AIBU to keep dating a man who doesn’t see his child?

[Enrie]

Hi all, so I’m in my late 20s, I have 2 children and I’m a single mum. Their dad is very much involved we have roughly 50/50 split on time and he contributes to all of their costs, I can’t really fault him. I don’t want more children, I’ve known that since I had my youngest 4 years ago.

A few months ago I started dating a man, he’s lovely, he has a normal good job, treats me very well. At the weekend we had a long chat about where things are going. He said he wanted to be honest about something before we take this any further and would understand if this put me off him.
He told me he has a 4 year old daughter with his ex, he explained he doesn’t see her and hasn’t seen her since she was a newborn. He told me he pays maintenance, he messages her mum every now and then to see if she needs anything.
I asked why doesn’t he see her and he explained that he was 23 when his ex found out she was pregnant, she had been on the pill but had been feeling unwell and being sick and they probably should have used a condom but it didn’t really occur to him at the time. When she told him she was pregnant he did want her to have an abortion as he wasn’t and still doesn’t feel ready for the responsibility of fatherhood. He explained that he does think it is a little unfair that had she wanted an abortion but him not she would have been able to have one anyway, but in reverse he got no say.
He told me he has at times wanted to meet his daughter and he is on her birth certificate but has always felt like he shouldn’t meet her unless he is fully prepared to step up and he didn’t feel he is. He also explained she lives down on the East Sussex coast and we are in London, so it wouldn’t be easy for him to fully step up.

Now I’m not looking for someone to be a dad to my kids, he hasn’t met them and I’m in no hurry for him to meet them. I also don’t want more children and I think a part of me does respect his explanation even if I don’t really respect his choice fully. We will stick to only seeing each other on the week I don’t have my children if I do decide to continue seeing him.

Anyway AIBU to want to keep seeing a man who has no relationship with his child?

What planet are you on? Far far more men give up on their children than women giving children up for adoption. Far more men fail to see them, fail to pay maintenance, fail to acknowledge the expense of time, effort and money that goes into raising a child. And how exactly is it just the woman giving the child up for adoption in your argument? The child has two parents. The father could raise it.

The world is full of single mothers working full time and raising children alone. Very few men do the same and those who do are seen as saints.

he shouldn’t meet her unless he is fully prepared to step up and he didn’t feel he is. He also explained she lives down on the East Sussex coast and we are in London, so it wouldn’t be easy for him to fully step up.

London to east sussex less than two hours
Come on op it is pathetic
He could have moved to e sussex to be near and commuted to london

Not a chance from me. Especially with him basically saying that bodily autonomy is a 'little unfair' despite it apparently not even occurring to him to use a condom.

Also, what will happen if he becomes ready to have a child if you don't want more?

It's a pretty shit thing to do and would define him morally, to me.

I'd definitely be dumping him.

The father of my child has never met DS. We were together 8 years when I got pregnant.

He asked me to abort and I got as far as the clinic bed when I thought “fuck him”. He was saying it for his own selfish reasons not mine or the baby. I’m more annoyed he asked me to do that then actually leaving tbh.
Anyway I was eternally grateful he never saw us again ( although he did start maintenance payments when DS was 7 when the CSA found him). I think in some ways he was stronger to resist the middle class pressure to do the “right thing”. Made my life easier. I think he’s actually a decent man and I am sure on some level he must feel guilty his son is out there. But who knows really. I sometimes wonder what he told any new girlfriends or wife and what she thinks.
I don’t think anything is as black and white as we want it to be though.

So basically he helps make a baby. Then says, no thanks and runs away but thinks it's OK because he sends money out of obligation? But he's not at fault because he said he'd do that if the mother didn't do what he wanted?

He's a bit pathetic really isnt he?

He's let a child down that he helped to create because he wouldn't step up. What makes you think he'll step up for you?

Well, you know, let's say I was willing to forgive him for not wanting to see his child given that he was honest about that with the mother from the start.
However, there are further two red flags here:

1. It "didn't occur to him" to wear a condom.
2. He is spouting manosphere-adjacent nonsense about how unfair it is that if the roles were reversed blah blah blah

What do these two things tell you about his attitude to women?

Ah, bless.
I think you two are great together, so carry on 👌🏾.

It’s all about him isn’t it? He’s full of shit and full of lane excuses. I would be out of there

OP you can try and convince yourself til the cows come home but you know really that it’s shit behaviour.

He wanted his ex to abort but she wouldn’t so he dumped her and has never had anything to do with his child. There’s no way of dressing it up. He’s a cunt.

No way could I be with someone so selfish. Whats his plan if something happened to the child's mum and shs was incapable of looking after her?

Absolutely not. Plus you don’t want more kids but is he sure he never wants anymore? Some others to leave to a woman to raise but he can be on the birth certificate for? Or has he realised because he can’t be a good Dad to this one not to have anymore?

Tbh OP your replies just sound like a parrot of those men that want to absolve themselves of any responsibility and still come out of it as a nice guy.

Women have the abortion rights. He knew that when he fucked her. And its absolutely disgraceful that he he wants to navel gaze about not being ready when there is a real little person out there who is missing out in her one chance to have a daddy.

He may not like how she came into this world but what's done is done and yeah, I'd be dumping him.

I'd normally say imagine how your kids would feel without their dad. But tbh I think you're making a strawman argument to promote menz rightz.

Does his mum have a relationship with his daughter?

I know men walk away... I get it happens in the abstract but for some reason i find this jaw dropping

Either:
His mum has a relationship with the child while hes there with his hands in his pockets whistling and looking in the opposite direction
OR
She met her own biological GC and said "yep. Seen her. Thats enough for me!" And then carried on with her life as if that child didnt exist....

Both these options just seem unhinged to me....

It doesnt matter that he said he wasnt interested. There is a child here. Now. Requiring a father. He's not 15 hes a grown ass man. You step up and act like a man and like a decent person even.
Kind of shocked as a mother yourself you want to justify this shithead behaviour... also amazed he didnt wheel out the Jess Glynn "ma mental helf" defence to explain why hes a complete deadbeat.

I think women who defend men like this with the argument of "he told her he didn't want the baby as soon as they found out about the pregnancy" "if the roles were reversed she could get an abortion and he wouldn't get a say" really need to think about what the alternative is...forced abortions? Can you even imagine? Being forced into a medical procedure to end a pregnancy on the say so of some bloke?

This argument is not the get out of jail free card these people seem to think it is. The kid is in the world now, the abortion argument has been and gone, he can't ride it forever.

In your shoes I'd also find it icky your kids are the same ages, if he was around long term he'd be there for the same milestones (say, starting secondary school) for your kid whilst being completely absent in those moments for his own.

This question (or similar) has come up before and I'm split on it.

My knee-jerk reaction is similar to others here, frankly.

But I also consider how I would react to a woman who told me that fell pregnant at 23, realized she did not want to be a mother (yet), and so gave the baby up for adoption to someone eager and able to be a their parent. I certainly wouldn't condemn her, call her a deadbeat or say well she shouldn't have spread her legs if she didn't want to raise a child. To be honest I'm not so sure that situation is terribly different from what you're asking about OP. If both this man and the child's mother had agreed at 23 to give the baby up for adoption what reaction would people have?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Men have absolute control over whether they have children. Abstinence.

Anything other than abstinence carries a risk and they accept that they can only mitigate that with contraception.l, noting that it may fail.

Its honestly like these men think we are duplicitiously milking them for sperm and they've been conned or tricked. It's insane.

But they didn't both agree to an adoption and so the baby has one parent shouldering 100% of the responsibility.

She didn't want to put her body through an abortion. Nor did she want to give up her child. So let's not whatabout this.

He became a dad at 23, walked away, and hasn't ruminated on that decision in 4 years. Now he's doing damage control to try and maintain his happy dating life before hopefully moving into a house with a woman and two kids. So the reality is that he will almost certainly at some point be someone her kids celebrate birthdays with and know to a better degree than his own child. So while his actual child has no idea whether dad like chocolate or vanilla cake, the other kids will be blowing out his candles for a second time.

He sounds like a misogynistic prick. His attitude towards his ex is waving massive red flags, never mind the huge one of not seeing his child.

How do you know he’s sending maintenance for her? Because he’s told you?

I’d be very wary on this situation. Look at how many abusive men jump to tell their new partners “their” side of the story about how their last relationship ended. This feels very much like that. I’d want to do some digging to find out for sure if it’s his choice not to see the kids, or if he’s legally not allowed to due to abuse etc.

I find it hard to believe there’s no other red flags.

I think some men make a mistake when they are young. They probably realise it but by then feel it’s too late to enter a child’s life. It’s hard to form a bond and it would probably feel really awkward to just appear out of nowhere when the child has a whole life without them.
It’s good he supports financially though.

I assume in most cases the mum is a similar age so it's not really an excuse

It might be awkward to turn up and build a relationship if you have left it a few years but if you don't do it at all, you're leaving that up to the child to do down the line.

My daughter's dad accompanied me to have my coil removed, was desperate to have a child with me. He fucked off when she was born and last saw her when she was 4 months. He gives a different version of events to potential girlfriends.

But the mother was able to choose whether to have an abortion, seek out an adoptive family for for the baby, or raise the baby herself. She wasn't forced to shoulder the entire responsibility or raise a child alone. And I would support a young woman making any of those choices.

As I said in the beginning, my initial reaction is to say he's in the wrong. But when I think about it more I'm not sure that's actually consistent with my stance on whether women who fall pregnant should be able to choose whether or not they will raise the child. Abortion is about bodily autonomy and rightly up to the pregnant person alone. But why should both parents not have their own independent choice about raising the child? And why would I argue that a woman who chooses to have sex isn't obligated to be an active parent for life but a man who has sex is... unless the woman also doesn't want to be a parent in which case letting someone else raise the kid is now a perfectly acceptable option for both her and him?

I'm not sure why you're inventing the part about him not ruminating on his decision at all since the info we have directly contradicts that. Perhaps you want this to be a more clear-cut case of villainy than it is.

I think this is the problem (not to single you out, @incognito1991 ).

But women have got to stop falling for these specious arguments put forward by men:
I voted YANBU because I do agree that having a baby should be the decision of BOTH male and female, it’s not fair to force someone to have a baby when he doesn’t want.

He DID have a choice. His choice was to have completely unprotected sex even when he KNEW that her birth control wasn’t working. His choice was to not have sex OR to use protection. Yes, every time you have sex, there is a risk of pregnancy, which is why he and his ex should have agreed about having children before an “oopsy.”

We play different roles in the process: yes, a woman has the egg and then has to go through the whole process of being pregnant and giving birth, but it doesn’t happen without a man’s sperm, so THAT’S when his choice is made - at the time when they have sex, because that’s when he ‘gives up’ the sperm. After that, he’s not physically part of the process. Can you even imagine if women thought they had a say in men’s bodily autonomy. If men were pressured at the same rate and level to get vasectomies as they pressure women to get abortions… well, it would be a very different world.

So OP is BU, because leaving a child fatherless when we have endless research on how detrimental that is, because your sperm didn’t do what you wanted them to, is pathetic and cowardly.

I don’t understand the hate with this, women fight to have the right to abortions but choose to not have them when needed. She choose to have the kid when he didn’t want to be involved. Why would you do this! Women are always the sole responsible for children.
its up to you if you keep dating him, he pays for the kid at least but he isn’t entirely at fault. I would NEVER have a child if the dad don’t agree to bring my kid into a broken home from a random, no thank you. World is already messed up