AIBU to feel sad and deflated about having a baby with my partner?

[Converselyit]

I’m really struggling with feelings that I know are so irrational and toxic.

I’ve been with my partner for 3 years. He has a lovely daughter who’s 6 years old. She is fantastic, and I am utterly delighted she is in my life. Being a stepmum is really hard but I adore my stepdaughter and I miss her terribly when she isn’t home with us! Shes with us one week, mum the next, then us again.

Partner has been asking a lot when we will be having a baby, he said he’s really broody and wants to have lots of children. I’ve always wanted kids, and I do love my partner (and our family) very much.

However, I have recently got feelings of sadness and (this sounds awful) utter revulsion about the situation.

I’ll keep it as brief as possible. Basically, my partner and DSD mum were in school together and briefly “dated” when they were 14ish. My partner and DSD mum lost touch and then had intermittent contact on social media. DSD mum contacted him one night to help with a situation she was in, and ultimately they slept together and she got pregnant. She told him over text, got DNA testing organised (2 other potential dads) and told him that he was the dad. My partner told her he wanted to support his child but they would never been in a relationship.

I have tried my best to be understanding, these things happen, it takes 2 people to make a decision to have a baby! But Dsd mum is difficult - there’s been social service involvement, she’s a big drinker, and her current partner has a criminal record. She doesn’t seem bothered about spending time with Dsd and regularly asks for extra time to herself for her “mental health” or if she wants to take overtime at work. She cancels weekend handovers regularly if she fancies a night out. In all, I’m judgemental towards her, because I think she brought a child recklessly into the world and has no intention whatsoever to be a proper mum. Sorry I know I’ll get flamed for that.

Anyway, now we’re talking about having a baby and I just feel so overwhelming sad. He’s done this all before - he was at the scans, at the birth and has supported another woman through pregnancy. A woman he actively says he dislikes.

I know I am so so wrong to feel this way, but I am so sad. Like I said I love my stepdaughter. But I won’t ever be her mum or be the only person my partner has a baby with.

Id be less sad if dsd mum was an ex-partner of my partner and they actually had a relationship before their baby was born, that would be easier for me to deal with.

I keep delaying my partner with reasons I can’t have a baby right now, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this. I know it’s weird and just pathetic I can’t get over it but I really want to. I never let it affect how I speak or care for me dsd or how I talk about her mum. My partner has no idea I feel like this. I don’t know what to do.

Yep same. And that’s fine. Explore why or just decide that it doesn’t work for you

Your feelings seem irrational. You can't change the past. You decided you love this man enough to marry him and knowing he has a DD. You have always wanted children. And yet these feelings of sadness at the prospect of having children with your DH. There is more to explore here. These feelings will be telling you something. It sounds like counselling may be a good bet, to help you unwrap where these feelings are actually coming from. Not being able to tell your DH how you feel is long term not sustainable. But maybe get more insight first, before you do talk to him about it.

I wonder if seeing a empathic counsellor and beginning with the contrast between feeling fine with your own father’s first family and not at all fine with your DH’s previous child might be a really valuable starting point. You have some really profound feelings going on here, judging that by your language, and unravelling them might be useful before trying to conceive x

I think that's you having a strange mentality! It's perfectly fine for people to get into new relationships and have blended families? So if you have kids with a partner and then he leaves, should you have men hate you and refuse to date you for the rest of your life because they consider you to be repulsive because you have kids from another relationship? That's what you are saying, that men and women are scum if they've had kids with someone else? That's hardly mentally healthy to think like that!

It sounds like you’re allowing your feelings towards DSD’s mum to colour how you feel about your relationship with your husband and your DSD and it’s weighing on your mind about a potential future child being affected by the chaos. I think it would be good to talk to your husband and discuss your fears and worries. Would it be possible for you to take DSD on more permanently and protect her from the environment she’s in with her biological mother?

No that’s not what I’m saying at all. Don’t understand how you deduced that from my comments. Outraged for no reason

Sorry but dont get it. You have married him although he had baggage. Nothing wrong with that. .You have a step daughter you seem to love.
If you cant accept your husbabds past ,you shouldnt have married him should you?
Your experience of pregnancy will be unique to you and him. You cant change his past. Dont let it spoil your future.

You're grieving an ideal. Let yourself mourn the vision of what you thought your future motherhood life would be like and then see how you feel and what it is you truly want and if the essential parts perhaps marriage are still possible with this man. We have feelings for a reason. From there, we take our cues and weigh them out with facts and careful consideration. Take care!

My step child was the result of a uni on-off thing rather than a marriage or long term relationship and actually, on reflection, that's been better than if it were a long deep financial and administrative entanglement between them pre baby. The focus has been on co-parenting not on their previous relationship. I get on well with my step child's mum and already knew her pre baby. She came to our wedding. I'm saying all this because I absolutely don't think the issue here is that they weren't in a proper heavy grown up long term relationship before the baby. The issue is that you don't like or respect your step child's mum. That's the challenge.

On first reading I was like "yeah, she sounds awful" but there's nuance and context that we miss on posts like these. Maybe she is a terrible mother, maybe she is selfish. But also, maybe she wants the overtime at work because she needs the money, maybe she needs to look out for her mental health because she recognises that she's had mental health challenges in the past and needs to take care of herself.

If you don't want a baby, that's totally up to you and you need to listen to what your head, heart and body are saying.

If you have a baby with your partner, this other woman will be in your life long term. My step child is 20 and we still communicate with and meet in person with her mum.

My husband had been at the birth of his first child but it didn't matter that he'd been through it before. It's better that he's the kind of person who was there, who supported his child's mum and helped with nappies and all sorts, that's what good Dads do. Also, my birth experiences were completely different to hers so even though he thought he knew what he was doing, it was new to him in many ways.

My main worry for you is that you're already giving off vibes of jealousy and resentment and apprehension. I think it's really brave, sensible and mature of you to recognise those feelings and think twice about what decisions you make next.

It's hard to get an idea of someone from a MN post, but having been in a situation with some similarities to OP's, I'd think hard about what kind of person DH is and might be in the future.

Are you a pretty dependable type OP? Educated, professional, comparatively stable financially and emotionally? It sounds as if you are. Did you have a whirlwind romance with this guy... found his chaos, for want of a better word, new and kind of appealing... admired the way he tries to support the DD he had by accident with a crazy ex? Did he propose at the height of your romance? Did you find accommodation together and both contribute equally, or is it essentially your house?

Everyone's circumstances are different of course, but I'm just trying to share a few red flags I didn't pick up at the time. Your gut reactions may be telling you what your lovestruck and compassionate mind won't - that this man could be a threat to your security.

Happened to me, @MixedFeelingsNoFeelings! It’s the pits isn’t it.

Certainly is! But we live and learn.

Actually feel for you because I wouldn’t want this either but you obviously accepted the situation when you chose to not only enter a relationship but go as far as marrying him. I think the most important thing is to remember how much of a great dad he presumably is. Your DSD’s mum sounds abysmal but at least your DH has stepped up despite barely knowing her mum at all. This bodes well for any future children you would have, even if you split one day.

People have sex with people they hate all of the time, it’s super common. Sex isn’t always wrapped up in emotions, it’s primal.

Great post.
It is often the case.

So many men with children finding kind, soft, always solvent, usually house owning women.

The overwhelming of which regret their choice, often sadly AFTER having had a child, which these men encourage to entrap them.

I really hope the OP thinks long and hard about how she is feeling and doesn't ignore it.

Very easy for a man to say he wants more children when it’s most likely that the woman will be carrying most of the workload 🙄