am I being unreasonable to give birth away from the child’s father because he doesn’t want to get married?

[Donesomethingsilly]

My partner has two children to a previous relationship, we have been together for a while. We have discussed getting married but he was reluctant as he wants to protect himself financially. I understood that, and took a risk and decided to have a child with him as we had a great relationship. Since getting pregnant it’s been rocky. I’m not a uk citizen, my family is on the other side of the world. I’m with family at the moment as I needed to get away. Am I being unreasonable to stay here and have the child with my support system around me? He can’t move here, or even visit because he has his children. I feel stuck between doing the right thing for all the children involved, or the right thing for myself.

It’s tricky to know what caused it to crumble - how bad was it?
You only mention that he wasn’t that supportive in the early pregnancy but hard to know what that means…
Was there a chance he could have become a good husband and father? If so, then you’ve blown it by taking his baby away from him.

You sound as if you've been hopelessly naive, if not bordering on arrogant.

Having said that, a woman should be able to have whoever she wants in the labour suite with her, you're the patient, not him. As for the longer term, notwithstanding your terrible decisions so far, I'd be inclined to stay where my support base is too. It's high risk for you if he ends the relationship, asks you to leave and you're on your own with your child in a country with no relatives nearby for support.

Come on, that never works. The "clever" thing is to say, "no babies without marriage". And if it turns out that he isn't actually fussed about having (more) babies, you find someone else who wants both marriage and babies (in that order).

From your updates it's sounds like sounds as though the relationship is already rocky, and this should be the love up bit, and you are already home with your family. Given the very real risks of homelessness for you and the baby, not being allowed to leave the UK with the baby, and not being supported to remain there I would stay put.

Forget marriage or even the relationship for now and just concentrate on getting ready for the baby where you are. If he wants to be an active father to his child he will, he will come and he will put in place what he needs to for you to come back. If deep down he doesn't well hes got rid of you protecting both his assets and his reputation, and you have your child and your family.

Incorrect. Her child is a British citizen from birth with a British father, will have full rights to live in the UK, and he cannot control where the child lives if it's born abroad, whether he's on the birth cert or not .

How do we know this, we haven’t heard his side. He doesn’t want to marry the op or give her 50% of his house (that it sounds like she hasn’t contributed to) but there’s been nothing said about him not paying for the upbringing of the child/ providing a home/ looking after the op financially/ not looking after the child once it’s born. He hasn’t kicked her out, she chose to leave.

This is a decision you made long ago when you spent your savings on hotels and flights. I can't imagine you did it lightly. You are just having a wobble.

The relationship isn't good now, it won't last a newborn.

In that case you need to be where you have the greatest amount of freedom and support.

You'd be mad to have your child somewhere you are stuck with no money, no support and no right to leave.

From his position, I can see why he doesn't want to risk the future of his existing children and I don't think men see pregnancy in the same way that women prior to baby actually being here.

The positions that make sense for both of you individually are incompatible with being a couple. It's the cold hard reality but not necessarily anyone's fault.

Probably best to acknowledge that rather than both fight over it and try and find amicable ways forward so your child can have some relationship with it's father.

Stay where your support system is OP. He's putting his best interests first, you need to put yours first now for baby's sake.

What financial security has he made her throw away. She chose to leave her job. Her job is what should be giving her financial security and she walked away from it. She has to take some responsibility for her own finances and not just expect a man to fully pay for her.

Relationships don't tend to improve when children arrive, quite the opposite. If the relationship has been going downhill pre-baby, it's not likely to get better.

he will need to be on the birth certificate for the child to get British citizenship. How will he get on the birth certificate if he’s not there? You can’t just add a random guy to a birth certificate without their presence.

Being close to family will hopefully give the OP financial security because she will have help with childcare from family which will better enable her to work.

Yes, her ex should help out and do 50/50, but we all know how often that happens in practice.

Not necessarily. DNA evidence can also be used.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-of-unmarried-parents-nationality-procedure-guidance/children-of-unmarried-parents-accessible

Yes you are. You knew before you conceived he didn't want to get married. Now you're expecting him to bend his boundaries and if he doesn't threaten to deny him the chance to be at his child's birth? It looks like this baby is a bargaining chip to you to get that ring on your finger and his money and you don't sound very nice op

I would certainly be cautious about going back. If he isn't all in with you and the baby, then don't put yourself in such a vulnerable position. I live in my husband's country. It's hard, and although we have a good marriage I do still have the awareness of being slightly trapped here, as now we have 2 kids here I have to stay whatever happens. Cracks in relationships do often appear during pregnancy, and I don't think they often improve once the baby arrives. Your priority has to be you and the baby now.

(I did quote to respond to a PP i agreed with but didnt work😅) This is what I see. The situation is currently what it is, a childs welfare now needs to be put at the forefront front.

I would stay with family support. If she has the child in the UK, she won't have support other then him, and she won't be able to easily access her family as the father can block the child leaving the country. So she could end up a single parent, financially precarious with no ability to access family support and she is at the father's whim. To move back when financial security and things are in place is sensible. Hopefully explaining the necessity of being able to self support to the dad prior to moving back and explaining from a logistics and financial standpoint is far less emotionally triggering for him to comprehend then stating its due to him not wanting to marry.

This will help her get financial security (and from her side I do think it’s probably in her best interests to be in her home country). I just don’t agree that the partner is responsible for taking away the financial security and that he is the bad guy in this situation. I feel very sorry for him for the position he has been put in.
I think the best thing for op is to be in her home country if she doesn’t see a future the father. I don’t necessarily know if that is in the best interest of the child (that’s hard to say without knowing what kind of dad he will be, what kind of mum she will be, what kind of job she can get etc).
I think the child is the important person that needs to be considered here and the choice should be based on what’s best for them and not what is best for the op.

If he's not on the birth certificate there is no proof that he is the child's father.

What supporting documents is the OP going to send the Passport Office to get a British passport for her child? A link to this thread?

Being a British citizen is useless if you can't prove that you are one.

Not just denying the chance to be at the birth but the chance to be involved in the child’s life at all

So how much savings did you have? and how did all your savings get used up on a flight and a hotel?

This seems advice that’s in your best interest.

If he thought they were a family, he would have married the mother. Or at the very least done all the necessary paperwork so she was protected financially. The man's a cad.

Do what's best for yourself, OP. This will also be what's best for the baby.

The father already has financial commitments to his existing children. If he is to continue to provide them with a stable home/roof over their heads as part of a co-parenting set up, he is not in a position to 'share his worldly goods' with another adult. With this in mind, the most he can offer the OP in terms security relating to housing, is rent free accommodation in his house.

Understandably, this isn't enough for the OP, as she wants to be able to have the same housing security that the father benefits from. However, this isn't something the father feels willing to provide, for legitimate reasons.

The father agreed to have children, making it clear that he wouldn't relinquish and equity in his home. His intention was to provide a roof over the heads of the OP and the baby, but it would remain his. At the time of choosing to get pregnant, this seemed agreeable to both.

Upon becoming pregnant, OP - unsurprisingly- had a change of heart. A dynamic where your only option of a roof over your head requires the benevolence of a home owner to grant to permission to stay is very different prospect when you have a job and no responsibilities for providing for anyone other than yourself than when you are heavily pregnant, or breastfeeding or have a baby to provide for.

I don't think either OP or the father of the baby have acted 'in bad faith'. I think their motivation for wanting what they each want is driven by the same interests as they both want long term security of housing for themselves and their children.

If they can see this, and understand each others motivations, this will provide a better foundation for finding ways forward. There isn't an easy or readily available solution, but they need to work on one that allows the new person who is coming in to the world to have the best chance of a good life - which entails having strong and loving bonds with both parents.

It's a lot easier for either the mother or the father (depending on who wants it) to get the court to order a DNA test if everyone is living in the UK.

The OP's child is going to be living on the other side of the world from his or her father. When and how is this DNA test going to be done?

Do you think the OP, who has effectively chosen to leave the UK for good and for her child to have no relationship with his or her father, is going to organise a court ordered DNA test to establish the genetic relationship between her child who lives in Australia (or wherever) and the father who lives in the UK? For what purpose? She seems intent on undermining the relationship between them so getting British citizenship for her child is unlikely to be of much importance to her.

What about the father? How does it benefit him? Even if he can somehow get a court in the UK to order a DNA test and a court in Australia (or wherever) to track down the OP and force her to give a sample of her child's DNA to prove that he is the father (and it seems unlikely that he would be able to do this, tbh), how would it benefit him? Even if he is proven to be the child's father he might still not be able to get added to the child's foreign birth certificate (and they won't have a British birth certificate) and be granted parental responsibility. And even if he could somehow be granted parental responsibility for a child born and living on the other side of the world, it won't mean the OP is forced to return his child to the UK. All it will mean is that he might be required to pay maintenance. So it's difficult to see what benefit there would be for him in forcing the issue.

That leaves the child. If the child reaches adulthood, or late teens perhaps, and knows that their father is British and lives in the UK, and knows who their father is, they might be able to track him down and persuade him to do a DNA test to prove that he is their father so that they can have British citizenship. But the chances of them having completely lost contact by that point, or perhaps of the child never even knowing who their father is, seem quite high.

This child will be a British citizen from birth but will most likely never have the paperwork to prove it.

The man's a cad.

In what way?

He said all along he didn't want to marry.

Op didn't have to have a child with him in the hope that he would then marry her.