My brother and I have never been close, mostly due to our having a somewhat emotionally traumatic childhood, growing up in an abusive household with our parents unwittingly pitting us constantly against each other. Over time I have slowly and steadily been reducing contact with him (and family at large) purely because I came to a realisation that life is short and I needed to prioritise my own emotional well-being. He is opinionated, prickly, immature and incredibly selfish. I won’t give examples as I will be here all day - but the end game is that I’m now in a groove of seeing him at Christmas and maybe 1-2 per year and not really talking or texting in between. He lives hundreds of miles away so avoiding him is pretty straightforward and can be explained away silently without much awkwardness. I have three DCs under 5 and a full-time job so plenty of excuses for why I’m not available.
This week my DM (who I do still maintain a relationship with) called me with the most incredible story and I’m looking for nothing other than other peoples’ opinions on it as I truly feel I can’t be impartial and objective as I don’t hold
DB in high regard to begin with.
The preface to this is that DB has been in a same-sex partnership for a decade and his DP has long desired marriage and a family but DB has vetoed that as he feels they don’t need the piece of paper to be committed and he doesn’t want the disruption of a DC. He has been clear that freedom is priority; he enjoys near-constant travel, dining, drinking, substances and an indulgent shopping habit. Each to his own and I always thought deserves credit for that honesty rather than stringing his DP along in hope.
Anyway, back to the phone call from DM. She told me that DB has decided he wants to bring a child into the world with a single female friend who after years of failing to find Mr Right has decided her yearning for a baby is so strong that she’s going to go all in on single motherhood. To save money, they are bypassing planned IVF via a clinic and instead trying via the Turkey baster method. their shared stance is that they will not co-parent, but neither will DB be a sperm donor but “something in between”. He has said openly this is his way of “having a little person in the world who belongs to him, without any of the responsibilities, but who he could build a fulfilling relationship with over time”. DB also lives hundreds of miles from his friend so they have agreed he will not play an active role in the pregnancy, birth, or day to day upbringing. They have also agreed he will be named on the birth certificate and the child will take his name but they are drawing up a legal agreement where he renounces parental rights, she agrees he will not pay child support, but there are a couple of stipulations like she can’t emigrate to another country without his permission and she also can’t deny our parents access to the baby. In his words, he will “come over every few months, have fun together, shower the child with gifts almost like a fun uncle”.
He has told my parents he expects nothing of them, but if they did want to be involved he would be delighted. As he is aware his friend “is alone, pregnancy is stressful, and she would love someone to go to appointments with.” His DP is also absolutely furious about the whole thing given he has begged my DB for commitment/family for years and DB has always brushed him off. So I do think that DB is counting on my mum to fill in the gaps given he has no intention of being anything other than a recreational dad and “has to keep his partner sweet by ensuring their lifestyle doesnt change”.
My DM who has been emotionally abused for years by my dad thinks all this is nuts but is slowly being coerced into supporting him -
which isn’t a surprise as she has enabled and perpetuated his (and our DF’s) poor behaviour for decades. She has the most extreme form of Stockholm syndrome you can imagine.
She asked her for my perspective and I told her:
- DB’s disrespect for his partner’s feelings feels sociopathic to me.
- If DB admits his motivation here is putting his DNA into the world then he should EITHER do that as a sperm donor via a formal channel OR be a proper co-parent. His proposal of intermittent parenting seems like it could be incredibly damaging to the poor baby born of this.
- The so-called legal agreement they speak of sounds like nothing that is supported in law as any informal insemination means you are the legal father in UK law with all of the accountability and responsibility that entails. So if the friend realises babies are expensive and she wants child support, then he will have to pay.
Curious what others think of this - I think it’s unfair to the child, disrespectful to his DB, and possibly evidence of DB very likely having some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. But I am self-aware enough to know that given I am not a DB fan to begin with, I could be framing all of this to fit my own theory about him.
Please give me your opinions, AITA or is this possibly a disaster waiting to happen?